{"id":2520,"date":"2021-03-16T15:16:21","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T19:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/campus.cru.org\/faculty\/?p=2520"},"modified":"2023-07-18T21:08:09","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T01:08:09","slug":"risk-brings-reward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/campus.cru.org\/faculty\/2021\/risk-brings-reward\/","title":{"rendered":"Risk Brings Reward"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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I shouldn\u2019t have needed the push, but I did. In retrospect, I\u2019m not surprised; I\u2019m not always forthcoming when faith and risk are required, even though I am a former staff member with Cru.  Not that a great deal of boldness is required to speak up about being a Jesus follower at a Catholic university like the University of Dayton (UD).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Even so, it wasn\u2019t until I connected with Dennis Beck, a staff member with Cru\u2019s Faculty Commons Ministry, that I managed to take the \u201copenly identifying as a Christ\u2013follower in the classroom\u201d plunge. That\u2019s not to say that I hadn\u2019t mentioned Christ or spirituality at any point in my thirty years of university teaching at four separate institutions (Drake, New Mexico Highlands, and Murray State universities, and now the UD). I had simply never spoken up in a way that was loud and \u201crisky\u201d from the very beginning of a class.<\/p>

The idea didn\u2019t originate with me. <\/p>

It followed my attendance at a \u201cCommon Call\u201d conference for Christian faculty in 2019.  During the conference, I heard Dr. Walter Bradley, Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Baylor University, describe his initial sheepishness in being forthright with his students about being a Jesus follower early in his career.<\/p>

After a number of aborted attempts at being bold, he managed to briefly tell one of his classes about the impact of Jesus on his life. One thing he told them resonated strongly with me: \u201cI hope you will see that it (his faith) makes a great deal of difference in how I treat you in this class.\u201d<\/p>

So on the first day of my general chemistry lectures in spring, 2020, while telling the students a bit about my family, my interests, and my academic background, I also told them that perhaps the most important thing they could know about me is that I am a follower of Jesus, and by that I meant something far more profound than mere church attendance, and I hoped they would find my being a Jesus-follower caused me to treat them with respect, integrity, and grace.<\/p>

What was the impact of this step of faith?  I recently read my spring, 2020 student evaluations. They included not a single mention of my statement.  Why?  Perhaps there was insufficient opportunity to build on the statement because I underwent an emergency appendectomy early in the semester. Perhaps it was because our campus\u2019 COVID\u201319 lockdown began shortly after my convalescence. Perhaps there were other reasons.<\/p>

Ultimately it doesn\u2019t matter because of two effects it had on me. <\/p>

First, it exhilarated me.  Risk brings reward, and I felt excited about publicly identifying as a Jesus follower in the classroom. <\/p>

Second, during the long grind of online teaching from March through May, recalling the statement goaded me to treat the students with the Christ-like equity and patience I had promised.<\/p>

I plan to continue to make similar statements on the first day of class in future semesters, whether I am teaching online or in the classroom\u2014as long as I continue to find the boldness, that is.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Mark Masthay<\/b>
Chemistry
University of Dayton<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I shouldn\u2019t have needed the push, but I did. In retrospect, I\u2019m not surprised; I\u2019m not always forthcoming when faith and risk are required, even though I am a former staff member with Cru.\u00a0 Not that a great deal of boldness is required to speak up about being a Jesus follower at a Catholic university […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50274,"featured_media":285,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2437],"tags":[2737,2983,2982,2981],"class_list":["post-2520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal-faith","tag-boldness","tag-mark-masthay","tag-rewards","tag-risks"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRisk Brings Reward - Faculty Commons<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/campus.cru.org\/faculty\/2021\/risk-brings-reward\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Risk Brings Reward - Faculty Commons\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I shouldn\u2019t have needed the push, but I did. 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