Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Cite Jesus
conference for the third time (see posts about the previous Cite conferences). Cite is the annual national conference for
Christians working in academia (the Simeon Network), whether as lecturers/professors, researchers or
postgraduate students. Around 35 academics, researchers and postgraduate
students met alongside the 1500 undergraduate students at the AFES National Training Event in Canberra. The Cite delegates came from universities in Sydney, Bathurst,
Wollongong, Newcastle, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Canberra. Hopefully next year
we'll have people from all the other states and territories, too.
The 5-day Cite conference was focused around 3 strands:
Doctrine, Public Christianity and Overseas Mission. In the 'overseas mission' strand, we heard from a number of
academics working (or preparing to work) as missionaries in universities around
the world. In particular, we heard from three Australian academics - Dr Neville Carr and his wife Elspeth, and Dr Judy Lund - who have been working at
St Johns University in Tanzania - a new Christian university, only 4 years old, which was
set up by the Anglican church in Tanzania. The Carrs and Dr Lund helped us think through what a
'Christian' university might look like in practice and what our disciplines
might look like through a gospel lens.
They also impressed on us the great
needs at the university,
operating as it does in a developing country where material resources are scarce (think Internet cable, library books,
classrooms, money for field trips), locals with PhDs are extremely rare, and the
immediate material needs of the students often mean that attending classes (which is beneficial in the longer term) has to be sacrificed in order to work or harvest
or care for family members in rural villages (which is absolutely necessary in the short term). But the need for higher education
is great, particularly in teacher education, agriculture and other fields that
will help provide for and improve the lives of the Tanzanian people in the
longer term. The Carrs and Dr Lund estimate that it could be another 10 years before the university can achieve some stability in terms of staffing, resources and student attendance.
So what can be done? There are some Tanzanian students currently completing doctoral studies overseas with a view to returning to St Johns as academic staff, but this obviously takes time. So there is a great need for foreigners with PhDs to go to Tanzania to teach and help build up the curriculum (see e.g. Malcolm Buchanan and his family who went there with CMS last year). If you don't have a PhD, you could help out by purchasing a length of broadband cable (1m or 5m)! The
Tanzanian government is apparently setting up a fibre optic internet backbone for universities around the country, which is great, but the university needs to purchase fibre optic cable to establish a network on campus which can link up to the backbone outside the campus boundaries. Maybe it would make a thoughtful gift for someone you know who is an internet addict!
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