Emerging Scholars Network

09/04/2026

Women Scholars and Professionals: Fall Book Club

Are you struggling in grad school and wish you had people ahead of you on the journey whose wisdom you could use? Perhaps you are a junior professor and long for counsel from older Christian professors about the path ahead. Or you might be a senior professor who didn’t have much support when you were starting your career and would love to share your wisdom with younger colleagues.

Whatever your vocational stage, you are invited to join us this fall as we read and discuss Cultivating Mentors and consider the importance of investing in relationships for our own flourishing and for that of our colleagues and students. We will discuss how to both receive and offer support in our disciplines, departments, and institutions. Discussions will take place on Tuesdays beginning September 29. InterVarsity Press has generously offered a discount on the book for those taking part. For details and to register, visit bit.ly/wsapfallbookclub.

09/02/2026

How does your faith connect with your work?

Join us for the Faith & Work Accelerator 2026, hosted by InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network and the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA).

Elaine Howard Ecklund, one of the world's leading experts on the sociology of faith and work, will share insights from her two most recent books. You'll also hear from a panel of Christian scholars and professionals, followed by field-specific small group discussions where you can explore your own questions and experiences.

Saturday, September 26, 2026
1:00 PM EDT
Online

This interactive event includes Q&A, meaningful discussion, and opportunities to connect with others seeking to integrate faith and work in their daily lives.

Learn more & Register: https://network.asa3.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=2082216&group=

09/01/2026

These words from Wendell Berry are for poets of all types - chemists, cellists, writers, wonderers.

How to Be a Poet

i
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

08/31/2026

Women Scholars and Professionals weekly prayer meetings are back! Join with other women in the academy and professionals in these guided prayer gatherings as they pray for our world, our work, and ourselves. Even if you cannot make it, their team will be glad to receive your prayer requests. Email them at [email protected] for the link to the prayer gatherings and to share your requests.

08/28/2026

Black grad students join BSAP to bring your whole self, combat imposter syndrome, build Godly community, and grow through a contextual study of Scripture. Tuesday September 1 at 7:30pm ET/ 4:30pm PT.

08/26/2026

While Moses was tending sheep on a mountain side, the Lord appeared to him in a burning bush and called out to him, saying “Put off your shoes from your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” Jesus is our perfect model, he taught us that all ground is holy—all of life for our Master was hallowed, to be dedicated fully to God; all of life was a sacrament. The new “Holy of Holies,” the new inner sanctuary, is in each of us, for each of us is the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are on holy ground wherever we go.

At the beginning of this semester, we affirm before God that the work done as scholars each day takes place on holy ground. May God’s blessing be on each scholar's work and for guidance in making each act pleasing in God’s sight. We offer back to God the work which God has given them to do.

(Adapted from InterVarsity's Ordination to Daily Work)

08/24/2026

O Lord, you who promise to be with me always, be with me this day as I begin my schoolwork; keep me in health, I pray, and keep me from harm; and in all that I say and do, may I love you with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and may I love my neighbor as myself, so that I might fulfill your calling upon my life as a student. I pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Prayers for the Pilgrimage, W. David O. Taylor

08/21/2026

As you begin this new semester, how do you encounter the campus? Might prayerfully walking and praying across campus open you to seeing God's presence in this place?

What might it mean to see the campus as a crossroads? As a place of intersection where the church and academia meet?

08/19/2026

Are you a new grad student? Here's a letter for you from the ESN archives. As relevant today as when it was written.

Dear New Graduate Student, I don't know you. And yet today, I think about you and pray for you. The academic world is small and mobile enough that there's a good chance we'll be on the same campus at some point in our lifetimes, and yet this letter is probably the only chance I'll be able to speak t...

08/17/2026

Check out and comment on the latest Science Corner post: Epic Science.

Is The Odyssey about public health? Apparently when I watch it, it is.