Testimonials

Kate Bowman Johnston
Student Activities Coordinator
Calvin College

Working in student activities at Calvin College has afforded me the invaluable opportunity (and daunting task) of investigating the landscape of popular culture. As such, I invest a great deal of energy in staying up to speed on the events and trends that collectively comprise the pop culture behemoth.

Often, I learn about these by talking with colleagues and students, reading magazines, and perusing news websites, but the advent of blogging has made it possible for me to find out how a variety of people—from PhDs to ordinary citizens— feel about, react to, and interact with what’s happening in pop culture.

Weblogs have become an increasingly popular way to record events and process thoughts from one’s personal life, but many are now recognized as viable sources of legitimate, up-to-the-minute information, commentary, and discussion. Educators are beginning to consider them as an important tool in the educational process , and blogs played a lively role in the 2004 presidential election . Alongside popular (and frequently lowbrow) “diary” sites like Livejournal and Xanga, more serious weblogs—like those maintained by Christianity Today , Get Religion , and cultural critic Jeffrey Overstreet —provide links to valuable content and forums in which thoughtful conversations can take place.

Since weblogs have become one of our major sources for “the pop culture pulse,” it made sense to explore the possibility of hosting one, thus adding our particular voice to the chorus. One of SAO’s recent goals has been to get Calvin’s unique approach to popular culture out into the public square, which we have been doing by publishing articles in external publications and taking on speaking engagements. Blogging seemed like a natural next step in this process, a way of providing an interactive, accessible, and constantly evolving venue in which we could convey some of the things we’re reading and talking about in the office. An SAO weblog would also provide an outlet for content exclusive to the concerts and films we host at Calvin, such as excerpts from our “conversations with the artist” (either transcribed, or recorded in a digital format), photos from our events, and behind-the-scenes peeks into why we choose certain musicians to perform at Calvin (something that people always seem to be wondering).

One of our goals in getting the word out about Calvin’s approach to student activities has been to “ change the conversation “ more broadly, helping people to become more thoughtful and faithful in their understanding of popular culture. Because of the immediate, significant role of weblogs in informing and influencing public opinion within particular niches, we believe that a Student Activities weblog will be conducive to that end and look forward to working with others at Calvin to achieve it.

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