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Title: Words, Images, and Witnesses: Faith-learning Integration Strategies in Communication Studies
Date and Time: Tuesday, July 12, 2022 | 11:30 am – 3:00 pm EDT
Registration Available Now (Student discount code: STUDENT2022)
Presenters/Facilitators: Quentin Schultze, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Communication, Calvin University; Bill Strom, PhD, Professor of Media and Communication, Trinity Western University; Tim Muehlhoff, PhD, Professor of Communication, Biola University; Naaman Wood, PhD, Saint Paul College
Description: Christian higher education, like the rest of higher education, is in a time of transition. Christian higher education institutions are no longer viewed nonthreateningly by the culture in general or the Academy in particular. Meanwhile, Christian faculty seek to guide students in “thinking Christianly” across the disciplines, providing Christ-centered perspectives for lifelong learning that equip students to critically engage culture in biblical and transformational ways. Faculty are charged with a faith-learning integration mission in all areas of service, including teaching, research, and administration. Along the way, helping students navigate the increasingly complex, nuanced social and political issues they encounter often requires new frameworks and training. It takes vision and courage to navigate these challenges and to fulfill this faith-learning mission in ways that sustain institutions and contribute to strengthening students’ faithful witness in the uncertain years ahead.
Our mission as Christian educators leads us toward an education of the entire student—body, mind, and soul. While we may recognize this important calling, its implementation can be difficult. How do we help students “think Christianly,” or integrate their faith with their learning? How do we foster righteous discernment? How do we impart knowledge that leads to true wisdom? What methods do we implement that both display our own faith foundations and encourage students to build their own?
Operating from a framework that views lived experience as a valuable teacher, this workshop provides personal narratives and faith-learning integration strategies from seasoned communication teachers and scholars in Christian higher education. Presenters share specific strategies coupled with detailed examples. Taken together, the successes and failures of these faculty provide wisdom on how to reason Christianly and integrate faith into one’s communication classroom and research program.
Quentin Schultze (PhD, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) is CCSN Senior Fellow and Professor Emeritus at Calvin University, where he received the Presidential Award for Exemplary Teaching. He has written many articles and books, including Communicating with Grace and Virtue, An Essential Guide to Public Speaking, An Essential Guide to Interpersonal Communication, Résumé 101, Communicating for Life, Communicate Like a True Leader. Dr. Schultze was one of the founders of the Gospel Communications Network, which created the online Bible Gateway. He serves on the Board of Directors of Baker Publishing Group. He leads teaching, publishing, and faith-integration seminars online and at universities and seminaries. Connect with Quentin: www.quentinschultze.com.
Bill Strom (PhD, University of Iowa) teaches human communication at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia. He was first drawn to how people relate and influence each other while attending Wheaton College where he studied under Em Griffin and completed a first social science study on self-disclosure among dormitory guys. Following intercultural communication studies at Northern Illinois University (MA) and Iowa (PhD), Bill moved to western Canada where his interests grew in integrative scholarship and close relationships resulting in an introductory text, More Than Talk: A Covenantal Approach to Everyday Communication which applies covenant principles across the field, and The Relationship Project: Moving From “You and Me” to “We” which explores personal virtues that predict human thriving through redemptive communcation. His social science studies on virtue, covenant, friendship, listening, and relational resilience are published in regional, national, and international journals. When not teaching and writing he serves part-time as the executive director of a crisis and caring call center in Abbotsford, fishes local rivers, and lives with his wife Shelaine.
Tim Muehlhoff (PhD, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) is Professor of Communication at Biola University where he teaches classes in conflict resolution, apologetics, gender, and family communication. For over 30 years he served with Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru) in the campus ministry, short-term missions (Kenya, Russia, Lithuania), and with Keynote as a trainer for The Comm Lab—a center that trains Cru staff, pastors, and lay people in evangelistic speaking and apologetics. For the past 20 years Tim and his wife, Noreen, have been frequent speakers at Family Life Marriage Conferences. Tim currently is co-director of the Winsome Conviction Project which seeks to reintroduce civility and compassion into how we disagree in the public square. Tim is the co-host of the Winsome Conviction Podcast. His book Winsome Persuasion: Christian Influence in a Post-Christian World (with Biola University professor Rick Langer) received a merit award from Christianity Today’s 2018 Book of the Year Awards in the category of apologetics/evangelism. His newest book, Winsome Conviction: Disagreeing without Dividing the Church (with Rick Langer) explores conflict between fellow Christ-followers. Connect with Tim: www.timmuehlhoff.com.
Naaman Wood (PhD, Regent University) served as Assistant Professor of Media and Communication at Redeemer University College and has taught communication courses at Tidewater Community College, Spring Arbor University, and courses in theology and culture at Northwest University. He is co-editor of Words and Witnesses: Communication Studies in Christian Thought from Athanasius to Desmond Tutu and the forthcoming Humility and Hospitality: Changing the Christian Conversation on Civility (Integratio Press). His work has been published in the journals Symbolic Interaction, Jazz Perspectives, and the books Prophetic Critique and Popular Media: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Applications, and More than “Precious Memories”: Critical Essays on the Rhetoric of Southern Gospel. Wood has also completed a M.T.S. and Th.M. at Duke Divinity School. He currently serves as a faculty member in communication at Saint Paul College in Minnesota.
Registration Fee: $75.00
Registration Available now [Student discount code: STUDENT2022]