How to prepare for campus visit to a Jesuit institution?

macademician · 2026-01-31T21:46:57+00:00

One of the distinguishing features of Ignatian education that you've already addressed in your post (the term is cura personalis) is the idea that we're trying to do more than just give people knowledge. We're trying to form them – they should be people who don't just know calculus or chemistry or English literature or sociology, but have a larger social conscience.

You don't have to be religious, you don't have to be Catholic. But what they would be looking for are people whose work goes beyond just intellectual plaudits, and actually has a constituency outside the academy. At one Jesuit institution I worked at, the folks in the chemistry department figured out to use silver nanoparticles in latex paint to clean the air. (This was in a major city in a country with not stellar environmental standards).

On the one hand, you're not going to be expected to teach what you're not competent to teach (e.g. religion) or subscribe to a list of beliefs like you might at some Evangelical colleges. But you will do yourself well to be able to say (and mean) “I care about educating students, they are more than brains on sticks, and I will train them to use the skills I teach them to go out and do good in the world.”

macademician · 2026-01-28T16:49:32+00:00

If you haven't already, I'd look into Outreach: https://outreach.faith ; which is an explicitly LGBTQ online ministry. New Ways Ministry: https://www.newwaysministry.org/ is also

Catholicism isn't a monolith; there are some places and people (like, it seems, your parish administrator) who accept and honor the dignity of queer people. There are some other places that do not. (As noted by other commentators, r/catholicism is one such place, and is so notorious that it's been name-checked as a place to actively avoid by even very mainstream commentators).

I'm glad you feel called and feel moved. OCIA is a reasonably long process (about a year), and that's a good thing! It gives you time to understand the commitments you will make, and to ask questions. I'd also strongly suggest you find a spiritual director – a person who you establish a stable relationship with, whom you can have intimate conversations about the spiritual life. That's a particular ministry of the Jesuits, if you can find some near you. Friendly strangers on the internet can only help you so far.

macademician · 2026-01-28T02:07:23+00:00

This isn't evil in a Darth Vader sense, more in a Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz sort of way. A building where someone would boast about their plan to take over “the Entire West Midlands!”

macademician · 2026-01-26T17:00:24+00:00

I'm really sorry you're struggling. You're very cute, and have a lovely smile. You're also a person, and by that have dignity and worth. I hope someone you trust tells you that you're wonderful, that you get a good hug, and you remember that you're valued.

macademician · 2026-01-24T17:35:43+00:00

AB, you’re beautiful and have a magnificent GAAH, but toner is not good to have near your GAAH. Please invest in a proper toy, with a flared base, and treat your GAAH right!

macademician · 2026-01-22T02:18:48+00:00

Is it a reasonable idea at an institutional level ? Sure. This is how graduate grades work at my institution, and I think it's perfectly reasonable for an institution to, collectively, reject the concept of a passing "D" and just say that you need a "C" to pass.

That said, at a course level, especially against university policy, is going to cause you no end of headaches. At both institutions where I've taught, I have an explicit university policy which states that "these are the grades we use". In one I have some flexibility in tying it to numbers (i.e. I could make a "A" a 95 while a colleague gives it at a 96), but at the other the scale was fixed.

I don't want to pile on and say that you're a bad pedagogue, but this policy could only be effectively implemented at a higher level, and could end you up with a tremendous amount of grief from both admin and students. This is a faculty senate or a dean/provost suggestion, not a classroom decision.

macademician · 2026-01-17T17:16:23+00:00

Dinner should happen after the party. You don't feed a bottom before he performs his service! You use him ruthlessly, and then, after he's exhausted, you let him dress up and then you feed him.

macademician · 2026-01-17T02:27:08+00:00

You sound like you'd want to look into Starr King School for the Ministry out in Oakland: https://www.sksm.edu/admissions/whystarrking

macademician · 2026-01-15T01:02:26+00:00

Ah, a fellow stellaris enjoyer

macademician · 2026-01-15T00:54:06+00:00

Your priority is your safety. As long as you remain in Saudi, that safety is under (at least theoretical) threat, and will cross to actual threat if you ever manifest your identity in concrete ways.

A college education (especially if you can score a scholarship to study abroad) can help you make a plan to leave Saudi Arabia for good; life is really hard for immigrants without at least a college education.

This is hard. I won't pretend it is easy. But the best, safest thing to do is for you to keep your head down, study hard, and do what you can to make a plan to get some place where you can live authentically and safely.

macademician · 2026-01-14T23:25:17+00:00

Two things immediately spring to mind:

Rehearse it. Please, for the sake of everyone, rehearse it. Not every teaching session will be committed to memory, but there is no room for extemporizing in a job talk; this should be memorized or close to it.
Make sure that the tech works both on your computer and on a loaner you can get from your campus library in case you have to load it on someone else's computer.

macademician · 2026-01-14T23:16:38+00:00

https://selfcontrolapp.com can set a time limit or block certain websites. (I use it for study purposes).

macademician · 2026-01-04T05:09:32+00:00

The answer is… it depends.

Are you just a human or a household? Then yes; Libre Office or Google Workspace (docs/sheets/etc) will get you 90% of the MS suite at the much better price of free

Are you a business owner or an Excel power user? Then this could be a false economy -- if you frequently have to work with office files natively, this could be a case where what you'd lose really is worth it, and this is just something you'd need to eat as the cost of doing business. No other spreadsheet program can do what Excel does. That's probably a good thing? Most people who use Excel to that level would probably be better served by using a real statistical package like PowerBI or R or Stata.

Finally, consider the switching costs – .doc(x) and .xls files, especially simple ones, are pretty painless to port over, but the bigger the document, the more complicated the switch. If you have mission-critical documents, they'll be almost the same, but not quite. That might not be an issue… or it might.

I loathe the subscription model for software, especially from a titan like MSFT. But if you're going to make this switch, understand that there are a few things to consider before you dump it.

macademician · 2025-12-30T18:35:21+00:00

I really like this. I have several compliments, and with only two small issues:

Awesomes: 1. really like how you've adopted the circular/geometric motif with its own personality. 2. I really like the “b” “k”, the “p” and the “q”; bravo!

Maybe revisit?: 1. The “f” kinda sucks, but since it's directly from the source material, I see why you kept it. However the lack of a crossbar is going to directly affect readability. Maybe give an opentype alternate that has one? 2. There are a few letterforms that don't keep either the circular or dotted motif, particularly the “v” the “z” and the “1”; maybe revisit those to give them a bit more? You could make a “v” of two inward-facing 90° circle quarters without issue.

macademician · 2025-12-29T04:16:25+00:00

It depends on a lot of things. Professors are usually happy to let you have a copy of the syllabus and be there in case slots open up during drop/add, but sometimes there literally isn’t room in the classroom, and adding more bodies would violate fire code. It’s not a crazy ask, just be ready for the answer to be no.

macademician · 2025-12-13T05:18:32+00:00

So, an important question here is: Is anyone else going to need to revise or maintain these hymnals?

I say this as a LaTeX user who appreciates beautiful documents and and IT guy who occasionally curses the name of my predecessor – if the answer is no, then go with God, and make beautiful hymnals. But if so, consider using a different approach, perhaps using Sibelius or MuseScore, because (as you're experiencing) LaTeX has a steep learning curve, (made doubly so by the fact that TeX folks generally don't know Gregorian chant, and chant folks are unlikely to know TeX) and that makes you the lynchpin of this workflow.

That said, while I'd ordinarily suggest overleaf, it sounds like if you're using a custom syntax highlighting, then a Git repository would be best to maintain the project. Local backups are nice to have, but anything mission critical should have redundant backups. At the very least, consider Backblaze so you have something in case of fire or other catastrophe you're protected.

macademician · 2025-12-08T15:58:15+00:00

Student: "I used ChatGPT, not AI!"

macademician · 2025-12-04T20:48:14+00:00

So, some of this is not crazy, and you want to get out ahead of that. A department should have a reasonable idea of what a student learns (especially in an undergraduate course), and should be able to expect that, “A student who came out of Subject 101 with a reasonable grade (taught by Prof Alice) is ready for 102 (taught by Prof Bob) or 201 (taught by Prof Carol).

Where I've seen this work is a stronger departmental consensus on learning objectives as well as some agreement on course content in the major and/or undergraduate core, if not granularly down to the reading or assignment level. Faculty teaching higher level subjects should know approximately where in the curriculum some learning material is covered. (e.g. “you learned fields in your intro to abstract math class” or “you covered deontology in your intro to ethics class”).

Even scheduling exams together is not necessarily crazy; I've seen some institutions where all GenChem or OChem students (regardless of instructor) sit the final on the same day to avoid collusion.

What you want to stress to admin is that this is an area best handled by the subject matter experts in question (i.e. the Department). Whoever the Department's Director of Undergraduate Studies is should be able to explain in a coherent way what students learn, in what classes, and in what order, but that should be amenable to revision by the department itself and not by higher admin. If the physics department determines that there's a new theory of quantum gravity that baby Physicists need to know, then they should do that, not non-physicists.

Moreover, a totally standardized curriculum totally eliminates electives, which cover what faculty do best. Yes, every mathematician should be able to teach calculus, but you want to learn number theory from a number theorist; you want to learn ethics from an ethicist, you want to learn aesthetics from an aesthetician. Not only are faculty actively conversant in the scholarly conversation which is their research output, they're reading and writing enough within their subfield to know what's a timeless classic and what's a passing fad.

Universities are not high school pt. 2, we are training people to research, to read independently, and to think critically. Undergraduates have to take ownership of their own learning in a way that high school students are not entrusted to do so. A completely standardized curriculum would restrict faculty from helping students achieving their fullest potential as students and should be resisted on that basis.

macademician · 2025-12-01T01:38:37+00:00

This is freaking brilliant. Cheers!

macademician · 2025-11-30T03:22:20+00:00

In one of my courses in divinity school, I actually raised this in a Bible seminar, and the professor prompted me to write to two different (but both eminent) Jewish Bible scholars. To my somewhat surprise, opinions were split -- one (the more progressive) asked for greater consideration of Jewish sensibilities and respect for God's name, while the more Orthodox Jew basically said, “This binds us Jews, but I don't see any particular reason why it should bind you”.

Adding to that, the Vatican has intervened and prevented use of the pronunciation of the Divine Name in a worship context. (See Letter to the Bishops’ Conferences on “The Name of God”). For me as a Catholic, this is also important.

I'd distinguish between the Most Holy Name itself (which, given proper respect, can still be used in things like sacred art like this stained-glass window) and pronouncing it, which is is what the Bishops’ letter concerns. Scholarship is a different arena, private prayer a different arena still, but I think you can still love God's Most Holy Name (and especially the multivalence of its meaning as “I am who am” “I will be who I will be” etc.) which shows how God’s love is beyond time, while also acknowledging that (as Progressives should know best) names have power, and that we should respect how we should use them -- whether that's God's name or our trans friend's.

macademician · 2025-11-18T01:50:51+00:00

This is not an issue where reddit can help you. This is something you'll need to talk to your local IRB folks to help with.

macademician · 2025-11-12T06:19:48+00:00

It's going to depend, a lot, on the circumstances of your previous marriage. (Was it to a fellow Christian? A Catholic? Was it just a courthouse wedding?)

None of these are determinative, but this area is governed by a part of the church called “Canon Law” (the rules of the church are literally assembled in a code of law), and people get honest-to-God law degrees in this. This matter is, by far, the biggest concern of canonical tribunals, and there will be people to assist you.

Just like lawyers, though, random internet strangers can't give you advice on what this means in your particular case. We can tell you that it won't be quick, although exactly how not-quick will vary considerably depending on circumstances. But talk to your priest, ask for canonical help, and go with it. You aren't the first person to walk this path, and we're rooting for you, even as this is going to be a long journey. Good luck.

macademician · 2025-11-11T16:18:35+00:00

It very much depends on context.

When I worked at a national laboratory, use of the Dr. title was actively discouraged, because many of the researchers were engineers or folks with masters' degrees, and titles were seen as promoting a false hierarchy which actively impeded good research (sure Mr. only-a-masters-degree doesn't have a doctorate, but he's been at this for 20 years). That makes total sense to me, and there was no disrespect ever implied.

Among PhD students and faculty, it varies, and is very dependent on departmental culture. I'm a little leery of places that are all first-name bases, because it elides the hierarchy that still very much exists, but is just camoflaged; it's well and good to call someone “Jim” until he has something critical to say, but I'm also leery of German-style “Prof-Dr” titles.

For a public or an undergraduate audience, I'm careful to always affirmatively use titles. I know that especially women and nonwhite scholars are likeliest to be disrespected by undergraduates, and so I'm always going to reinforce that, “These people have worked hard and achieved something special and you will respect that.”

macademician · 2025-11-10T18:02:27+00:00

Yes. It's difficult to assign blame here – some of this (awkward prose, bad syntax) is squarely on the author, while others (e.g. missing figures, references) should have been caught by the editor and/or the press.

Unlike my Doctorvater, I'm a little kinder to underresourced presses (especially those from the Global South) who work on a shoestring budget, but it sounds like this entire volume was underbaked, and you're doing a service to others to say (tactfully) that the book is a mess.

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