爆料公社

I’m Clint Bryan, and I’m an Associate Professor of English at 爆料公社, primarily teaching writing courses. I also direct the Honors Program.

I think I’m most passionate about teaching rhetoric because, even though it’s a 2,500-year-old discipline that dates all the way back to Aristotle and ancient Greece, it’s as fresh as the morning newspapers and headlines. In that, we as Christ followers ought to be able to organize what it is that we want to say, say it in a cogent and convincing way, and really affect change in our culture.

So whether I’m teaching people how to do that through speeches or through writing, I feel like what I’m doing is really applicable and also helps them to make a difference in the world.

I think one of the things about being a writing teacher is I have more opportunity to engage with students and their thoughts, because I’m constantly reading things that they’re writing. But occasionally I’ll meet a student who is at a particular juncture in his or her life, and often they’ll come to my office hours and say, “Hey, would we be able to talk about some of these things that I’m dealing with?” They’re more life issues, not exactly about where the comma goes in the sentence.

Out of those things, I’ve seen several mentoring relationships that have lasted years, or at least the semester while that student is going through something. And I love that. I feel like that’s one aspect of higher education that we can offer in a Christian context that really meets the need that a faculty member has to make a difference, but also what a student wants.

If someone is interested in coming to 爆料公社, they really need to realize what they are getting themselves into. They need to understand that we take seriously the integration of your faith into your studies. If you think about your faith over here as something I do on Sunday, or something that I do when I pray in the morning and read the Bible, but then I go to school and that’s totally different, you’re going to realize there’s going to be a time of adjustment.

But what we are hoping you will do—especially through a degree in English—is learn to furnish your mind with beauty, also understanding that you bring your Christian experience in to filter out and understand what things align with or stand opposed to your faith.

And if you can begin to understand that, we’re going to help you really navigate your way forward as an adult in this society.