Today's topics at Common Meal were the conversion of narrative evaluations to letter grades, and the consideration of the effectiveness of having different emphases within the MDiv program. These cartoons reflect those conversations.
I'm sure that none of our illustrious professors would actually use a dartboard to determine a grade (although it's already been confirmed by the Associate Dean that the process isn't a whole lot better than this).
I say, if the narrative evaluations want to stay heathens and burn in hell forever, they should have that right. I'm not much on conversion.
The second cartoon reflects the call for an emphasis on "Humanism and..." well, quite frankly I stopped listening. I think it was, "Humanism and comparative religions," or something like that. I was reminded of a typo I had made earlier in the week, which is reflected in the cartoon. The Dean's response was to note that the discussion was turning into more of a Christmas wish list; hence the other suggestion for a new emphasis.
And Earlham has stables, so the infrastructure cost wouldn't be as much as you might think.
3 comments:
Good ones today! I eventually got the comment you were making about darts while we were sitting there, but it took me awhile. I note that any time Mr. Miro misses the target entirely, that will translate to an F... I hope he's a skilled player.
And thanks for the one on the emphasis discussion. I left early, so missed the Christmas list. Humanism as an emphasis... sheesh. (I could be snarky and say, "Isn't that what 'Ministry among Unprogrammed Friends' amounts to?" but I won't).
I've updated the cartoon about emphases.
As for the almost-posted snarky comment, I'm much more disturbed by those who leave the seminary without even that much training in hands-on ministry; after all, there is an expectation from people outside ESR (although perhaps not within IYM or WYM) that an MDiv connotes a certain skill set that involves actually caring for people.
More to the point, however, I would advise against criticizing classes you haven't taken. Occasionally--perhaps too occasionally--good things happen in Kendall.
Your point is well taken... in fact, you would have been in-bounds had your response to my snark been to remind me of the virtue of charity.
But hey, why have both cartoons disappeared? Maybe I need to clear my cache...
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