InterVarsity Alumnus Lendol Calder

InterVarsity Alum: Lendol Calder on "Uncoverage" from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

Interviewing Lendol Calder this past month was fun for multiple reasons. First I got to coordinate the interview with Matt which means not only was this a written piece but also a video piece. It was different thinking through what elements of Calder's story would be better communicated through written words verses via video. In the end I like how the article and video complimented each other.

The other reason I loved interviewing Lendol was that Lendol Calder basically influenced my whole college history experience. Some of you know that I was a history major in college and at the time I distinctly remember there was a shift in the way certain history professor began presenting their materials. And I'm willing to be that much of that was due to Lendol.

Lendol was named the 2010 Illinois professor of the year and he's been in the spotlight primarily because of the teaching method he encourages. He strongly advocates that survey history classes shouldn't just try to cover large amounts of materials and focus on time lines but rather history classes should help students think through various events in history and find meaning within various accounts. So instead of reading a history textbook, students might read various primary sources of an event and are then asked to write papers about those events. From my experience, the classes I took that didn't focus on the textbook were much more challenging, fun and are the ones I still remember today.

It's fun to know that InterVarsity alum like Lendol are having an impact in the academic world today.

You can read the full article on Lendol here: http://www.intervarsity.org/news/intervarsity-alumni-lendol-calder