Kuyers Conference 2024
Kuyers/INCHE/De Vries Conference 2024
Call for Papers
Announcing the 10th Kuyers Institute conference on teaching and learning. INCHE (International Network for Christian Higher Education) will again co-host, and this year we are also partnering with the de Vries Institute for Global Faculty Development.
Contemporary culture contains powerful forces that push toward a reduction of learning to some single facet. Whether it is a matter of reducing identity to political alignment, learning outcomes to countable skills or economic pragmatism, formation to individual academic success, or human flourishing to the material, the drive to simplify and control seems to repeatedly push us toward taking some part for the whole. Yet it is easier to talk about the integrity of creation and a holistic approach to learning and scholarship than it is to design approaches to faith-informed educational practices that can gain traction. The conference invites examination of how Christian approaches to teaching and learning can expand our understanding of how learners grow, and shape practices that resist reductionism and undergird a more holistic pursuit of student and teacher flourishing. How do we honor the coherence of Christian faith and life in teaching, learning, scholarship, and service in a reductionist age? Contributions are invited from any discipline, and from both empirical and conceptual perspectives.
Paper proposals of 1-2 pages, including 100-word abstracts‚ should be sent via e-mail to kuyers@calvin.edu by June 14, 2024. For those submitting proposals from outside the US, please submit earlier to allow time for visa applications, if applicable to you.
Registration
Registration is now open!
Click here to register and to find more information about lodging options.
Registration fees include attendance at all sessions, conference materials, Thursday and Friday lunch, Thursday and Friday evening dinner and reception, and all breaks during the conference.
Please note that overnight accommodations are NOT included as part of the registration fee.
Plenary Speakers
Dr. Katie Kresser (PhD Harvard University) is a Professor of Art History and Visual Studies at Seattle Pacific University. Her work focuses on art theory, modern/postmodern art, and the intersection of material culture with theology, religious practice and anthropology. Katie has written two books, including the award-winning Bezalel’s Body: The Death of God and the Birth of Art (Wipf and Stock, 2019) along with dozens of essays, blog posts and book reviews. Her current research examines dynamics around the collapse of shared symbolic systems and the rise of individualistic, traditional, mystical, or occult solutions to problems of the soul.
Dr. Justin Ariel Bailey is associate professor and chair of the theology department at Dordt University. He is the author of two books: Reimagining Apologetics (IVP Academic, 2020) and Interpreting Your World (Baker Academic, 2022). He hosts the In All Things podcast, and preaches regularly as an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church. He is married to Melissa and they are blessed with two teenage children.
Dr. Matthew Kaemingk is the Richard John Mouw Assistant Professor of Faith and Public Life at Fuller Theological Seminary where he also serves as the director of the Richard John Mouw Institute of Faith and Public Life. His books include Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear (2018), Work and Worship: Reconnecting Our Labor and Liturgy (coauthor Cory Willson, 2020), and Reformed Public Theology (2021). Kaemingk serves as a fellow at the Center for Public Justice and a scholar in residence at the Max De Pree Center for Christian Leadership. An ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church, Kaemingk lives in Missouri with his wife, Heather, and their three sons.
Videos
2022
Kuyers/INCHE conference: Faith and Pedagogy Amid Educational Change, October 6-7
Plenary 1: Why You Need a Diversity Playbook
Michelle Loyd-Paige
Executive Associate to the President
Calvin University
Plenary 3: Panel: Educational Change: The Press and the Pause
Marlene Wall, President, LCC International University
Michelle Loyd-Paige, Calvin University
Jan Hábl, University of Hradec Králové
2019
Kuyers/INCHE conference: Shaping Christian Learning
Plenary 1: Conversion, agency, and education: Reflections on how to theologically narrate and imagine change
Luke Bretherton
Professor of Theological Ethics and Senior Fellow
Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University
Plenary 2: African Christian designs for learning: A panel
Tersur Aben, Theological College of Northern Nigeria
Faith Nguru, Daystar University, Kenya
Marilyn Naidoo, University of South Africa
Plenary 3: Design before planning: A biblical/theological frame
Ken Badley
Professor of Education
Tyndale University College
2017
Conference: Christian Teaching and Learning: Pathways and Possibilities
Plenary 1: "Beyond Hospitality: Finding Wisdom at the Intersections of Practices"
Christine Pohl
Associate Provost and Professor of Christian Ethics
Asbury Theological Seminary
Plenary 2: "Redeeming the Buzzwords: A Distinctively Christian Approach to Innovation in Education"
Beth Green
Program Director for Education
Cardus
Plenary 3: "What Do We Mean by Christian Education?"
Trevor Cooling
Professor of Christian Education
Canterbury Christ Church University
2015
Conference: Faith and Teaching: Virtue, Practice, Imagination
Plenary 1: "Teaching at Table/Learning to Eat"
Susan M. Felch
Professor of English
Director, Calvin Institute for Christian Scholarship
Plenary 2: "Courage in the Classroom"
Candace Vogler
Professor, Department of Philosophy
University of Chicago
Closing session: "'A Cold Heart Cannot Catch Fire': Imagination, Faith, and Teaching"
David I. Smith
Director, Graduate Studies in Education
Director, Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning
2013
Conference: "Virtues, Vices, and Teaching"
Held in October 2013, this conference explored the implications of a focus on virtues and vices for the way Christian teaching and learning are approached. Audio files (MP3) of the three plenary speakers (Jennifer Herdt, Yale Divinity School; L. Gregory Jones, Duke Divinity School; and David K. Naugle, Dallas Baptist University) are available at the Seminars at Calvin webpage.