The 2018-2019 Writing Fellows Program With the Augustine Collective

The Augustine Collective’s Writing Fellows Program is a selective writers’ development program that equips students to write and publish essays on their campus that engage moral, theological, and philosophical questions with Christian perspectives. Essays are also expected to draw on scientific sources and/or incorporate questions or themes relevant to scientific disciplines. The program aims to equip students to write in an accessible yet rigorous way for a broad campus audience, especially for the religiously uncommitted. During the 2018-19 academic year, all essays will take up an important question in either the category of science and faith or the category of character and virtue. Essays will be submitted to member journals of the Augustine Collective for publication.

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The Character and Virtue Track: and the Science of Human Flourishing

What does human flourishing look like? Can it be measured by social science, and does it even matter whether it offers benefits that can be measured? What role does virtue play in human flourishing and what is the connection between virtue and public health? What role does participation in religious community play in human flourishing and public health? Does social science add anything to a theological vision of human flourishing?

If you’re interested in exploring these questions, we invite you to apply to the character and virtue track of the Writing Fellows Program.

Key Program Elements:

● Video calls (Monday, Jan. 7th – Thursday, April 4th). The fellows will have four video calls. With involvement from Bria Sandford (Penguin Random House) and/or Mene Ukueberuwa (the Wall Street Journal) and Peter Blair (The Veritas Forum), this program ​ ​ element will include both subject matter exploration and writing guidance. Students will be expected to prepare for the meetings ahead of time by meeting writing deadlines and reading pre-distributed texts. On average, 2-3 shorter texts will be distributed in advance of the call. ● Essay writing (Monday, Jan. 7th – Thursday, April 11th). This program is structured around a four-month process of writing, editing, and publishing a compelling 1,200-1,500 word essay that engages a broad campus audience on questions of character and virtue. See below for the writing timeline. ● Writer’s Workshop (Saturday, January 26th). Hosted in Boston by Andy Crouch and Tyler VanderWeele, this in-person workshop will provide coaching on how to write a popular essay that is compelling and philosophically robust and that critically engages questions of character and virtue. Students will be expected to prepare for the discussion ahead of time by submitting their “first response” and reading 2-3 shorter selected texts. ● Publication and distribution (Fall 2019). Essays will be submitted to an Augustine Collective member journal for publication. The best essay will be chosen as a winner and receive a prize of $150.

Key Program Dates:

● Thursday, Dec. 20th: Application deadline ● Monday, Jan. 7th: First video call ● Monday, January 21st: “First response” essay thoughts submitted (500-1000 words) ● Saturday, January 26th: Writer’s Workshop at AC2019 ● Monday, Feb. 18th: Proposal and outline due ● Thursday, Feb. 21st: Second video call ● Monday, March 11th: First draft submitted ● Thursday, March 14th: Third video call ● Monday, April 1st: Second draft submitted ● Thursday, April 4th: Final video call ● Thursday, April 11th: Final essay submitted

The Essay

● Essays must closely engage with at least two texts covered throughout the course of the program, one from a Christian thinker and one from a non-Christian thinker. The essay should relate to the scientific disciplines, whether through incorporating scientific sources, addressing scientific questions, or through some other means.

● In the course of the essay, the author must address a topically relevant theme for the character and virtue track. Suggested prompts include: ○ What role does participation in religious community play in human flourishing? ○ What role does virtue play in human flourishing and what is the connection between virtue and public health? ● Further guidance on writing a successful essay will be provided to track participants along with a reading list for the video calls and the AC2019 conference meeting.

Conference Workshop Coaches

Andy Crouch is partner for theology and culture at Praxis, an ​ organization that works as a creative engine for redemptive entrepreneurship. His two most recent books—2017’s The ​ Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place and 2016’s Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of ​ ​ Love, Risk and True Flourishing—build on the compelling ​ vision of faith, culture, and the image of God laid out in his previous books Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power and ​ ​ Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling. ​

Andy serves on the governing boards of Fuller Theological Seminary and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. For more than ten years he was an editor and producer at Today, including serving as executive editor from 2012 to 2016. He served the John ​ Templeton Foundation in 2017 as senior strategist for communication. His work and writing have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and several editions ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ of Best Christian Writing and Best Spiritual Writing—and, most importantly, received a ​ ​ ​ ​ shout-out in Lecrae’s 2014 single “Non-Fiction.”

From 1998 to 2003, Andy was the editor-in-chief of re:generation quarterly, a magazine for an ​ ​ emerging generation of culturally creative Christians. For ten years he was a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at . He studied classics at Cornell University and received an M.Div. summa cum laude from Boston University School of Theology. A classically trained musician who draws on pop, folk, rock, jazz, and gospel, he has led musical worship for congregations of 5 to 20,000. He lives with his family in Pennsylvania. His website is http://andy-crouch.com/ and his Twitter handle is @ahc

Tyler VanderWeele is the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman ​ Loeb Professor of Epidemiology in the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Co-Director of the Initiative on Health, Religion and Spirituality, faculty affiliate of the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science, and Director of the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University. He holds degrees from the , University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University in mathematics, , theology, finance and applied economics, and biostatistics. His research concerns methodology for distinguishing between association and causation in observational studies, and the use of statistical and counterfactual ideas to formalize and advance epidemiologic theory and methods. His empirical research spans psychiatric, perinatal, and social epidemiology; the science of happiness and flourishing; and the study of religion and health, including both religion and population health and the role of religion and spirituality in end-of-life care. He is the recipient of the 2017 COPSS Presidents’ Award from the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies. He has published over two hundred and fifty papers in peer-reviewed journals, and is author of the book Explanation in Causal Inference, published by Oxford University Press. ​ ​

Writing Coaches

Bria Sandford is the editorial director of Sentinel and executive editor of ​ Portfolio, imprints of Penguin Random House. She edits a wide range of nonfiction, with a focus on history, sociology, economics, and good old-fashioned polemic. Her bestselling and critically acclaimed authors include General Stanley McChrystal, Ian Bremmer, Brian Kilmeade, Rod Dreher, Reihan Salam, Ken Starr, and Senator Mike Lee.

Mene Ukueberuwa is an assistant editorial features editor at The Wall Street ​ ​ Journal. He edits op-eds and columns for the Journal's opinion section, and ​ has contributed writing on topics from the Catholic Church to tax policy and urban development. His work also has been published in National Review, ​ ​ and the New Republic. ​ ​ ​ Program Staff

Peter Blair serves as the Program Manager for the Augustine Collective at ​ the Veritas Forum, helping to support student publications at universities across the country. While attending , Peter was the third editor-in-chief of the The Dartmouth Apologia, one of the first publications ​ ​ in the Augustine Collective network, as well as an op-ed writer for The ​ Dartmouth. After graduating, he served first as a writer and then as an ​ editor at The American Interest, a magazine of politics and culture in ​ ​ Washington, DC. He then joined Thomistic Institute, an academic institute in DC, where he was the Campus Program Coordinator. Peter was also the co-founder and the founding editor-in-chief of Fare Forward. ​ ​