Weekend Reads 5/11/19

Don’t Let Students Run the University

Changing this culture will be hard, but it starts with the confident assertion by faculty that they are there for a reason and know what they are doing. Students must be reminded that they petitioned the institution for entry, and not the other way around; they asked the university to allow them to enter into a contract in which the professors are obligated to educate them and they are obligated to fulfill the requirements that will allow those professors to recommend them to the university for graduation.

Rachel Held Evans and the Democratization of Theology

Rachel Held Evans insisted that a reasonably educated, smart, masterfully articulate but not-officially-theologically-credentialed journalist and memoir writer from small-town Tennessee could debate scripture with powerful, scholarly credentialed white men whose authority had never been challenged in the same way. While there have been many Christian bloggers that have risen up over the past 15-20 years, none of them contributed more to today’s shift in theological authority than Rachel did.

Economists flee Agriculture Dept. after feeling punished under Trump

Members of the agency were also caught off-guard last summer when Perdue’s office issued an internal memo directing ERS and other research branches to include disclaimers in their peer-reviewed publications stating that the findings were “preliminary” and “should not be construed to represent any agency determination or policy” — seen as a way of watering down any unflattering data from the department’s own experts.