The Magazine: A Key for Keeping Current
"A magazine or a newspaper is a shop. Each is an experiment and represents a new focus, a new ratio between commerce and intellect."
- John Jay Chapman
Where do magazines converge with the world of academia? What does the latest edition of Vogue have to do with higher education? The connection between the classroom and magazines is not as obvious as, say, books or even the newspaper. If someone asked you what comes to mind when you hear the word "magazine," you'd probably imagine reading People squished in the middle seat of an airplane or your grandma's coffee table littered with Cooking Light and Southern Living. The bottom line is this: magazines are not conventionally thought of as a staple in the classroom. However, magazines do have a place in academia as both educators and students can benefit from reading them.
For example, there are specific magazines directed toward educators and higher education. Professors can read magazines in their own time to learn about pedagogy and get ideas for teaching effectively. In addition, they can read magazines published by other academic institutions such as the MIT Technology Review or the Mendoza Business Magazine published by the Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame. These magazines talk about current issues in each specific area or what graduates from the schools are doing today. Professors can then stay current in their areas of expertise.
Educators can bring magazine content into their classes in order to keep the class content relevant to current events. Dr. Mark Gill, the dean of the School of Business, Equine & Sport Management at Midway University, agreed to talk to me about his use of magazines in academics. He said that introducing magazines in class is very important as it pulls in what is happening in the outside world to make the curriculum more relevant. While talking over the phone, he told me, "Textbooks are almost out of date by the time they are published."
What he meant is that the world changes so quickly, with new research and developments in most fields of study happening so fast, that it is hard for textbooks to stay current on the major issues of the day. Thus, it is often more helpful for students to read recent publications in magazines than textbooks that were written even a few years ago. This should not discount the use of textbooks as a whole, however. Dr. Gill said he will teach certain theories in class, and then give students magazine and journal articles that discuss how those theories are being applied in the real world today. In this way, magazines can be used as supplemental material in addition to a textbook, lectures, etc. Moreover, it can be helpful for students to search for and find magazine and journal articles that apply to topics they have been learning about in class; in this way, they can make connections between their schoolwork and the culture at large.
When asked if he believed magazines were becoming less popular, Dr. Gill argued to the contrary. In reality, he said that there has been a shift away from textbooks and periodicals as they are becoming outdated. With the speed of technological advances, people in general, including students, rely more on blog and website content as they seek the most recent information, news, and events. It makes sense, then, to turn to magazines, whether print or online, because they are more authoritative sources than most blog posts and random websites.
While the use of magazines applies to the academic world as a whole, it has special implications for Christian higher education in particular. Christian educators should use both Christian and secular magazines in the classroom in order to expose students to content expressed from both their own and vastly different worldviews. Dr. Gill said "only to teach Christian material shortchanges" the student in his or her learning experience.
Christian education should prepare and equip students to go out into the world and make disciples; thus, it is important that they understand the world around them and how things are changing and shifting. If students only read Christian publications, they will not be adequately prepared to face the world around them. They must be exposed to content from secular backgrounds and learn how to overlay it with a Christian worldview in order to respond in grace, wisdom, and truth. Thus, magazines can be used in Christian higher education - for relevance, for real world application, and for equipping students to practice a Biblical worldview.
by Natalia Bosch