About 10 years ago, students came up with the idea to start having colloquiums to share their research, modeled after the ones faculty had been doing for years.
“The students find it very inspiring to hear what each other are doing, and every colloquial is quite interdisciplinary, so they get to hear what people are doing in completely different things,” Dr. Barbara Pemberton, Director of the Carl Goodson Honors Program and Professor of Christian missions, said.
The colloquiums are set up to be informal and informational.
“Faculty comes too and it’s their opportunity to hear from students across the campus,” Pemberton said.
Students and faculty alike meet in the Alumni Room to eat lunch together and hear a short presentation from the researcher, followed by Q & A at the end.
“One of the things that Alpha Tau and Honors wants to do is to sponsor academic excellence across campus,” Pemberton said. “The idea is to let students have an opportunity to hear people’s research in other fields, and not just on scholar’s day, but other time’s throughout the year.”
Colloquiums are typically scheduled for the last Monday of every month.
Today’s colloquium on Feb. 29, featured junior Christian studies major from Little Rock, Ark. Mack McGehee, and his directed study on the Biblical nature of wisdom.
“I picked the topic because I want to be a Christian counselor, and for a large part of my life people used the word ‘wise’ to describe me, even before I knew that was my calling,” McGehee said.
“Since the Bible devotes an entire genre of the Old Testament to wisdom I thought it would be fantastically helpful to understand it more so I can use it better. I think wisdom is a tool to be used and also to be sharpened.”
McGehee has been working under Dr. Doug Nykolaishen, associate professor of Biblical studies, to focus on the wisdom books of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.
“Since the wisdom books don’t record the salvific history of God’s people, they have received, at least among the Old Testament, some of the least amount of scholarly attention.”
This made for a difficult time studying the literature for McGehee.
“The only things that are conclusive are the major ideas, but the nuances and their interpretations are still very debated,” McGehee said.
McGehee spoke at the faculty colloquium early in February and Dr. Pemberton asked him to speak on the same ideas Monday, answering why he chose to study this topic, as well as the process of picking the topic, working with a professor one-on-one and the interview process for a thesis and directed study.
“I think it’s cool to see how impactful the opportunities to study something you’re passionate about are for students, especially some that I can resonate with and are more connected to my field of study,” McGehee said.
By Rachel Wicker
