Spring 2021 Newsletter of the Christian Engineering Society

2022 Christian Engineering Conference (June 29-July 1, 2022)

by Carrie Francis (cafrancis@unwsp.edu)

Greetings from Minnesota! The Fall 2020 newsletter noted that the next Christian Engineering conference was postponed to 2022. We are pleased to announce that the 2022 CEC will be hosted by the University of Northwestern-St. Paul from June 29 through July 1. After more than a year of adaptation to new means, modalities, and methods of completing our usual work, we hope that you are able to rest, reflect, and reset this summer. As you do, please watch for a Call for Papers later this summer. We look forward to being able to fellowship with one another as we discuss working as followers of Christ in engineering, technology, and engineering education. Feel free to contact program chair Brian Swartz (bswartz@messiah.edu) or general chair Carrie Francis (cafrancis@unwsp.edu) with any questions. We hope that you will be able to join us in the Twin Cities next summer!

CES Membership Record Update

The CES officers have been working on an improved membership management system for both the individual and institutional members of CES. Membership in the past has been closely tied to attendance at the Christian Engineering Conference, so membership “records” have been a bit disjointed and compiled from multiple spreadsheet sources. We are excited to announce that over the next several weeks we plan to move our membership records to a more formal membership management system, breeze (https://www.breezechms.com), that will provide CES members easier access to checking their membership status, paying membership dues, etc. We also expect it will provide members with another way to network with each other.

As part of this improvement in membership management, we are planning to use an annual membership period from July 1 to June 30. This annual timeframe aligns nicely with CEC conference timing in late June or early July and also aligns well with academic calendars. Given this adjustment of the annual membership period, the CES officers have approved dues that have been paid in the last several months to be valid for the 2021-2022 membership period.

If you are currently a CES member, or if you have been a member in the past but have lapsed on your membership dues, look forward to receiving communication from CES in the next couple of weeks on how to use the new membership management system and how to use the system to be up-to-date on membership dues. We pray that this system will simplify the membership process and serve as a useful tool in the future work of CES.

"The Social Dilemma"

One of our CES members, Derek C. Schuurman, Professor of Computer Science at Calvin University, recently shared his perspective on technology. This article ("The Social Dilemma") was posted on Christian Scholar's Review. 

Job Postings and CES LinkedIn/Facebook Page

Don't forget to check the Resources & Career page for job postings and the following pages.

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. Additionally, 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. Society members are always encouraged to submit announcements and contribute articles! (Editor reserves the right to make the final decision on inclusion of all content.) CES also welcome members to contribute articles or suggest new books to be added to this growing body of literature. If you are interested, please contact the CES resource curator Dr. David Che at ched2@asme.org.