“What was really easy was falling in love with this person, was falling in love with Jesus Christ. That was the most surprising thing.” -Andrew Garfield
Infographic Analysis: Another Reason Why MLK’s “I Have a Dream” Speech Was So Powerful, by Maria Popova
“That which is belittled in plain speech finds the respect it warrants in the subtleties of metaphor.” -Donald Braun
A Bump in Leadership, Ethics (and Pay): Making a Case for an Arts and Sciences Education
Graduates who report that in college they talked with faculty members about nonacademic and academic subjects outside class are nearly twice as likely to have become leaders in their localities or professions.
History isn’t a ‘useless’ major: It teaches critical thinking, something America needs plenty more of
The value of disciplines that prepare students to be critical thinkers escapes any politician who prefers only mindless followers, but one look at your Facebook feed ought to convince you that America needs more critical thinkers, not less.
Jesus and the Dispossessed, by Justin Phillips
If white evangelicals wish to be reconciled with people of color, then they should confess precisely how they have been possessed by something other than the faith they proclaim, irrespective of the repercussions that will befall the penitent and their structures of power.
Virginia Woolf on the Relationship Between Loneliness and Creativity, by Maria Popova
“If I could catch the feeling, I would; the feeling of the singing of the real world, as one is driven by loneliness and silence from the habitable world.” – Virginia Woolf
Strengthening the general ed curriculum requires a change in faculty roles
The daunting goal of a general education curriculum is to inspire students and have them experience the joy of learning in the first weeks of the freshman year…. To accomplish this we must radically change our thinking not only about the roles of faculty who teach general education courses, but also who among our instructors should be assigned to teach these classes.
The Contested Color of Christ: How the image of Jesus has been made and remade in American history, by Paul Harvey & Edward J. Blum
The First Great Awakening was one of the few times in American history when the church actually led the way in racial unity.
Steve Jobs was a Jerk: Whole Foods’ Founder on the Importance of Emotional and Spiritual Intelligence in the Workplace [Video]
Why Steve Jobs would have been fired by Whole Foods. Wonderful video interview with Whole Foods CEO and Founder, John Mackey.
Degrees of Ignorance: The Gutting of Gen Ed, by Michael W. Clune
There is no reason to unduly limit our students’ horizons. Following your interests does not doom you to a life of poverty and struggle. Today’s students are being deprived of that freedom, and we educators are to blame.
The Intelligence of Emotions: Philosopher Martha Nussbaum on How Storytelling Rewires Us
The stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what we feel shape our emotional and ethical reality, which of course is the great psychological function of literature and the reason why art can function as a form of therapy.