volunteers for interviews

Soliciting Volunteers for Student Interviews

Once again, it is the time of year when I solicit volunteers to help with
an assignment I make in my senior seminar for science majors. If you have
participated in the past, you know what to expect; if you wish to
participate again this year, please let me know by contacting me off-board
(tdavis@messiah.edu).

If you have not done this before, here is what takes place. I provide my
students with email addresses of science professionals and future
professionals (ie., graduate students) who would like to be interviewed by
email or by phone (a student can call you if you prefer that to email
contact). Students select a single name from this list and contact the
person. The exchange involves students asking you questions about your
personal story, including your faith story, your interest in science and the
nature of your professional work, and how you relate these two parts of your
life. In other words, they will ask you how you view science as a Christian
vocation.

Some further ground rules are these.

(1) You must be a professing Christian; this assignment is to help students
develop a sense of science as a Christian vocation.

(2) You must be at least a graduate student, or else a professional working
in one of the sciences or in a science-related field, such as mathematics,
medicine, or engineering. I always have a particular need for volunteers in
biological sciences, since most of my students are studying either biology
or environmental science. But people from all fields are most welcome to
participate, and some of my biology students will be interviewing people in
other fields.

(3) You must be willing to answer the kinds of personal questions
identified above, in enough detail to give students information sufficient
to write roughly 1200-1500 words about you. And of course, by volunteering
you are giving your consent to have the student write about you for purposes
of this assignment!

(4) You must be available to be interviewed in early or mid-September, and
you must agree to respond as promptly as possible to the student who
contacts you. The student owes me a progress report before the end of
September, so please do not volunteer unless you can respond within this
time frame.

Each semester (fall and spring), I need a minimum of 15 volunteers. No one
should be contacted by more than one student, and no one will be contacted
in both semesters unless they specifically wish to volunteer for both terms.
 This solicitation is only for the fall term!

My thanks in advance to all who volunteer,

ted
Received on Wed Aug 25 12:34:37 2004