MacLaurinCSF 2014-2015:

The Year in Review

3k+

Total Event
Attendance

1.5k+

Total Student
Attendance

150+

Total Faculty
Attendance

20k+

Online
Engagement

we
cultivated a conversation on
campus and throughout the Twin
Cities on the topic Freedom & the
Free Society.
hroughout the year,

Fueled by questions like

What exactly does freedom
mean today in our modern
democratic society?
Is freedom simply absolute,
autonomous, unconstrained
choicethe definition that
seems to be most prominent in
our culture?
How does this definition fit
with the meaning of freedom
as it has developed within
the biblical and Christian
tradition?

we engaged the theme through

a wide range of events:

Lectures
Patrick Deneen, After Liberalism?
Imagining a Humane Post-Liberal
Future (see page 4)
Gloria Halverson, Human
Trafficking and Medicine
David Skeel, The Bipartisan
Benefits of Hobby Lobby
William Hurlbut, Biotechnology,
Freedom, & the Pursuit of
Happiness (see page 7)
Reading Groups

Mars Hill Dinner Discussions

David Bentley Hart on
the New Atheists faulty
understanding of human
freedom
Patrick Deneen on Wendell
Berrys vision of freedom,
democracy, & community
David Sehat on the complicated story of religious
liberty in America

Thoms Piketty, Capital in the

Twenty-First Century

Ron Highfield on personal identity, freedom, &

human dignity

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The

Brothers Karamazov

April: William Cavanaugh

on freedom & economics

Mark Noll, The Civil War as

a Theological Crisis
William Cavanaugh, Being
Consumed

Were now hard at work on preparing

an equally strong series of programs
for next year, when our theme will be
Desire and Knowledge.

Annual Theme:
Freedom & the Free Society

Reading Groups on
Christianity & Culture
This year our more than 25 reading groups were attended
by 370 people, including students, faculty, community
members, & pastors, participated. The groups included:

Throughout the year, we also

hosted a series of reading groups
& talks on the InklingsC.S.
Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, & their
circle. Many of these events
overlapped with our freedom
theme in fascinating ways:
Joseph Pearce, Freedom and
Slavery in The Lord of the Rings
Dorothy Sayers, The Man Born to
be King (reading group)
Phil Rolnick, C.S. Lewis and the
Drama of Creation
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
(reading group)
Dave Deavel, The Tao of Jack:
C.S. Lewis on the Foundation of
Freedom
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
(reading group)

Work and Vocation

Jeff Van Duzer, Why Business
Matters to God

Theology
Augustine, Confessions

Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavor

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Amy Sherman, Kingdom Calling

William Cavanaugh, Being Consumed

Tom Nelson, Work Matters

Daniel Sulmasy, The Healers Calling

Cultural Engagement
James Davison Hunter, To Change
the World
Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov
Thomas Piketty, Capital in the
Twenty-First Century
Marilynne Robinson, Home & Lila
James K. A. Smith, How (Not) to
Be Secular

John Haught, Science & Religion

Charles Marsh, Strange Glory: A Life
of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Topic-Based
Theology and Economics
Politics After the Fall
Cities and Human Flourishing
Toward a Christian Environmental
Stewardship
First Things Readers Group

Student Engagement
Our work with students
includes everything from the
highly structured, year-long
Colin MacLaurin Fellows
program to our open, informal
coffee hours every Friday.
Over the course of the year, our
coffee hours were attended by
over 400 students.

My name is Brad Gordon, and I am a secondyear PhD student in Water Resources Science.
My research investigates the relationship between
vegetation & water quality in wetlands & ravines.

The Colin MacLaurin Fellows Program has been

a blessing in my life. It has challenged me to be
more conscious of my faith in every aspect of
my studies & has provided an amazing source of
Christian fellowship at the U of M.
The Fellows Program has given me the
opportunity to ask challenging questions about
how I can glorify God in my work. Each fellows
meeting is saturated with encouraging discussions
about how every subject, every field, & every
form of work was created for worshipping &
glorifying God. I am more conscious than every
before of my Creators presence in each corner of
his creation.

Students were deeply engaged

in our reading groups, as
well as in many of the other
programs we hostedMars
Hill dinner discussions, film
nights, and, of course, our
campus lectures.

My name is Cecelia Cathcart and I

am a senior mechanical engineering
student at the U of M.

We started a new program

for freshmen, Lumen: Life
& Learning in the Light of
Christ, which introduced the
idea of academic faithfulness to
students new to the U.

Participating in the Colin MacLaurin Fellows

program this year gave me the opportunity
to lay the groundwork for a theology of
technology and, more broadly, of work. It
gave me the space to explore and consider
different approaches to my field with input
from the community of fellows. Ultimately, it
helped me to distill what a biblical approach
to engineering might look like.

The impact of our work with

students can be felt in these
testimonials from Brad and
Cecelia, two of this years Colin
MacLaurin Fellows.

I now feel greater confidence as I enter into

industry after graduation, knowing that I do
not have to leave my faith at home but can
continue to learn and practice what it means
to be an engineer in the Kingdom of God.

We organize monthly meetings of

the Christian Faculty Network on all
campuses (two on the East Bank!)

Dinkytown

Our University Roundtables, held once

each semester, are times for faculty from
across campus, regardless of department or
religious affiliation, to engage with questions
of meaning and purpose. This years topics:

St. Paul

The University and the Common Good

with Holmer Lecturer Patrick Deneen

Stadium Village

Genes and the Big Questions of Life

West Bank

with Anderson Lecturer William Hurlbut

Faculty Engagement
Our faculty events are some of the few truly interdisciplinary conversations available on campus.
Heres a representative sample of the departments our faculty participants come from:
biology

history

medicinal chemistry

biomedical engineering

history of science and

technology

music

business
chemical engineering
dentistry
electrical engineering
health policy and
management

horticulture

organizational leadership,
policy, and development

law

philosophy

math

public health

mechanical engineering

veterinary population
medicine

medicine

3.4k+

12k+

Total YouTube
Views

Total Visits
to the Site

1.3k+

Total Followers
on Social Media

Online
Engagement
Here are a few highlights of our online
presence since the launch of our new
website last September.

1.75k+

Total SoundCloud
Listens + Downloads

MacLaurinCSF.org

3.6k+

Total subscribers
to our email list

Visit us to check it
out for yourself!