For the past five years, the Lilly Fellows Program has sponsored Summer Seminars for College Teachers. The twelve participants brought their own religious traditions and disciplinary perspectives to the discussions of this topic. The diversity of the participants offered both opportunities and challenges, and over the course of four weeks they came to understand each other's stories and to create a sense of community.
Participants read or sampled a rich array of texts.
Phillip Gleason's Contending with Modernity , David O'Brien's From the Heart of the American Church , and Models for Christian Higher Education , edited by William Adrian and Richard Hughes. During the final week each participant made a presentation on his or her appropriation of the readings and discussions as well as their application of these ideas and materials to their own lives and institutional settings. These group activities significantly enriched their experience and enhanced the sense of community. What I learned simply is that each of us speaks about Christian scholarship and Christian higher education from our own stories and our own places. We go to Europe to be Americanized,' he says.