New beginnings

This has been an interesting few weeks in regards to my research direction. I feel that I'm finally starting to gain clarity on the direction God is taking my studies and maybe my post-doc career. Over the past two years of my course work, I've struggled with what I was going to focus my research on. While I was interested in many of the topics from class and the research areas of my professors, I never was able to fully engage in them to a point where I knew that I wanted to focus my energies there. My goal was to have a specified dissertation topic by January '09... the half-way point of my coursework. My thought was that if I knew my topic by this point in the program, then I could be strategic (yes, it's my top strength, for those of you who know strengthsquest) in approaching the remainder of my assignments with the topic in mind.

Well, it turns out that I did not have a dissertation topic by this past January. I had brainstormed a number of possibilities, but had yet to feel a peace about any of them. The possible topics I had considered included things like student leadership development, administrative leadership, strengths, positive psychology, spirituality, and international higher ed/study abroad. In looking back at my "choice assignments" over the past 3 semesters, an interesting pattern that emerged was that most of them centered around some facet of international higher ed or study abroad. My interest in this area has been long-standing and actually traces back to my summers spent in China as a college student. These summers were by far the most formative summers of my life and I have been fascinated on Asian/foreign cultures ever sense.

So what does all this have to do with my research interests and dissertation direction? Well, just a few weeks ago I shared my heart surrounding all this with one of my professors in an e-mail saying...

"I want to chat more about your international h.e. research ideas and maybe brainstorm any ways I could help in that. I have been soul searching a lot about why god has given me the privilege of graduate studies and how he wants to use me. I keep going back to the biblical example you mentioned in class of “the least of these.” There’s so much freedom right now in the direction I can take my research that I want to make it matter. It’s not that I don’t think things like student leadership development are important; it’s just that I don’t really get inspired/excited when thinking about doing serious research in those kinds of areas. Anyway, we can chat more about it when we get together. Let me know when you’ll be around. Take care. -Jake"

Starting with this e-mail and then over the course of about 10 days God began to further develop my interests towards international higher ed and the research opportunities that exist. During this time He was also revealing in me an interest passion for what APU will be doing in Cambodia in the coming years. In various ways over the past two weeks (I'll get to these in future posts), God has started to reveal to me that this is where I am called to focus my research. It is amazing the peace and energy I get when thinking about this. Having the opportunity to invest the privileges and blessings I have been given as a graduate student into a developing country like Cambodia would be humbling and amazing.

So with that, (sorry for the long post) I just wanted to share with you my excitement about what the next few years are going to look like in regards to my research with what looks like will most likely be Cambodian higher education and and other areas of international higher ed. I would love to talk further with anyone who is interested in hearing more. I'd appreciate your prayers as I (and Em & Abby Jane... and even many of you!) begin this journey.

-Jake