Negro Spiritual “I’m working on a building It’s a true foundation I’m holding up the bloodstains For my Lord I’ll never get tired Of working on the building Going up to heaven To get my reward” I waited, sitting across from a top administrator at my new university, hopeful but also slightly anxious. What response […]
“One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him ‘Lord teach us how to pray just as John taught his disciples’. Luke 11:1 (NIV) I was recently on an educational professional development field trip with eight of my students in Ecuador. We visited coffee, banana, […]
It was late on a Friday afternoon when I received an email from a student that read, “Can I schedule a time to meet with you? I want to talk about my grade.” I read the email with frustration and exhaustion. My grandfather had passed away that same week. I had just shared with my […]
Several years back, a student asked if we could have lunch. He was thinking about going to graduate school, and could use some advice. I happily agreed but when we met, he quickly announced that he didn’t really want to talk about graduate school. He wanted to talk about girls and marriage! A month earlier […]
One of our department’s PhD students committed suicide late in 2018. Earlier that week, two undergraduate students had taken their lives. I rarely talked to the grad student even though he had been here for at least six years. He always seemed pleasant, and he was easy to spot for he wore a turban, being […]
You want me to pray with my students? In my office? Isn’t that asking for trouble? These and many other questions came to mind when I was encouraged to begin praying with my students. As a professor and administrator at a public university, I often think about the legal challenges related to living out my […]
I don’t know when the shift happened. I started my position as a tenure-accruing assistant professor with the pressure to prove myself. To show that I belonged. To show that I was not an affirmative action hire. After all, I had already published three peer-reviewed manuscripts from my master’s thesis before I entered the doctoral […]
I have been involved with Faculty Commons, Cru’s faculty ministry, for many years as a professor. Now that I have retired and joined Faculty Commons staff, I have discovered a ministry idea that allows the Christian faculty at my university to be a blessing to many other professors, as well as providing opportunities to interact […]
Several years ago, I was invited to join a group of Cru students from my campus, on what would be my first mission trip. I was their faculty representative, but I wasn’t prepared for that invitation–an invitation that came from our local Cru director and ended with: “I would love for you to pray about […]
Going to class early provides me with a wide range of opportunities to get to know my students as individuals with needs and desires, as opposed to just a sea of nameless faces. In addition, the students learn about me and what I do outside of class. I talk about football, NASCAR races, my Sunday […]
