MTP 43: End-of-Year Recap - Integrating Faith with Academia

We reflect on the year's recurring theme of integrating faith with academia. They highlight questions from students and insightful answers from professors. If you’re a college student, professor, or someone interested in how faith can intersect with education, this episode is for you.

Key Takeaways for Professors

• There are numerous ways to integrate faith into academia without compromising academic integrity.
• Christian professors often have more freedom to express their beliefs than they realize.
• Small steps, like sharing a faith-based perspective or openly identifying as a believer, can make a big difference.

For Students

• Students are encouraged to ask professors about their faith and engage in meaningful conversations.
• Professors’ openness about their faith can inspire students to integrate their own beliefs into their academic pursuits.

Call to Action

• Students: Submit your questions for Christian professors on Instagram at @meettheprofofficial.
• Professors: Share your faith journey by submitting a profile on www.meettheprof.com.

Stay tuned for more inspiring discussions!

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https://www.everystudent.com/

College students, follow us on Instagram and send us a question(s) for Christian professors by DM here:
https://www.instagram.com/meettheprofofficial/

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Transcript

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[Music] hey everyone and welcome to meet the prop my name is Shane and my friend Spence and I interview Christian professors using questions we get from college students and you are in for a treat today because as we're recording this this is coming to the end of the year in 20124 and if you're listening to this in the future hello from friends from Christmas past and we just decided that we were going to do a recap for some of the themes that have come up over this year and so you will get to hear this time four different questions from students that carry the same theme of how do you integrate your faith with Academia and so then you'll get to hear for the professors that answered so the students you're going to get to hear from are Danielle blessing Jax and Abby and the professors you'll get to hear from are Lyn Ley from episode 3 Greg Williams from episode 7 Netta from episode 8 and Micah Green from episode 40 so before we get started would you please remember to click on subscribe or follow wherever you're listening or watching to this and I'd especially encourage you to subscribe to us on YouTube it doesn't cost anything but that's a point where we're trying to reach a lot of college students there and as always if you want to get to know these professors more or find other Christian faculty in the country you can check us out on meet theprof and look up professors based on their names if you know their names or the campus you're looking for by state you can do searches for uh for professors in a lot of different ways and so well let's jump in here is our highlight reel from 2024 based on integrating faith and Academia hi my name is Daniel Cooper and I'm a senior studying business management and Leadership at unw and one of the questions that I have is has there ever been a time where you felt conflicted or even convicted about something that you had to teach um and how is your faith grown at a secular University rather than a christian-based University thank you Danielle great questions um so the first one uh have I ever felt um sort of convicted or in some way maybe even restricted in some of the material I you know it's it's one one thing that's interesting about um academic freedom is while there is this sort of broad uh coverage that is needed um in certain areas you actually have a fair amount of flexibility in how you cover topics um and I found over the years I've uh been able to work in some ideas that allow my that allow me to teach in a way that's closer to or better reflects my faith I don't think I did that very well early on uh which you know is probably a combination of experience and or La lack thereof at the time uh and um even com self-confidence um in in your profession and then you know of course there's always the uh you know moving from untenured to tenured is always a a part of that um I think you know as as um over the years in teaching I've kind of felt myself stepping out a little more and and cheering a little more uh doing things things like meet the Prof uh were all sort of Faith steps for me um you know recognize that it wasn't that big of a deal to put put that information out there um I will say I still am you know soft pedal it I'm absolutely not you know coming out and beating kids over the head with anything at all but um I I will say there's a lot of Faith informed information in the lectures U some of which I don't know if I'd use the word coded but certainly some students might kind of hear words that would resonate with them if they are believers if they're not I don't think it necessarily even be on their radar but it would still raise some of those issues I I'll give you an example um I usually note when we talk about uh one of the theorists in the existential humanistic existential movement Carl Rogers um who's pretty widely known and discussed a lot of people don't know he was a pastor um and and his theories are you know very much in line with uh his pastoral um background his primary intervention is to make sure people feel loved and accepted you know which is very basis of what the main me one of the main messages of the Bible God is love you know uh so C a lot of elements in there and and pointing out where it's coming from from him uh and pretty Universal everybody's very uh favorable reaction to Roger a very likable guy he makes you feel you know loved and accepted and um and so that's a very Universal reaction to uh to him and and that um uh that element where it comes from how it sort of has this fundamental meets a fundamental human need um that is really given by God um you know that that making that connection a little more uh explicit um just kind of one example uh of that I think have some other places where you know people misquote the Bible and turn it into some hate messages and sort of highlight I think it you know someone's holding a sign referring to Romans predic chapter in Romans and so we'll often read that passage and sort of say clearly it's not saying what it says on that side so there's kind of little ways you can do that that are still meeting the academic Mission but you allows you to do a little forray into those areas hi I'm blessing um I'm a I'm in second year and my question is what do you think is the most important lesson students can learn um while they try to integrate like Faith with their education thank you well so from my perspective as a Believer I believe that you know kind of like Spence mentioned earlier it's my my faith is my worldview that's the underpinning of everything I do and I also believe that God puts us in the world to meet needs and serve others and you can do that in a bunch of different ways so I did it as an engineer um and and I did it as a um as a engineering manager so in the um where I used to work you know I would I would I would try to demonstrate living as Christ would live and how I interacted with my co-workers um and for the work that I did that was for others um it was the underpinning of of of who I am um a nurse can do that a doctor can do that a teacher can do that um you know a janitor can do that it's it's what's the the motivation for why you're doing it um regardless of the of the particular job that you have so I think the two in fact I think that's what makes the world go around you know thank goodness we're not all a bunch of Engineers trying to you know be Christian Engineers it would just be a horrible place you know thank goodness there's musicians and artists and politicians and and and these people that that that do their vocation with the underpinning of of um a Biblical Godly world view that and just showing love hey professors um hope you guys are doing well um Shane asked me to bring in a question um and so this is a question I've been thinking about um so just you as obviously Christian professors um how do yall incorporate your faith and just your beliefs into sometimes the curriculum that may necessarily not be all just have Christian beliefs and might be secular so how do you do that um appreciate you answering this question hope you have a good day okay the curriculum so for me um there is a chapter in in the class that I teach every semester that is um about politics and religion so when I first saw those two topics I was like oh this is going to be really hard to teach I pray about it you know and I ask the Holy Spirit to inspire me and I ended up incorporating the topic of Holy Week because teaching Spanish and coming from a Hispanic country Holy Week is very very sacred and very important and is completely focused on religion so I tell the students there's no Easter Bunny nothing wrong with the Easter Bunny but we um review you know like the different happenings on every day of that week how is celebrated what does it mean to people how families get together what kind of meals are shared during that week um and I just shared you know like what how my family has celebrated how I celebrated since I was a child how I celebrating it now and I also I also tell my students um that I'm a Believer um you know I wear my curs as much as possible it's great have my little ring too and um people on YouTube they can see it and even though it's not on the syllabus itself um we have what we call canvas which is a platform where we put all of the documents that we use for our classes and there I put um when I introduce myself and I put a little bit of information about me I have a link to meet the professor so they can read it as well if they want to and as I travel a lot with students go overseas almost every year and when we are leaving the country I always say well whoever wants to pray you know and put this experience in God's hands you know feel welcome to come and pray with me and you know the nobody has to feel un you know uncomfortable is this is all if you really want to and then when I'm over overseas I also tell the students when I'm going to go to a service and I'm and whoever wants to go you know welcome to come with me so those are little ways you know that I feel like I incorporate my faith into the curriculum hello my name is Abby oeral I am a junior here at UNCW and I'm a marketing major and my question as a Christian Student is why is it that professors are so quick to speak when they are atheists and non-believers and why is it so hard for our Christian professors to come forth and confess their faith and speak on it I guess a couple of different reasons in certain Fields you know a lack of faith is seen as like being a skeptic is seen as being scholar I will admit being a chemical engineer and have never felt any like any hostility we developed something in the lab whether it works or it doesn't there are other fields like sociology or philosophy Etc maybe marketing I don't know where it's a little easier for someone to think if someone has a beef with Christians it's a little easier for them to um to hurt your career so one thing we started doing at Texas A&M someone from the office of general counsel the lawyers for the University come talk to the Christian faculty and tell them what they can and can't do they can and cannot say and what always happens is the Christian faculty are like I have way more freedom than I thought I did so what's really going on is that Christians are self-censoring they don't know what the rules are so that I play it safe and self-censor when they really don't need to at all can you give us some examples of things that faculty have every right to say with students and uh but often they uh they will self- censor themselves out of like let's say there's an event there's an event happening on campus and they're interested in it it's being hosted by a student org it is a campus event and it's going to involve a presentation of the Gospel um the facult a faculty member has every right to bring that up maybe they have an association with that student group at the beginning of class saying this event is happening I'm interested I'm planning on going you have every right in the world to say something like that because it's happening on campus through an official on campus group have every right in the world to bring something like that up the legal profession the more I learn the more I realize religious freedom right now is as strong as it's ever been like we have remarkable freedoms and we as Christians don't need to be so scared of Le side as I'm listening to these answers the professors gave I I just have such a greater appreciation for them and uh if you are a Christian Professor listening to this I so appreciate you being in the place where you are and I hope that these answers these perspectives will encourage you to consider some kind of Step of faith that God might have you take and letting your students know you're a Christian as we're hearing there's no one way of how Christian professors are doing this but I'd encourage you to think what your step of Faith might be and if you are a college student and you'd be interested in sending a question to us to ask the Christian professors find us on Instagram @ meet thepro official and send us a DM with a question you have for professors we'd love to try to include it and if you are a Christian professor and you'd be interested in sharing with others how you came to faith in Christ please look us up on meetthe proof.com and then click on submit a profile it's really quick really easy there's some fun questions you can answer about yourself and lastly if you're interested in supporting this ministry financially you can give online at www.g give.cru.org that's cru.org sl042 4344 so thank you so much for joining us and until next time we hope this encourages you to have a Christ centered conversation on your college campus[Music] he