Synopsis
Colleges and universities have become increasingly obsessed with careerism and specialization, urging students to hastily pursue the idols of affluence. The culture of “hire education” is overwhelmingly secular and pragmatic, and it avoids an existential reckoning with the sacred aspects of the liberal arts tradition. A Christian college education can provide a path to freedom, grounded in the realization that our lives are fragmented in countless and incalculable ways; therefore, it is the responsibility of teachers and learners to reintegrate the pieces of knowledge back into something whole and meaningful. Interdisciplinary studies are at the core of authentic “higher education.” And a serous liberal arts orientation, especially one informed by a biblical vision of reality, provides the ideal curricular context for engaging students in faithful, integrative practices. Distinctively Christian liberal arts colleges and universities ought to be about the work of cultivating “interdisciplinary inclinations” that prepare students primarily for a calling (not a career) that is as broad as it is deep: “repairing the ruins” of our postlapsarian world, drawing all things together in Christ, and becoming a life-long learner according to the Great Commandment—with all one’s heart, soul, strength and mind.
About the Author
Jeffry C. Davis directs the nationally recognized interdisciplinary studies program at Wheaton College (IL), where he has taught for over thirty years. His scholarship focuses on interdisciplinarity, liberal arts education, rhetoric, writing, and writing center praxis. The author of Interdisciplinary Inclinations (IIR) and co-editor of Liberal Arts for the Christian Life (Crossway), he has also published articles in a variety of journals, including Expositions: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, Journal of Teaching Writing, and WLN. A recipient of Wheaton’s Senior Teaching Achievement Award and the Leland Ryken Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities, Davis covers courses in composition, interdisciplinary studies, and literature. He currently serves as the president of the Association for Christians in Writing Centers (ACWC) and as the associate editor of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies.
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