RECAPTURE

worldwide collaboration for paradigm shift

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Still more photos

thanks again, shannon!

THE FORUMS

As we have mentioned before, our top goal is to involve students in making an impression in the global panorama for the cause of Christ. To that end, we would establish an ongoing series of public forums put on by AS. These would hopefully be instrumental in the process of uniting different majors and ministries for the sake of vocational integration as it relates to the advancement of the gospel.

What does this look like?

For instance, an ICS major and an Art major forum in which people of different interests and gifts are uniting in order to better influence their culture. What can an Art major learn from an ICS major to make his or her work more universally appealing? How can an ICS major begin to view the world artistically? Vocational integration, and this is extremely important to us.

Another type of forum could be one that unites different ethnicities, to discuss upfront what can be done in the realm of racial reconciliation.

Another type would unite Christians of various denominational backgrounds in order to lock arms in ministry.

Get the picture? Unity in purpose, the kind of purpose that changes the paradigms of a culture.

If you have any questions on this, please email us and let us know.

THE INFORMATION

Remember the turn of the century? The millennium? Y2K?

One of the greatest things about the dawn of the 21st century was the way in which information is easier than ever to transmit. The internet has brought the daily video diaries of everyone from CEO’s to teenage girls into the same realm as feature films and primetime television.

It is high time that AS capitalize on new media to distribute information to the student body. One of the AS president’s primary duties is to distribute information about AS to the student body, and Alex and I are deeply committed to keeping the students involved in their government in the following ways:

We will have weekly podcasts. Alex’s will detail happenings and highlights from the Senate while mine will deal with the direction of the University and the thoughts of the administration.

We will create AS-PAN (Associated Students Public Access Network), video coverage of each week’s Senate meetings. The complete and entire goings on of each and every meeting will be made public for all of Biola to observe.

We will create online interactive polls in which students can directly voice their opinion to their senators.

We will include profile pages of all members of AS along with their contact information so that they will be easily accessible to the student body.

We will maintain our blog (currently found at bradleyandalex.blogspot.com) with the most current of information.

We will collaborate with the Registrar and each department to create one University wide calendar detailing every event that happens on campus.

All of these will be assembled in one website, easily accessible by each and every student at Biola, therefore bringing AS fully into the 21st century. All of these ideas are entirely feasible. I personally am familiar with delivery of information via the web through my work with LATE.

Alex and I intend to RECAPTURE thorough efficiency and wide use of the most current media of distributing information to the student body.

THE PRESTIGE

Prestige—at one time, Christians were at the forefront of every field that they entered. It is our duty to RECAPTURE this prestige so that we are able to truly and completely impact the global panorama for the cause of Christ.

Biola, being a Christian institution of higher education, ought to be among the top schools in the nation. In the foreseeable future, we need to be able to deserve mention alongside names such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and the like.

In order to set Biola on the right track, Alex and I fully intend to collaborate with the administration to RECAPTURE the prestige in the following ways:

-Addition of graduate programs. If Christians are to be considered experts in their field, the best way to give them that credibility is to allow them the opportunity to earn advanced degrees on this campus. Talbot and Rosemead are prime examples of RECAPTURING prestige; Alex and I want to spread this to several more fields.

-Raising the ratio of faculty with doctorates. According to the Office of Admissions, only 2/3 of Biola’s faculty hold terminal degrees (source), compared to Azusa’a 76% (source).

-Dramatically growing the endowment. The top colleges in the nation have endowments worth $500,000 to $1,500,000 per student! Biola’s, on the other hand, is $8,618 (according to Carl Schreiber, Biola’s Vice President for Financial Affairs & Information Technology).

-Joining the NCAA. This would raise school spirit; the prospect of winning contests against other respected institutions raises the stakes drastically. Our teams would attract athletes of even higher quality. The athletic programs of most NCAA schools make money for their school. All this, and we would generate national media attention, much like Oral Roberts University as they made it to the tournament this month.

I realize that all these will not be accomplished in this year alone, but with the new president being hired and a new administration joining him, Alex and I will make it a priority to collaborate in the next round of dreaming, shifting the focus towards RECAPTURE in order to shape the future of our world in the name of Christ.

Collaboration in our services

It is our hope to collaborate with the services of Biola for the sake of their improvement. However, it is not the right response to grumble and complain at what we have available for us. Trust me, I am from a country in which the services do not even compare to the luxuries we have here.

Yet it is an objective we have to improve what we have here. As our school increases in size, we need to make sure we can accommodate everyone. So, services such as food, mail, and internet can be improved. Again, we are grateful for what we have here at Biola, but believe we can collaborate and serve so that we can properly serve the student body.

Why?

First, we believe that this institution deserves the best. In other words, striving for excellence even in the things that are secondary or auxiliary can be a great testimony of the work ethic we have as Christians. Also, in trying to RECAPTURE, we hope not to comply to the cultural stigmas in regards to these services, but to set the standard for them.

Second, we hope to cause global impact; in the pursuit of this higher objective it would be nice to be able to consistently rely on the resources here at Biola. On that note, I would like to thank everyone working in the mentioned departments - the campus is in constant need of humble professionals such as yourselves.