Summer Institute in Christian Scholarship

“I just want to get better at what I do.”- Singer/songwriter Kate Campbell

Purpose

The purpose of the SICS at DBU is a professional development program with one primary goal in mind: to help DBU faculty and administrators get better at what they do! The SICS “fellows” meet for ten weeks in the summer on Thursday mornings from 8:30 am until 12:00 noon. The sessions consist of an opening lecture followed by intensive discussion of the text under consideration for that day. Each fellow receives a $2000.00 stipend to participate in the seminar as well as all the books and handouts that comprise the seminar curriculum. Dr. David Naugle leads the class. Here’s what the SICS is all about:

  • An intensive reading of a variety of classic and contemporary books on the Western and Christian educational traditions (Plato, Augustine, Luther, Milton, Newman, Lewis, and others).
  • In-depth discussions of this literature with colleagues in a seminar context where significant ideas about scholarship, teaching and learning are the focus of attention.
  • Developing an understanding of a biblical worldview at a deeper level and exploring its implications for Christian higher education.
  • Defining and refining an overall philosophy of Christian education that provides a vision for scholarship, teaching, learning, and working with students.
  • Writing and presenting a scholarly paper in the Friday Symposium as a way of sharing the results of your reading and thinking with the DBU community.
  • Participating in a spiritual and learning community comprised of DBU colleagues who are encouraging and supporting each other in their efforts as Christian scholars and educators.

SICS Reading List

  • Albert Wolters, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview
  • Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World
  • J. Gresham Machen, “Christianity and Culture”
  • Plato, Republic, books, 2, 3, 7
  • Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana
  • Dorothy Sayers, “Lost Tools of Learning”
  • Martin Luther, “To All The City Councilmen of Germany That They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools”
  • John Milton, “Of Education”
  • Leland Ryken, “The Puritan Vision of Education”
  • John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University
  • C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man; “Learning in Wartime” and “On the Reading of Old Books”
  • J. L. Menuge, “Just Sentiments” (on The Abolition of Man)
  • Mark Schwehn, Exiles from Eden: Religion and the Academic Vocation in America
  • Max Weber, “Scholarship as Calling”
  • Parker Palmer, To Know as We are Known: A Spirituality of Education
  • Mars Hill Audio Report: “The Life and Thought of Michael Polanyi”
  • Steven Garber, The Fabric of Faithfulness
  • Neal Plantinga, Engaging God’s World

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