Beginning October 1, 1998 APRRE's new address will be:
950 Marietta Avenue
Lancaster, PA 17603 USA
Voice: 717.299.0490
FAX: 717.393.0423
E-mail: cfmelchert@desupernet.net
APRRE offers a limited number of travel grants to members in need. To apply you must be a member in good standing, your least expensive round trip airfare is more than $400 (US) of unreimbursed personal funds. Preference is given to students and active members who have not recently received a grant. The size of grants will depend upon the number of applicants and funds available.
Applications can be mailed to APRRE, 640 N. Pine St., Lancaster, PA 17603, must be received by Oct. 1, and must include cost of round-trip airfare, portion reimbursed and by whom, and amount of personal funds to be expended.
By meeting at the same time as AAR/SBL, APRRE members can participate in both meetings, though that will require registering separately for both. AAR/SBL is unwilling to arrange joint registration or to provide access to their hotels for collaboration with APRRE. Fortunately we have been able to secure a good hotel 10-15 minutes distance, at rates considerably cheaper than those available at the AAR/SBL hotels.
Since there will be hundreds of book exhibitors at the AAR/SBL meetings, we will likely have a smaller group available at the Clarion Plaza. Access to the book exhibits at AAR/SBL is open only to those with an AAR/SBL registration badge.
Research Interest Groups: Sign up early for these groups. Space will be limited to the first 15 registrants for each. Papers will be available in the Proceedings, though some presenters may choose to distribute their papers ahead of time to those registered. Access to Research Interest Groups will only be available to those registered for the APRRE meeting.
Please be aware that if you are a member of both AAR/SBL and APRRE, it is important that you register at the APRRE hotel (The Clarion Plaza). As a small organization, if our members choose to stay in other hotels and we do not make up the number of rooms contracted for, APRRE can be subject to extra charges of up to $8000 for our meeting rooms. With six or seven thousand participants, AAR/SBL faces no such risks.
Knox College in Toronto will be interviewing for the position of Assistant Professor of Religious Education this coming Fall: Assistant Professor of Religious Education, Knox College, 59 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2E6, Canada.
Interviews will be conducted in Fall of 1998 for this position opening up July lst, 1999. The College is especially interested in someone with a specialization in Youth Ministry but it would also be necessary to give courses such as an Introduction to Religious Education, Ministry with Children, and Group Process. The incumbent is currently on the teaching team for Introduction to Ministry but this may be negotiable. This is a small Presbyterian College related to the Presbyterian Church in Canada and experience as an educator in this denomination would be valuable, in either the U. S. or Canada. The College is part of the Toronto School of Theology, an ecumenical consortium, situated on the campus of the University of Toronto. Knox has a faculty of 10 with an average of 100 students in the Basic and Advanced Degree programs each year. A Ph.D, Ed.D or equivalent degree is preferable though someone at the stage of completing their dissertation could be considered.
Interested parties should contact Dr. Arthur Van Seters, the Principal, at the above address, who will be pleased to send the job description and other pertinent information.
Presbyterian School of Christian Education will be announcing a search for a position in Youth Ministry sometime this fall. Interested parties can contact Dean James Brashler, Union-PSCE, 3401 Brook Road, Richmond, VA, 23227, for further details.
Gordon College’s Provost has approved the addition of another full-time faculty member to teach primarily youth ministries beginning in the fall of 2000. The position will also include occasional courses in Biblical studies or Missions. If you are interested in being considered or know of an excellent prospect, contact Mark W. Cannister, EdD, Associate Professor and Chair, Youth Ministries Program, Gordon College, 255 Grapevine Road, Wenham, MA 01984 USA. Phone: 978-927-2300; Fax: 978-524-3704 Email: cannister@faith.gordonc.edu
Clarion Plaza Hotel information:
APRRE/REA has reserved rooms at excellent rates (see page 1), and if we fill our quota of rooms we will not be charged for meeting rooms. Reserve your room early! After October 28, 1998, the hotel cannot guarantee either space or the lower rates. Check-in time is after 3 pm daily, and check-out time is noon.
Hotel - airport travel is $11 each way: call (407) 363-1185.
The hotel has 810 rooms, some of which will be reserved for AAR/SBL members. Check-in time is officially 3:00 pm.
The Clarion Plaza Hotel is located on International Drive, across from a huge shopping mall and five minutes from Sea World, Universal Studios, Wet ‘n Wild and about ten minutes to the Disney complex.. The hotel has a heated outdoor pool, a water fall jacuzzi, its own pizza parlor, a 24 hour deli, as well as other restaurants and guest services. Alamo Rent A Car is available in the lobby, and guests can purchase tickets and transportation to Disney and other locations.
This "conjoint meeting" between the REA and APRRE has been jointly planned, to enable pooling of resources, and to create opportunity for dialogue between the members of REA and those of APRRE around a theme of common interest.
Plenaries, Forums and Colloquia can be attended by members of both associations, while Research Interest Groups, Task Forces and Mens' and Women’s' Breakfasts are for APRRE members only. REA Workshops are open to APRRE members, even when scheduled at the same time as APRRE events.
The International Seminar in Religious Education and Values, with 95 members from 25 countries and three religions, met August 9-14, 1998 at Trinity College, Carmarthen, Wales, under the theme: "The 4th R for the 3rd Millennium." Plenary sessions by Jeff Astley (Durham, England), Friedrich Schweizer (Tubingen, Germany), Brian Hill (Murdoch U., Australia) and Mary Elizabeth Moore (Claremont, USA), plus 77 collegial paper presentations made for many intense and provocative discussions during the week. In addition members toured historic St. Davids and the monastic community on Caldey Island which reaches back to the sixth century, C.E. As expected from academic conferences, no conclusion was reached. The Seminar meets next in Israel in 2000.
A New Task Force is announced, to meet for the first time in November: Religious Education and the Natural World. Initiated by Kathleen O’Gorman of Loyola, New Orleans, she envisions the new task force as "recontextualizing religious education" and "working out a conceptual articulation of the natural world as the primary religious educator as well as the foundational theory and practice of the profession;" and proposing methodologies and strategies for implementing this vision.
You will notice that we have more information on task force plans this year, yet there are several who have not made their plans known. According to the motion passed in the 1996 Business Meeting, Task Forces must be renewed after two years - so those which are inactive at the 1998 meeting will be dropped.