From its inception, the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts at Valparaiso University has conducted a weekly colloquium on the general topic of Christianity and the Academic Vocation.  The makeup of the colloquium membership has changed over the years but the Lilly Fellows who have always comprised the conversational core and their mentors have also been in regular attendance. A variety of senior fellows have led the Colloquium and been responsible for preparing a syllabus of readings.  .

The following is a list of the Colloquium syllabi, leaders, and members since the beginning of the program in 1992 to the present.

• Flannery O'Connor, "The Displaced Person," "Everything That Rises Must Converge," "The Lame Shall Enter First," and "Revelation"
• Denise Levertov, "Writing in the Dark," "Candles in Babylon" "Of Being," "Land of Death Squads"
• Theodore Roethke, "The Manifestation"
• Rainier Marie Rilke "Archaic Torso of Apollo"
• Jean Leclercq, Love of Learning and Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture
• Roberta Bondi, To Pray and To Love: Conversations on Prayer with the Early Church
• Roberta Bondi, To Pray and To Love
• Bernie McGinn, "Love, Knowledge and Unio Mystica in the Western Christian Tradition"
• E. Harris Harbison, The Christian Scholar in the Age of Reformation
• Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Happiness and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
• Erasmus, The Praise of Folly
• Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer, New Seeds of Contemplation, Seven Story Mountain
• Janet Little, "A Life in Context", Simone Weil "Letter" Waiting for God
• Simone Weil "Essays" Waiting for God
• Palmer Parker, To Know as We are Known
• Nicholas Wolterstorff, "Theory and Praxis," Reason within the Bounds of Religion and "Teaching for Justice", Making Higher Education Christian
• Max Weber, "Science as Vocation"
• Lee Hardy, The Fabric of this World
• Mark Schwehn, Exiles from Eden

• The Chartreuse Dress, Bondi, To Love as God Loves
• Parker Palmer's "Community, Conflict, and Ways of Knowing"
• Wangerin's essay "Horstman" from Miz Lil and The Chronicles of Grace
• Appalachian Music Video
• To Love as God Loves, Bondi and Pedagogy
• Exiles from Eden by Mark Schwehn
• Visit to an Ethnic Fair, Menno-Hof (Museum of Anabaptist history and experience).
• Play The Mound Builders at Goshen College.
• Discussion of Our Country's Good
• Mary Hunt's Fierce Tenderness and Aristotle on Friendship
• "The Manger is Empty," by Walt Wangerin
• Weapons of the Spirit (video)
• Dakota by Kathleen Norris
• The Rule of Saint Benedict
• The Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter
• In the Garden of the North American Martyrs by Tobias Wolf
• Scholarship Reconsidered by Ernest Boyer
• Vision and Character by Craig Dykstra
• Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Benares by Diana Eck
• Babette's Feast

• Wade Clark Roof's A Generation of Seekers: Our Stories
• A Generation of Seekers: Our Stories
• Aelred, Spiritual Friendship I and II
• Our Stories of Friendships I, II, III
• Soul Purpose Performance
• Dakota with Kathleen Norris
• Thomas Aquinas, Frienship with God
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together
• Jubilee, American Premiere directed by Susan Russell
• Jean Leclercq's The Love of Learning and the Desire for God
• St. Augustine's "From on the Teacher" and the parable of the Good Samaritan

• Memories of God, Bondi, Our Spiritual Biographies
• Marsden, The Soul of American Universities (Ch,2,5,9)
• Parks, The Critical Years
• Weber, "Science as a Vocation", and M.Buckley, "The Catholic University & its Inherent Promise"
• F.O. Connor, "The Grotesque In Southern Literature," "Intro to A memoir of Mary Ann," "The Lame Shall Enter First," "Revelation"
• Lonergan, Healing & Creating in History" Byrne, "Spirit of Wonder, Spirit of Love"
• Lonergan, Insight Chap. 7, "Common Sense as Object"
• Haughton, Transformation of Man: Conversion & Community
• McWilliams, "Bible in American Pol. Tradition", Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain
• The Peaceable Classroom, Mary Rose O'Reilly
• Music: Integrating Faith, Scholarship and Teaching: A Guided Tour

• "Negotiating Rapture": our experiences of Art and spirituality
• Gail Griffin, "No Abstract Fires," in Calling
• Maria Harris, "Teaching," in Teaching and Religious Imagination, and Feminist Pedagogy Contemplative teaching: a radical proposal: Read the Beautitudes.
• "The Spiritual Formation of Teachers," Parker Palmer, To Know as We Are Known by Joyce Carole Oates
• Exiles from Eden by Mark Schwehn
• "Attention" in Waiting for God by Simone Weil, To Know as We Are Known by Parker Palmer
• Thomas Keating, Intimacy with God(chap. on contemplative tradition)
• Kathleen Norris The Cloister Walk
• Maria Harris Women and Teaching, Valerie Saiving's "The Human Situation"
• Article of Vernacular Theology - Bernie McGinn, Marguerite Porete
• Meister Ekhart- letting go and letting be
• Julian of Norwich and Advent themes: embodiment, making a place for God

• Barry Allen, "Classical Philosohpy of Truth," "Modern Truth"
• Knowledge in Philosophy
• Knowledge in History
• Knowledge in Literature
• Knowledge in Fine Arts
• Knowledge in the Natural Sciences
• Newman, Discourse III. Bearing of Theology on Other Knowledge
• Newman, Discourse IV, Bearing Other Knowledge on Theology
• Newman, Discourse V. Knowledge Its Own End
• Newman, Discourse VI. Knowledge Viewed in Relation to Learning.
• Newman, Discourse VII. Knowledge Viewed in Relation to Rel. Duty.
• Frank Turner, "Newman's University and Ours;" George Marsden, "Theology and the University"
• Sara Castro-Klaren, "The Paradox of Self in The Idea of a University"
• Holmes, "The Soul of the Christian University," Lecture I
• Holmes, "The Soul of the Christian University," Lecture II
• Marsden, The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship, chap 1-2
• Marsden, chap 3-4., and 5-6
• Palmer, The Courage to Teach, Introduction, chapter 1-8

• Keppler, Kurt J. "Generation X: A Different Perspective." (unpublished)
• Sacks, Peter. Generation X Goes to College. Chicago: Open Court, 1996.
• Willimon, Will H. and Thomas H Naylor. The Abandoned Generation. Rethinking Higher Education. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1995.
• Willimon, Will H. "Reaching and teaching the abandoned generation." Christian Century (October 20, 1993): 1016-1019.
• Franson, Margaret. Review of The Abandoned Generation: Rethinking Higher Education. The Cresset (Summer 1996): 33-36.
• Buford, Thomas O. "Splintered Persons." In Search of a Calling, The College's Role in Shaping Identity. Macon, Georgia: Mercer UP, 1995: chapter 2. Georgia, Mercer UP, 1995.
• Bellah, Robert N. (et aI). "Education: Technical and Moral." The Good Society. New York: Knopf, 1991: chapter 5.
• Buford, Thomas O. "Educating for a Calling." In Search of a Calling, The College's Role in Shaping Identity. Macon, Georgia: Mercer UP, 1995: 165-190.
• Marsden, George M. The Soul of the American University, From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief Oxford: 1994.
• Schwehn, Mark R. Exiles from Eden, Religion and the Academic Vocation in America. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993.
• Hoekema, David. A. Campus Rules and Moral Community, In Place of In Loco Parentis. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1994.
• Wolterstorff, Nicholas. "World Formative Christianity." Until Justice and Peace Embrace. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1983, chapter 1.
• "The Modem World-System." Until Justice and Peace Embrace. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1983, chapter 2
• Reading: Reich, Robert B. "American Renewal and Higher Education." Liberal Education (Spring 1994):12-17 (handout). The Work of Nations. New York: Randon House, 1991.
• Meland, Bernard E. "The Nature of Thinking in Education." Higher Education and the Human Spirit. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1953: chapter 3.. "The Ends of Knowledge. "Higher Education and the Human Spirit. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1953: chapter 4.
• Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Theory and History of Literature, Vol. 10. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1979/1984.
• Bloom, Alan. The Closing of the American Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.
• Giamatti, A. Bartlett. A Free and Ordered Space, the Real World of the University. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990.
• Newman, John Henry. The Idea of a University. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1982. Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Idea of the University, a Reexamination. New Haven: Yale UP, 1992.
• Bertocci, Peter A. Education and the Vision of Excellence. Boston: Boston UP, 1960.
• Tompkins, Jane. A Life in School, What the Teacher Learned. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1996.
• Bouwsma, William. "Christian Adulthood." Daedalus (Spring 1976): 77-92.
• Buford, Thomas O. In Search of a Calling, The College's Role in Shaping Identity. Macon, Georgia: Mercer UP, 1995: chapters 3-5.
• Schwehn, Mark R. Exiles from Eden, Religion and the Academic Vocation in America. Oxford, 1993.
• Buford, Thomas O. In Search of a Calling, The College's Role in Shaping Identity. Macon, Georgia: Mercer UP, 1995: chapters 1,6, 7. Goldman, Harvey.
• Max Weber and Thomas Mann, Calling and the Shaping of the Self. Berkeley: U of California P, 1988.
• Kerr, Hugh T. A Compend of Calvin 's Theology. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Christian Education. 1939: 98-107.
• Luther, Martin. "Temporal Authority: To What Extent it Should be Obeyed." Luther's Works. Helmut T. Lehman (general ed.), Walther I. Brandt (ed.). Vol. 45. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967: 75-129.
• "To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate." Luther's Works. Helmut T. Lehman (general ed.), Walther I. Brandt. (ed.). Vol. 44. Philadelphia: Fortress: 123-217.
• "Whether Soldiers Can Be Saved." Luther's Works. Helmut T. Lehman (general ed.), Robert C. Schultz (ed.). Vol. 46. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967, Vol. 46: 87-138.
• Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons New York: Scribner's, 1958.
• John Henry Newman. "Christianity and Letters." In The Idea of a University. Edited by Martin 1. Svaglic. Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame UP, 1982 (86): 187-201.
• Schwehn, Mark. "The Spirit of Teaching." Conversations 10 (Fall 1996): 5-15.

• Topic: Thriving Ventures in Christian Higher Education, Read: Glimmering of the Dawn? (2nd week topic continuation: Six Schools - Pearsons, Ethos and Vision)
• Read Ex Corde Document (2 weeks mat'l)
• Topic: Theology of calling, academic virtues, relation of Christian tradition to secular learning and methods, etc. (3 weeks mat'l)
• Guests: John Mc Greevy and Beth Hoger (former Lilly Fellows)
• 5 Weeks of Fellow presentations on how they presently connect their Christian faith with their teaching. The presentations can include reflections on their sense of calling and how their religious convictions affect their methodology, their pedagogy, and especially their intellectual quest. These can be brief enough to read aloud (with copies for all participants) with sufficient time left for discussion. Each fellow will have their mentor as a respondent, who will lead off the discussion of each paper after it has been read.

• "Exhibiting the Visual Culture of American Religion," (the exhibit)
• Mark Schwehn's Everyone a Teacher
• Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak
• Jean Leclerq from The Love of Learning and The Desire for God and Stephanie Paulsell, "Writing as Spiritual Practice."
• John Paul II, "On Human Work"; from Lee Hardy, The Fabric of This World.
• James Schaap, "Dancing with the Angels" and "Faith and Writing: Singing and Preaching Christians in Writing."
• Louis Dupre, "On Being a Christian Teacher of the Humanities."
• Elizabeth Murray Morelli, " An Ignation Approach to Teaching Philosophy"
• John Steven Paul, "I Love To Tell The Story: Teaching Theatre at a Church- Related College"
• St. Augustine, "On the Teacher" 132-147
• Philip W. Jackson, "Real Teaching" 161-181, in Everyone a Teacher
• Robert Inchausti's "Spitwad Sutras: Classroom Teaching as Sublime Vocation," 325-368
• Eva Brann, "Depth and Desire," 369-377 in Everyone a Teacher
• Bob Benne's Quality with Soul: Thriving Ventures in Christian Higher Education

• "To Young Men, on How they Might Derive Profit from Pagan Literature," by Basil the Great
• "The Outrageous Idea of a Christian Literary Studies: Prospects for the Future and a Meditation on Hope," by Harold K. Bush, Jr. (Christianity and Literature, Autumn 2001)
• "The Bishop's Beggar," by Stephen Vincent Benet
• "An Onion, Cana of Galilee" from Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov
• "Parker's Back" by Flannery O'Connor; and "The Ugliest Pilgrim," by Doris Betts, along with Marti's interview with Betts.
• Mystery plays performed at VUCA
• "In the Garden of the North American Martyrs," by Tobias Wolf
• A Life in School: What the Teacher Learned by Jane Tompkins
• Forgetting Ourselves on Purpose: Vocation and the Ethics of Ambition by Brian J. Mahan

• George Marsden, "The Soul of the American University"
• David Bebbington, "The Secularization of British Universities since the Mid-Nineteenth Century"
• James Tunstead Burtchaell, "The Decline and Fall of the Christian College"
• H. Richard Niebuhr, "Christ Above Culture," and "Christ and Culture in Paradox" Christ and Culture
• Alasdair MacIntyre, "Catholic Universities: dangers, hopes, choices"
• Monika K. Hellwig, "What Can the Roman Catholic Tradition Contribute to Christian Higher Education?" and Emmanuel Renner, O.S.B, Hilary Thimmesh, O.S.B., "Faith and Learning at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University"
• Richard W. Solberg "What Can the Lutheran Tradition Contribute to Christian Higher Education?" and Byron R. Swanson and Margaret Barth Wold, "Faith and Learning at California Lutheran University"
• Susan Handelman, "Stopping the Heart: The Spiritual Search of Students and the Challenge to a Professor of an Undergraduate Literature Class"
• Robert Wuthnow "Teaching and Religion in Sociology" and selection from Jean Bethke Elshtain, "Does or Should, Teaching Reflect the Religious Perspective of the Teacher?"
• "Religion on Campus" from Liberal Education by Conrad Cherry, Betty A. DeBerg and Amanda Porterfield
• John Steven Paul's "The Kingdom is the Road: How the Christian Faith Sustains the Life of the Mind."
• Pope John Paul II's "Fides et Ratio" (An Encyclical Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Relationship between Faith and Reason)
• Guest Speaker Prof. Roger Lundin - Wheaton College

• Lionel Basney, "Dream of the School"
• Mark Schwehn, Exiles from Eden
• Stephanie Paulsell, "Writing as a Spiritual Discipline"
• E. Harris Harbison, "Scholarship as a Christian Calling" in The Christian Scholar in the Age of the Reformation
• Joseph Pieper, Leisure the Basis of Culture
• Simone Weil, "Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God"
• C.S. Lewis, "Learning in Wartime"
• Brian Mahan, "The Ethics of Ambition"
• Samuel Laeutchli, "The Expulsion from the Garden and the Hermeneutics of Play"
• Discussion of the University Theatre Production of Anna Karenina
• Soul Purpose, Locusts & Wild Honey
• Gilbert Meilaender, "Divine Summons"
• Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity pp. 1-121
• Henrik Ibsen, Brand Acts I - V

• Carol Zaleski, "Campus Tour"
• George M. Marsden, "The Soul of the American University: A Historical Overview"
• Robert Benne, Chapter 3 in Quality with Soul, and Miroslav Volf, "Soft Difference: Theological Reflections on the Relation Between Church and Culture in Peter 1"
• David Hollinger, "Enough Already" in Religion, Scholarship, and Higher Education; Julie Reuben, "The Moral Purposes of the University", and Richard Rorty, Julie Reuben, and George Marsden, "The Moral Purposes of the University: An Exchange," in The Hedgehog Review.
• Mark R. Schwehn, "The Idea of a Christian University" in The Lutheran Reader, and "Lutheran Higher Education in the 21st Century" in The Future of Religious Colleges.
• Visions Out the Window and Down the Street: A Golden Anniversary Celebration of the Art of Charles Burchfield (Brauer Museum) and Gail Eifrig, "Thoughts on Being Lutheran at Valparaiso University," in The Lutheran Reader
• Mark Roche, "The Intellectual Appeal of Catholicism and the Idea of a Catholic University," and Monika Hellwig, "Emerging Patterns among Roman Catholic Colleges and Universities," in The Future of Religious Colleges
• Richard Solberg, "What Can the Lutheran Tradition Contribute to Christian Higher Education?" in Hughes, Models of Christian Higher Education
• Gilbert Meilaender, "Forming Hearts and Mind: Thoughts About Higher Education," in The Lutheran Reader
• James D. Bratt, "What Can the Reformed Tradition Contribute to Christian Higher Education?"
• James D. Bratt and Ronald A. Wells, "Piety and Progress: A History of Calvin College," in Hughes, Models of Christian Higher Education
• Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas
• Arlin Migliazzo, "Introduction"
• John Steven Paul, "I Love to Tell the Story: Teaching Theatre in a Church-Related College," in Teaching as an Act of Faith
• Heath White's proposed chapter for Teaching as an Act of Faith, Vol. II.: "Teaching Philosophy in a Church- Related College"
• Dorothy L. Sayers, "Vocation in Work"
• "Teaching for Justice" in Nicholas Woltersdoff, Education for Shalom, 134-155.
• "What Do They Expect of Their Students?" in Ken Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do, 68-97.
• Chapter 1 and Essay 1 in Douglas Jacobsen and Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen, Scholarship and Christian Faith: Enlarging the Conversation, 15-44.
• Chapter 2 and Epilogue in Jacobsen and Jacobsen, 45-62 and 171-183
• Plato, Meno, in Mark Schwehn (ed.), Everyone a Teacher, 100-131
• Pheme Perkins, Jesus as Teacher, 23-61, and Matthew 13, in Everyone a Teacher, 218
• Discussion of Accidental Rapture