Efforts are underway to ascertain a “Center for Faith and Technology” at Calvin University.

Professors Derek Schuurman and Gayle Ermer – of the pc science and engineering departments, respectively – have been drafting a proposal for the brand new heart.

According to an excerpt from a draft proposal given to Chimes, the brand new heart would “explore the intersection between faith and technology and provide an academic, public, credible and Christian voice on technology issues.”

While the proposal stays in its preliminary levels, progress has been transferring ahead rapidly.

“It’s been reviewed by the people in the engineering and computer science department. And it’s been submitted to the dean and the provost for consideration,” mentioned Professor Schuurman in an interview with Chimes.

“The view is that we would not just be an internal center, but that we would be outwardly focused as well. And serving the church, building bridges with other organizations, being a credible voice in publications and podcasts and conferences, speaking to groups, and all those sorts of things,” Schuurman advised Chimes.

According to Ermer, the division chair of engineering, the necessity for a “Center for Faith and Technology” has existed for fairly a while. 

“The engineering department has been incubating the general idea of a Center/Institute for Faith and Technology for a long time,” Ermer advised Chimes. “However, it has only been in the last few years, since Derek [Schuurman] has joined the faculty, that we’ve seen progress in developing a draft proposal.”

“When I first came to Calvin, I shared my dream for a Center for Faith and Technology. I sort of noted that Calvin has a lot of centers,” Schuurman advised Chimes.

Calvin’s quite a few facilities & institutes – of which there are 11 – embody the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, the Calvin Center for Innovation in Business and the Calvin Center for Faith and Writing, amongst others.

“I kind of thought Calvin has the philosophical, theological capacity to be able to add a center in an area like technology,” mentioned Schuurman. “The hope is that such a center would bridge folks in computer science and engineering as well as create bridges to folks in philosophy, […] and folks in the social sciences and including the humanities.”

One of the first questions in philosophy, in line with Schuurman, is “What does it mean to be human?” Finding the reply to that query entails branching out throughout disciplines.

Schuurman’s efforts to carry gentle to the moral facet of know-how attain far past the world of Calvin. Schuurman has given talks at quite a few educational establishments, written in varied publications and is a member of varied skilled technical associations, amongst his many different skilled {qualifications}.

“The center represents the core of what’s unique and compelling about computing and engineering programs at Calvin,” mentioned Keith Vander Linden, the division chair of pc science. “We offer solid programs in both areas, as evidenced by our ABET accreditations for both the BCS [bachelor of computer science] and BSE [bachelor of science in engineering], but it’s the integration of the Reformed faith that sets our programs apart.”

As the proposal progresses via the assessment course of, it comes at a time when Calvin is introducing a brand new information science program.

“Data science is a brand new academic area. A lot of schools are beginning data science programs, and thinking about integrating faith and data science is sort of a new frontier,” Schuurman advised Chimes. “Thinking about faith integration in that particular area is something that needs to be done.”