Regent School of Undergraduate Studies
MISSION
• Excellence in academic standards
and
• Teaching according to a biblical worldview
– Equipping “Christian leaders to change the world”
»This is demanding
Building the Right Culture
• Work at it
• First, hire committed Christian teachers
• But, are they prepared to teach according to a biblical
worldview?
»Mentoring is required
Faculty Mentoring
* Tenure paper
* Pre-tenure paper and review
* Faculty orientation readings and discussions
* Workshops
* Mutual mentoring in a community relationship
* Course development
* Faculty research, colloquium
* Monitoring and mentoring by Chairs
Mentoring Adjunct Instructors
• Difficulties:
– Part-time vocation
– Remote locations
– Not integral part of on campus community
Mentoring Adjunct Faculty
• Annual faculty workshops
• Mentoring by chairs and full-time faculty
• Mentoring network led by experienced
adjuncts
• Compensation (proposed)
– Faith integration paper for highest level
• A sample workshop paper will be presented
• Please question and share your successes
Teaching from a Christian Worldview
--Including Use of Secular Materials
J. Thomas Whetstone, D.Phil.
w/Drs. Sandra Bryant & Almarie Munley
11 August 2007
Teaching the Truth with Academic Excellence
3 C’s for Faith Integration
•
Core presuppositions
– Worldview perspective
•
Context
– Teacher’s example
– Institution’s support
– Student expectations
•
Content
– Texts (secular, even anti-faith?)
– Literature of discipline
– Assignments-discussions, cases, essays, exams
•
As in a 3-legged stool, all C’s are needed
But only after two prior C’s…
Commitment to Calling
• Challenge:
– How is Your personal relationship & walk with Christ?
• Examine yourself
• Confess, Pray
– For self
– For students
– For Regent
& Forgive
– Are you content in your calling to teach?
• Still excited, love to engage students in subject
• Delighted when students apply their faith
Teaching the Truth with Academic Excellence:
Core Presuppositions: Worldview
At Regent, our instructional materials and instructors’
teaching is to frame the courses we teach from a
deliberately Christian worldview.
Alternative Worldviews
MODERNISM
• Human Reason #1
POSTMODERNISM
• No truth, reality
– Socially constructed
• Progress inevitable
• Human is exalted
• No transcendent God
– (materialistic)
• Ethics a human invention
– Relativism -->Judges
21:25
• Power prevails
• Individual insignificant
• God is dead
– (anti-God, anti-modernism)
• Ethics does not exist
– W/o God, all is possible
• (Dostoevsky)
Christian Worldview
• Reveals our true values re:
(A. Kuyper)
– Our relationship to God
– Our relationship to man (and ourselves)
– Our relationship to the world
• Students need to assess subjects, text
starting with worldview differences
• Apply consistently from a Christian
worldview
Teaching the Truth with Academic Excellence:
Context
• The teacher is the role model
–
–
–
–
–
Personal example—intro, counsel, life
Prayer Discussion Board & prayer for students
Theme scripture, announcements
Devotionals
Comments & questions—discussions, essays, exams
• Regent’s mission
• Students expect faith integration
– Diversity of theologies, may need to clarify, teach
openness with compassion, Ephesians 4:15
Teaching the Truth with Academic Excellence:
Content
• First, assess the discipline itself
– A. Compatibilist (complementary)
• (e.g., Mathematics, Classical Music)
– B. Transformationalist (valuable insights, but needs a
Christian orientation—major changes, interpretations
needed
• (e.g., Organizational Behavior, Ethics, Political Science)
– C. Reconstructionist (at odds with Christianity)
• Reject and radically redo biblically
• (e.g., Anthropology, Astrology, Linguistics?)
Example: Systems Thinking
• Assessment of OLAM 310 Systems Thinking, text:
Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline (1990, 2006):
a. Text’s worldview is materialistic, naturalistic
b. But structure, process is edifying
-Problem is values, not basic structure of
discipline
-Systems Thinking is Transformationalist
-We should teach it per Christian worldview,
biblical perspective
-Apply it as we love God & man with our minds
(Whetstone, 2007)
Teaching the Truth with Academic Excellence:
Content:Textbooks
• Key literature of a field often is secular, even
anti-faith
• Students need to know
• Banning such texts a disservice to students
• Add texts, materials, interpretations from
Christian perspective
• Challenge students to discern and apply
consistently w/ Christian worldview
Teaching the Truth with Academic Excellence:
Content: Assignments
• Readings—Christian authors
• Discussion—Questions and follow-ups asking
for approaches best for a Christian
• Essays—Christian themes and propositions
• Exams—Questions asking for Christian
interpretation, conclusions, recommended
application
• Other?
Teaching the Truth with Academic Excellence:
What Ways Have You Found?
• Example:
– Almarie Munley
• Dialogue in small
groups
• Share a favorite
example
Teaching the Truth with Academic Excellence:
OUR CHALLENGE
• Continue to ponder, try
out, share
– Throughout this
workshop
– As you teach
• This is difficult…
– But the LORD will guide
and bless us if we
remain faithful
– Educating Christian
leaders to change the
world
Your Input
• Comments
• Questions?
• What have you done
that works?
• Discussion
The End
• Thank you all.
• May God bless you.
Finis
Mentoring Adjunct Christian Teachers
J. Thomas Whetstone, D.Phil
Regent School of Undergraduate Studies
3rd Annual No Educator Left Behind Conference
20 June 2008
Indiana Wesleyan University
PLEASE RISE
• Let us sing to the LORD
Led by Dr. Almarie Munley
What a Friend We Have in Jesus
What a Friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O
what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer.
Amen.
Your Input
• Comments
• Questions?
• What does your
college do?
• Discussion