2019 Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture
Wednesday, October 17-Friday, October 19

Plenary and Featured Speakers

Talbot Brewer is professor of philosophy at the University of Virginia. He specializes in ethics and political philosophy, with particular attention to moral psychology and Aristotelian ethics. He has been a visiting professor in the Harvard University Philosophy Department and has been invited to present his work to audiences at a number of universities and professional conferences in North America, South America, Europe, China, and the Middle East. He is the author of numerous essays, including “Virtues We Can Share: A Reading of Aristotle’s Ethics” (Ethics), “Savoring Time: Desire, Pleasure and Wholehearted Activity” (Ethical Theory and Moral Practice), “Two Kinds of Commitments (And Two Kinds of Social Groups)” (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research), and “Maxims and Virtues” (The Philosophical Review). He has authored two books, the most recent of which is The Retrieval of Ethics (2009).

Kendall Cotton Bronk is associate professor of psychology in the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Claremont Graduate University. She is a developmental psychologist interested in understanding and supporting the positive development and moral growth of young people. Work in her Adolescent Moral Development lab is currently focused on creating and testing interventions for fostering purpose among young people, on understanding the development of purpose among marginalized youth, and on learning how global political and economic events influence young people’s views of the future and their role in it. Her work has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and the Fulbright Foundation. In addition, she has helped define and outline the parameters of the exemplar methodology, an approach to empirical research that provides insight into exemplary, or highly developed, forms of growth. She is the author of Purpose in Life: A Component of Optimal Youth Development (2013).

Tim Clydesdale is professor of sociology at The College of New Jersey, where he has taught since 1996. Previously, he was assistant professor of sociology at Gordon College. He is the co-author, with Kathleen Garces-Foley, of The Twentysomething Soul: Understanding the Religious and Secular Lives of American Young Adults (2019), which is drawn from more than 200 interviews with young adults, as well as a national survey of 1,880 individuals. He also wrote The Purposeful Graduate: Why Colleges Must Talk to Students About Vocation (2015) and The First Year Out: Understanding American Teens After High School (2007), as well as numerous academic articles. He has been invited to speak at dozens of colleges and universities across the United States.

Elizabeth Corey is associate professor of political science at Baylor University, in Waco, Texas, where she also serves as director of the Honors Program. Her writing has appeared in First Things, The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and National Affairs, as well as in a variety of scholarly journals. She received a bachelor’s in Classics from Oberlin College, and master’s and doctoral degrees in Art History and Political Science from Louisiana State University. She was the American Enterprise Institute’s Values and Capitalism Visiting Professor for the 2018–2019 academic year.

Kevin Dougherty is an award-winning teacher and active researcher. He teaches large sections of Introduction to Sociology almost every semester. At the graduate level, he teaches the Seminar in Teaching and The Sociology of Religious Organizations. His research explores religious affiliation, religious participation, racial diversity in congregations, congregational growth and decline, and the impact of religion on other realms of social life such as community involvement, politics, and work. He also regularly writes and speaks about innovative teaching. His published research appears in leading academic journals and has been featured in news media such as the Chronicle of Higher Education, CNN, National Public Radio, and USA Today.

Perry L. Glanzer is professor of educational foundations and a resident scholar with the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion. He is the co-author, most recently, of The Quest for Purpose: The Collegiate Search for a Meaningful Life (2017) and Restoring the Soul of the University: Unifying Christian Higher Education in a Fragmented Age (2017). Some of his past books, all co-authored with Todd C. Ream, include The Idea of a Christian College: A Reexamination for Today’s University (2013), Christianity and Moral Identity in Higher Education (2009), and Christianity and Scholarship in Higher Education (2007). He was awarded Templeton Foundation grants for two major projects: “Character Virtues and College Students: A Pilot Study” and “College Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose: What Role Does Student and Institutional Identity Play.” In addition, Dr. Glanzer has authored or co-authored over seventy-five journal articles and book chapters on topics related to moral education, faith-based higher education, and the relationship between religion and education.

Todd Hall is professor of psychology and editor of the Journal of Psychology and Theology at Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, where he has served for the past fifteen years. Dr. Hall teaches graduate courses in the areas of the integration of psychology and theology and attachment-based psychoanalytic therapy. His scholarship focuses on relational approaches to spiritual development, psychotherapy, and leadership. Dr. Hall was the recipient of the Margaret Gorman Early Career Award by the Psychology of Religion division of the American Psychological Association in 2001, and the Narramore Award for Excellence in Integration by the Christian Association for Psychological Studies in 2011. Dr. Hall recently co-authored (with Dr. John Coe) Psychology in the Spirit: Contours of a Transformational Psychology (2010), part of IVP’s Christian Worldview Integration series. He also co-authored a chapter in Christianity and Psychology: Five Views (IVP, 2011). Dr. Hall developed the Spiritual Transformation Inventory (STI), a spiritual assessment tool used by Christian colleges and secondary schools around the country. Dr. Hall maintains a small clinical practice in which he specializes in attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapy with adults.

Thomas Hibbs is president and professor of philosophy at the University of Dallas. Hibbs has spent most of his career writing, teaching, and designing and implementing academic programs. From 2003–2019, President Hibbs served as dean of the Honors College and distinguished professor of ethics and culture at Baylor University. Previously, he was a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College for three years before moving to Boston College, where he taught for thirteen years as full professor and chair of the philosophy department. In addition to two books on film and a book co-authored with contemporary painter Makoto Fujimura, President Hibbs has written three books on Thomas Aquinas: Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas: An Interpretation of the Summa Contra Gentiles (1995); Virtue’s Splendor: Wisdom, Prudence, and the Human Good (2001); and Aquinas, Ethics, and Philosophy of Religion: Metaphysics and Practice (2007). He has over thirty published academic articles and has written dozens of essays for publications such as National Review, First Things, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and The Weekly Standard.

Christian B. Miller is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University. An expert on the study of character and ethics, he examines whether character traits such as courage, compassion, and honesty really exist and play a role in human behavior. He also explores how to develop a virtuous character and overcome character flaws, as well as what it means to be a person of good character in the first place. Miller directed a five-year, $5.6 million project on the existence and nature of character called The Character Project, with funding from the John Templeton Foundation and the Templeton World Charity Foundation. He has published over seventy academic papers and is the editor of the Continuum Companion to Ethics; Character: New Directions in Philosophy Psychology, and Theology; Moral Psychology, Volume V: Virtue and Happiness; and Essays in the Philosophy of Religion. He is also the book review editor of the Journal of Moral Philosophy. He is the author of three books, including Character and Moral Psychology (2014), which presents a new framework for thinking about character and virtue, and The Character Gap: How Good Are We? (2017). He is also currently the philosophy director of the Beacon Project, which received a $4 million grant from Templeton Religion Trust to study the morally exceptional.

Elizabeth Newman, an independent scholar, was professor of theology and ethics at the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond (2002–2019) after serving on the faculty at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana, for twelve years. She is the author of Untamed Hospitality: Welcoming God and Other Strangers (2007); Attending the Wounds on Christ’s Body: Teresa’s Scriptural Vision (2012); and Divine Abundance: Leisure, the Basis of Academic Culture (2018). She is co-chair for the Baptist World Alliance Commission on Doctrine and Christian Unity and a participant in the Baptist World Alliance Conversations with the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity (2017-2022). She is an associate member of Epworth UMC, where her husband pastors.

Sarah Schnitker joined the psychology and neuroscience department at Baylor University in fall 2018 as associate professor. She holds a PhD and an MA in personality and social psychology from the University of California, Davis, and a BA in psychology from Grove City College. Prior to joining the faculty at Baylor University, Schnitker was associate professor in the Thrive Center for Human Development at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. Schnitker studies virtue and character development in adolescents and emerging adults, with a focus on the role of spirituality and religion in virtue formation. She specializes in the study of patience, self-control, gratitude, generosity, and thrift. Schnitker has procured more than $3.5 million in funding as a principal investigator on multiple research grants, and she has published in a variety of scientific journals and edited volumes. Schnitker is a Member-at-Large for APA Division 36–Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, is a Consulting Editor for the organization’s flagship journal, Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, and is the recipient of the Virginia Sexton American Psychological Association’s Division 36 Mentoring Award.

Ethan Schrum is associate professor of history and a faculty fellow of the Honors College at Azusa Pacific University. He is a historian of modern American thought and holds a PhD in history from the University of Pennsylvania. His first book, The Instrumental University: Education in Service of the National Agenda after World War II (Cornell University Press, 2019), explains how elite research universities reconceived their missions after World War II, reconfiguring themselves in order to stimulate economic growth and solve social problems. The book traces how this process brought technocratic, managerial, and capitalistic impulses into universities. He has also published articles on the history of American universities in History of Education Quarterly, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Perspectives on the History of Higher Education, and Social Science History. In addition, Schrum is an associate fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, where he held a postdoctoral fellowship from 2011 to 2014 and is a member of the Colloquy on Culture and Formation.

Francis Edward Su is the Benediktsson-Karwa Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College, and past president of the Mathematical Association of America. He received his BS in mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin and his PhD from Harvard University. His research is in geometric combinatorics and applications to the social sciences and he has co-authored numerous papers with undergraduates. He also has a passion for teaching and popularizing mathematics. From the Mathematical Association of America, he received the 2018 Halmos-Ford award for writing, and the 2013 Haimo Award for distinguished teaching. He authors the popular Math Fun Facts website and is creator of “MathFeed,” the math news app. His hobbies include songwriting, gardening, photography, and theology. Just like mathematics, these are modes of creative expression that blend structure and freedom, truth and beauty, reflection and action. His book Mathematics for Human Flourishing will be published by Yale University Press in 2019.

Andrea Turpin, associate professor of history at Baylor University, is interested in the historical connections between gender ideals, religious beliefs and practices, and educational theory and practice. Her first book, A New Moral Vision: Gender, Religion, and the Changing Purposes of American Higher Education, 1837-1917, examines how the entrance of women into U.S. colleges and universities shaped changing ideas about the religious and moral purposes of higher education during the era of the rise of the modern college and university. It is the winner of the Linda Eisenmann Prize, History of Education Society; the Lilly Fellows Program Biennial Book Award; and of the Guittard Book Award for Historical Scholarship, Baylor University. Her current research project positions educated women and their organizational cultures as key players in the narrative of the Protestant fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the early twentieth century, which served as a precursor to the contemporary culture wars.

Candace Vogler is the David B. and Clara E. Stern Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. She also currently serves as the Chair of Virtue Theory for the Jubilee Center for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom and was named a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Philosophy (May 2018–May 2021). From 2000–2007, she served as co-director of the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities. Her research interests include virtue ethics, social and political philosophy, cultural studies, and philosophy and literature. In 2015, she received a major Templeton Foundation grant for her project, “Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life.” The project brings together philosophers, social scientists, and religious thinkers to examine the role of self-transcendence and self-transcendent goods in meaningful lives. Her books include John Stuart Mill’s Deliberative Landscape: An Essay in Moral Psychology (2001), a co-edited volume The Critical Limits of Embodiment: Reflections on Disability Criticism (2001), and Reasonably Vicious (2002). She presently is writing a book on the philosophy of G. E. M. Anscombe.

George Yancey, who received his PhD in sociology at the University of Texas at Austin in 1995, begins his tenure at Baylor University in fall 2019 as professor of sociology. He comes from the University of North Texas, where he was professor of sociology and established the Christian Studies program. This program concentrates on conducting critical, but nonhostile, research that helps Christians to better serve their communities and the larger society. He began his career examining issues of race and ethnicity, but his more recent work concerns the presence of anti-Christian bias in the United States. Yancey is the author or co-author of numerous articles and books on racial issues and anti-Christian bias, including Transcending Racial Barriers: Toward a Mutual Obligations Approach (2010) (co-authored with Michael O. Emerson), Hostile Environment: Understanding and Responding to Anti-Christian Bias (2015), Compromising Scholarship: Religious and Political Bias in American Higher Education (2017). He is active in his local church and works with a network of multiracial congregations in an effort to support Christian work on issues of racial reconciliation and multiracial ministry.