Dr. Ventura's Blog

Searching for Leaders

2007-10-30T08:53:00.000-07:00

In his book titled Spiritual Leadership, Oswald Sanders noted three characteristics of a good leader that included:

Authoritative
Spiritual
Sacrificial

My question for you is how do you live these three elements out in the class room? Is it as easy as slapping a Bible verse into a syllabus? What do you think?

Bill

Eternal Perspective

2007-10-05T11:14:00.000-07:00

Harry Blamires mentioned in his book The Christian Mind the idea that "A prime mark of the Christian mind is that it cultivates the eternal perspective" (p. 67). What does this really look like from the perspective of a professor and how do we communicate this to our students? It must be more than slapping a Bible verse on a syllabus or quoting Scripture throughout class. How do you cultivate an eternal perspective in your teaching? For the students who may be reading this, what methods have been most effective for you as a student learning about communication, business, government, etc. and this idea of cultivating an eternal perspective? What do you think?
Bill

Thinking Christianly

2007-09-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

This post is related to Chapter 2 in Blamires' book The Christian Mind. My question for you is this, What is a "thinker" and more specifically, what does a "Christian thinker" look like? Blamires noted that "There is nothing in our experience, however trivial, worldly, or even evil, which cannot be thought about christianly" (p. 45). How does this apply to us as communicators who are Christ-followers? What do you think?
Bill

Blamires, H. (2005). The Christian mind: How should a Christian think? Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College Publishing. (Original work published 1963)

Ethics Cloud

2007-09-02T18:24:00.000-07:00

I'm always on the look-out for news stories that highlight a class that I am teaching. Well, here's the first of this semester. I am teaching Communication Ethics (online) and came across this story on the many recent ethical dilemmas that several politicians are facing.

I guess I'm trying to figure out what an "ethics cloud" is? Any ideas? Are ethics clouds good or bad? Do they have silver linings?

Why don't we hear of "good" ethics? It seems that the only press time that ethics gets is when a corporate executive embezzles money or when a politician makes an immoral decision. Strange.

Bill

Welcome!

2007-08-28T08:07:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog. I'm excited to be hosting this blog. I certainly have a lot to discuss and am eager to hear from you too. I'm hopeful that this blog will help build community among scholars and help us dig a little deeper into the field of communication.

Stay tuned for more updates periodically.

Bill