Our opening lunch features two familiar faces to students: Rick Ostrander, Executive Director, and Heidi Lemmerhirt, the Center's Director of Hospitality and Student Engagement.
Heidi and Rick comprise something of a mirror image academically. Heidi is a scientist who did her bachelor's degree at Notre Dame and her PhD in genetics at Michigan. Rick is a humanities guy who did my bachelor's degree at Michigan and my PhD in history at Notre Dame.
Their purpose in this talk is to use personal stories and examples from the sciences and humanities to communicate to students the importance of a Christian worldview in providing motivation for learning, shaping our understanding of the disciplines, and applying our learning in redemptive ways.
This week, it is our executive director, Rick Ostrander’s turn to be in the interview chair. Rick sits down with the center's Julie Magro, director of operations and advancement, for a summer conversation.
Julie questions Rick about the nature of a Christian study center, how the Michigan Christian Study Center came to be, and what life is like as the director of a relatively new startup organization.
This week, we feature an engaging conversation with Stephanie Goetz, a lecturer in Spanish at the U of M. Stephanie shares her fascinating story of how traveling to Spain as a college student led to her own spiritual reawakening. She also explains how she views teaching Spanish as a way to minister to students spiritually and to extend the love of Christ to others.
Michael Buist, clinical assistant professor of anesthesiology at Michigan Medicine, is intimately familiar with human suffering. In our conversation, Michael shared how his Christian faith motivated his interest in alleviating human pain and how it enables him to minister to patients in some of their most vulnerable times in life.
This Good Friday, we had a conversation with Sean White, a UM alum who serves as the Director of Strategy and Partnerships at Michigan Central. Sean shared about his time as a student at Michigan, how God called him back to himself, and his eventual move to Detroit and work at Michigan Central.
This week, we welcomed political science professor Brian Min, who spoke about how his experiences growing up and working on his PhD led to his current work studying the relationship between energy access and poverty.
This week, we speak with Becky Schrotenboer, an interior designer and head of a charitable foundation in West Michigan. She provided students with a vivid example of how Christians can serve God in various professions. Also, having experienced a number of unexpected tragedies and hardships, she affirmed to students that "living faithfully" means trusting God in life's valleys as well as life's triumphs.
