Trinity Hosts Conference on Knowledge for the Future

Trinity is excited to be hosting the upcoming conference “Knowledge for the Future: Higher Education, Change, and Christian Responsibility,” sponsored by Coram Deo.  The conference, which takes place on  campus on Nov. 11-12, features renowned speakers from around the country, as well as Trinity professors.

According to one of the conference organizers, Trinity’s Assistant Professor of History and Department Chair Kyle Dieleman, Ph.D.,  the sessions are designed to be useful to a number of people, including those  considering higher education themselves, people whose family members or high school students (such as high school guidance counselors or administrators) might be considering higher education, employers who have ideas about how higher ed can meet the needs they have future employees, and those who have responsibilities such as teaching and administration in higher ed.

“We also have a fantastic line-up of world-class speakers from a variety of disciplines, so we’re eager for people to have access to those scholars and learn from and with them,” he said.

Organizers hope that people will leave the conference with a sense of the challenges facing higher education but also with ideas that provide hope for how to meet those challenges. “So, we think people will be inspired to consider again the importance of higher education and ways higher ed can contribute to productive conversations and actions within Christianity and in society more broadly,” said Dieleman.

The conference has been a long time in the planning stages. Originally scheduled for Fall of 2020, it was postponed because of COVID. “The plans came about because I connected with our sponsoring organization, the Coram Deo Program, via a Dutch colleague, Herman Selderhuis,” Dieleman said. “Herman invited me to put a proposal together, and several of us at Trinity started thinking about the uncertain state of higher education in the United States and beyond. With that context, we wanted to explore how Christianity and a Christian worldview might be in a unique position to contribute positively to discussions about the future of education.”

Scheduled speakers include:

Brad S. Gregory, the Dorothy G. Griffin College Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame;

DeAne Lagerquist, who is trained as a historian of Christianity;

Herman Selderhuis, president of the Theological University Apeldoorn (the Netherlands) and Professor of Church History and Church Law;

Vincent Bacote, Professor of Theology and the Director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill.

Members of the Trinity community, including Dr. Lenore Knight-Johnson, Dr. Erick Sierra, Dr. Keith Starkenburg, Mallory Rosario, Professor Christine Scholma, Dr. Allison Tan, and Dr. Rakisha Vinegar, will also be leading workshops.

The cost to attend is $125. Find more information and register here.