President Jim Towey spoke to 400 attendees at a Union League Club dinner raising funds for Aid for Women, a faith-based charity that fights abortion by helping pregnant women have and care for their babies. The organization conferred its highest award on the Missionaries of Charity in honor of their pro-life work and in recognition of the canonization of their foundress, Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Four of the seven Sisters serving in the Chicago home attended President Towey’s talk.

Aid for Women runs two Chicago-based residential programs for pregnant mothers, and provides job training, counseling, and health care services. One out of four pregnancies in Cook County end in abortion.

Dr. Matthew J. Ramage answers questions about his forthcoming book and how his graduate studies at AMU prepared him for entering into contemporary theological debate.

One of the marks of success for the Graduate Theology Doctoral Program at AMU is that of those who have been graduated, all of them have found placement at various universities, colleges, and seminaries. (For a complete list, check here. ) In addition to being an external confirmation of the quality of the program, the diffusion of graduates throughout these various places allows them to engage in the current theological conversations and debates in a multitude of forums and ways. Of course, one of the principal methods of engaging in the current conversation is through publishing. Thus, it is always a moment to celebrate when one of our alumni has a work published.

Dr. Matthew J. Ramage, Assistant Professor of Theology at Benedictine College, is the latest to contribute to current discussion with his latest book, Jesus Interpreted: Benedict XVI, Bart Ehrman, and the Historical Truth of the Gospels, set to be released January 2, 2017. This book is a sequel to his last, Dark Passages of the Bible. In Jesus Interpreted, Dr. Ramage attempts to answer some of the major challenges presented to the Christian faith by some current New Testament Scholarship.

Read the full article here.

Some interesting statistics from the WSJ on the economic advantages of earning a liberal arts degree, such as in philosophy. The payoff, although delayed for the first few years, is substantial compared to other majors over a twenty-year period: a median annual earnings of $97K for philosophy majors (see the chart in the article, ‘How Pay Stacks Up’).

‘“I love hiring liberal-arts graduates,” says Dave Elkington, founder and chief executive of InsideSales.com, a Provo, Utah, company specializing in customer-data analysis. “They think broadly and communicate effectively. They aren’t stuck in a rut. They can challenge ideas.” Mr. Elkington, a philosophy major himself, says he came up with a lot of the ideas for his company’s analytic tools by reflecting on Aristotle’s classifications of knowledge.’

Thanks to my colleague Joseph Yarbrough for the pointer.

Read more on the Philosophy Blog.