Description
Book SynopsisNature and Revelation is an absorbing history of Macalester College, from its origins as a Presbyterian secondary school in frontier St. Paul to its current presence as a nationally prominent liberal arts college. Detailing the college's history, Jeanne Halgren Kilde tells stories of the college's influential leaders, its defining moments, its rapidly changing student life, and the sometimes controversial evolution of the school's curriculum and reputation, exploring its transformation from a modest evangelical college into a progressive, secular institution.By highlighting the college's balancing act between nature and revelationbetween the pursuit of empirical knowledge and religious convictionKilde traces the impact of changing perceptions of religion and education over Macalester's more than century-long history. As once-religious colleges gradually shed their church ties and negotiated tensions between religious, vocational, and liberal arts missions, they both mirrored and affect
Table of ContentsForeword, James Stewart, Acknowledgments, Part I. Protestant Roots on the Prairie, 1849–19151. Identity and Change, 2. Christian Education and Institution Building in St. Paul, 3. The Idea of a Christian College, 4. Twin Cities Rivalry, 5. College Life and Identity at the Turn of the CenturyPart, II. Engagement with the World, 1915–19606. Evangelical Engagement with Modernism, 7. The Collapse of the Evangelical Consensus, 8. Liberal Arts in Service to the Nation and the World, 9. DeWitt Wallace’s AmbitionPart, III. Revolution and Redirection, 1960–200010. The Religion/Education Intersection Transformed, 11. New Approaches to Academics, Internationalism, and Service, 12. Challenges and Dashed Hopes, 13. Countercultural Campus, 14. Negotiating Institutional Democracy, 15. Peaks, Pluralism, and Prosperity, Epilogue, Notes, Bibliography, Index
