Summer 2018 Newsletter of the Christian Engineering Society

2019 Christian Engineering Conference (July 11-13, 2019)

By Justin Vander Werff (Justin.VanderWerff@dordt.edu

We are excited to announce that the 2019 Christian Engineering Conference will be hosted by Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa on July 11-13, 2019. Look for the Call for Papers, which will be released soon, and mark your calendars for this opportunity to discuss what it means to be disciples of Christ in engineering, technology, and engineering education and to fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ who engage in these areas. Feel free to contact program chair Randy Schwindt (rschwind@uu.edu) or general chair Justin Vander Werff (Justin.VanderWerff@dordt.edu) with any questions. We hope you will be able to join us in the beautiful Midwestern plains for this great opportunity!

2019 Disaster Shelter Design Competition (Apr. 11-13, 2019)

by Mark Terrill (mterrill@jbu.edu)

We will be holding our 8th Annual Disaster Shelter Design Competition at JBU during April 11-13, 2019. We will be updating the website and information over the next couple of weeks, but I wanted to give you all a heads up for planning purposes.  The format and testing will be generally the same as we have done previously, but as usual we will be changing the disaster scenario and adjusting some of the scoring criteria to meet scenario conditions. For any who have not attended the event in the past, the website has videos and photos from past years that I think would help to understand the event. Please let me know if I can answer any questions.  Also, if you know of anyone interested in this type of event, please pass this email along. For more information, please visit the following website. http://www.jbu.edu/shelter_contest/

CES Dinner at the 2018 ASEE Annual Conference

By Ted Song (tsong@jbu.edu)

Thank you all who joined dinner at the 2018 ASEE Annual Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was great seeing you, and I look forward to meeting you next year at the conference in Tampa, Florida. Thanks!

William Carey Academy, Bangladesh

by Paul Beatty (pbeatty@wcabangladesh.net)

My name is Paul Beatty.  I serve as the new director of William Carey Academy, a Christian K-12 school located in Chittagong, Bangladesh. It may seem a bit odd to receive a request from a school as an engineering society, but we share the Christian mission of using our professions to advance the Great Commission. In so much, pardon the pun but I'm praying that we may be able "engineer" a relationship that provides an answer to an urgent need at our school and a long-term possibility for providing a platform for recruiting Bangladeshi students into your profession. Let me provide you a little background on our school, then I will share my urgent need and long-term vision. William Carey Academy (WCA) was founded in 1996 by Mrs. Marilou Long with the vision to provide an American curriculum in English to share the gospel among the Bangladeshi youth in this Muslim majority nation and prepare them to attend world-class universities.  Furthermore, the vision was to build long-term the Christian presence in the future leaders of Bangladesh. Mrs. Long continues to serve as our Chancellor providing us a continued connection to our vision and countless means of support in forwarding our institution.  I have included her on this email as she is an invaluable wealth of information about the school and Bangladesh.  I have attached a pdf with a profile of our school and some images.  I am also sharing a promotional video put together last spring by our students.  Lastly, www.wcabangladesh.net is our website, and here is our flyer.

Most importantly, we have been seeking to fill a teaching vacancy for high school math (including Calculus).  We started the year with a long-term substitute whose temporary visa will expire at the beginning of October.  She incidentally was a retired engineer with Boeing and has been doing a phenomenal job.  With math teachers in short supply, I am reaching out to your organization as a potential alternative source of math teachers.  In Bangladesh, our teachers are not required to have the teacher licenses like American teachers.  Our teachers are required to have a bachelor's degree of some type.  Obviously, as a Christian school, we seek individuals who are born again Christians with the capacity to teach the subject.  With the math background required for engineering and years of insight into its application, your membership is very suitable for teaching math. So my specific request is for you to share our need with your membership, particularly retirees, to see if God is calling any of them into this type of ministry with unsaved youth.

I mentioned that I am also interested in a long-term vision related to engineering.  Many of our students are interested in the field of engineering.  As mentioned, we would appreciate fostering a long-term pipeline of Christian math teachers with engineering backgrounds who could be a continuous mentor to future engineers.  Moreover, I would also be interested in volunteers who could visit for shorter periods of time who could provide opportunities such as a weekend or summer engineering camp or a week of robotics exploration, etc.  Lastly, I would greatly appreciate developing a network of engineers who could serve as liaisons with their alma maters for students who seek to pursue engineering degrees in the United States.  All of these endeavors could not only serve the WCA students a short term, it could serve your organization's interest in using "our skills as engineers in ways that build God's kingdom" by populating future Bangladesh's engineering professionals with many Christian witnesses. Thank you in advance for your prayful consideration of my requests. 

Mentoring Opportunity: The Baton Exchange 

by John Scroggins (john@thebatonexchange.com)

My name is John Scroggins, Executive Director of The Baton Exchange. We’re a nonprofit ministry whose cause is to equip Christian 20-Somethings to integrate faith, work and leadership for redemptive influence in the global workplace. One of the ways we accomplish our mission is through a mentoring program whereby we match young adults by gender and occupation for a year of Life2Life mentoring. We recently had someone enroll requesting a mentor in mechanical engineering or industrial engineering. Would you happen to know someone- perhaps a member of the Christian Engineers Society- who might be interested in being a mentor?

  

Mentor Expectations

• Is a disciple of Jesus Christ and believes in the essential doctrines of the Christian faith.

• Available once per month (arranged by mentor and protege, typically over breakfast or lunch) with about 20 minutes of reading prep. Protégé lives near Mount Vernon, Ohio. Virtual mentoring possible if the mentor doesn’t live in the area.

• 12 months.

• Use mentoring curriculum provided by Baton Exchange.

• Is 35 years old or older. (Proteges typically don't see anyone as mentors if there isn't a significant age gap. Our proteges are typically in their 20s.)

• Focus is on the integration of faith and work and the protege's goals for career, spiritual life, and leadership.

• If mentor would like to contribute toward the cost of the mentor binder they receive, that is appreciated, but not expected.

• The Protege is responsible for each meeting's agenda, which will typically follow the curriculum as well as them working toward career, spiritual, and leadership goals.

• Complete a volunteer/mentor application

 

Proteges are expected to financially invest in their mentoring so that they have something vested in it and are more likely to follow through, so they pay a minimal monthly fee. Life2Life mentoring is a wonderful way to invest in a young adult for Kingdom Impact in our culture and marketplaces! We've done over 60 mentor matches in 3 states. Mentoring is a great way to grow- for the protege and the mentor! If you know of anyone who may be interested, would you connect us? For more on our mentoring program, visit www.thebatonexchange.com/mentoring.

Opportunity to Participate in Research 

by John Lommel (lommeljm@grace.edu)

John Lommel, Assistant Provost at Grace College and Seminary, is a doctoral student at Azusa Pacific University.  He is currently working on his dissertation which focuses on how one’s Christian faith affects one’s discipline and vice versa.  From his years working at LeTourneau University, he has chosen to explore this relationship specifically in the lives for engineering faculty members.  He is currently recruiting potential engineering faculty that would be willing to be interviewed for this study.  If you would like more information about the study or are interested in being a participant, please follow the following link: https://sites.google.com/grace.edu/engineering-spirituality/home.  

Moderating the CES List of Books and Articles 

by David Che (ched2@asme.org)

Are you a Christian who happens to be an Engineer? Are you an Engineer who is also a Christian? Have you ever thought about integrating the two roles into one? These are tough questions to ask and answer. Fortunately, many Christian engineers and scholars had mulled over the same questions over the years and they are willing to share their thoughts with you! One of the main reasons for CES' existence is to help you think through these issues. In addition to offering bi-annual conferences and making conference papers available online, CES also maintains on its website a rich compilation of books and articles that reflect the integration of engineering and faith. We welcome CES members to contribute articles or suggest new books to be added to this growing body of literature. For more information, please contact our new CES resource curator Dr. David Che.

CES Update on Membership

The officers of the formally organized Christian Engineering Society have determined our membership guidelines, which are posted on the CES website. The guidelines provide for individuals to become members of the society and for institutional membership. We will continue to publish the website and newsletter for anyone interested, even if not an official member. However, we hope you will prayerfully consider joining the society in a formal way to show your commitment and interest to this important subject. In order to encourage this, we have set the membership dues at a very low amount compared to most other professional societies.  We now have two options for you to make the membership purchase.  You can send a check to our treasurer, or you can subscribe via PayPal.  

US citizens can also make a tax-deductible donation to the society, either by sending a check or by using the Pay Pal link on the main page. Questions or comments? Feel free to contact any of the four officers

Seeking Engineering and Christianity Activities

If there is a project or activity at your institution/organization that relates engineering with faith, missions and/or service, we’d like to include it in a future CES newsletter. Please contact Ted Song (tsong@jbu.edu) or Steve VanderLeest (Steven.H.VanderLeest at gmail dot com) with a description of the project/activity. Thanks!

Newsletter Sign Up and Article Contributions

This newsletter is a publication of the Christian Engineering Society, distributed no more than once per month. You can sign up to receive an email notification when a new newsletter is available. Ted Song of John Brown University is the moderator and editor of the newsletter. Sometimes email filters will block mass distributions like the newsletter announcement, so be sure you whitelist the address "ces-announce@calvin.edu" to allow the newsletter announcement to get through. 

If you have questions about the newsletter, send an email to Ted at tsong@jbu.edu. Society members are encouraged to submit announcements and contribute articles!  (Editor reserves the right to make the final decision on inclusion of all content.)

Resources & Career Opportunities

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