Welcome (and welcome back!) to The Raised Hand
Introducing a new question: “What has the university to do with the good life?”
Welcome (and welcome back!) to The Raised Hand. TRH is a monthly essay magazine edited by members and colleagues of the Christian study center movement whose aim is to contribute to conversations in U.S. higher education from their unique vantage points both within and outside the institutional structures of universities and colleges. Our mission is to ask big questions in order to foster dialogue, benefiting colleges and universities throughout this country in their task of pursuing truth and educating students from all over the world.
Our question for this series is: “What has the university to do with the good life?” The topic is inspired by the experiences of study centers and their supporters who serve universities that both intentionally and implicitly shape the desires, minds, and affections of their students. Such educational formation includes conceptions of how higher education contributes to human flourishing, happiness, and a better world—in a phrase, the good life.
Recent trends point to universities more directly making the case that they do, indeed, have something to say about the good life. As one example, many universities now offer popular courses specifically on such themes, including at Yale University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Notre Dame, among many others. Leaving the question open-ended, TRH is eager to explore the various ways our writers and readers interpret the question and offer answers.
In order to sharpen our collective thinking and probe the deeper connections between universities and the good life, we have assembled a diverse array of educators and scholars to explore this question and provide compelling, if incomplete, answers. Every last Wednesday of the month from October 2023 to May 2024 we will publish an essay in this vein. Look for our first essay next Wednesday, October 25, by Chris Gehrz (Bethel University).
Dialogue is what TRH seeks to promote, and so we ask you to help us. Please subscribe and share with others, and comment on our essays. Subscription is brief, easy, and free. We publish essays that are succinct and stimulating enough to generate lots of questions and comments.
For more information, please feel free to visit our “About” page and/or to email us. The editor, Daniel G. Hummel (Upper House, Madison, WI), can be reached at dhummel@slbrownfoundation.org.