The University has created this website to help build awareness and understanding about its educational approach to helping students learn to engage popular culture as Christians. In a question and answer section, we try to address several of the key questions the University is asked about this topic by students, parents, alumni and others. If you would like to talk further about the information on this site or about Messiah's educational approach to cultural engagement, please contact Vice Provost for Student Success and Engagement, Dr. Marcelle Giovannetti.
Messiah's Educational Approach
Messiah University encourages its students to actively engage popular culture for the same reasons we are engaged with natural sciences, fine arts, literature, and social sciences: all of these are important parts of our world. We believe engaging popular culture falls under the larger University-Wide Educational Objectives, which state:
By raising the right questions, encouraging critical thinking, exposing students to multiple perspectives and helping them to process these perspectives from a Christian world view, Messiah seeks to enable students to respond with maturity to the world’s complexities. In addition to nurturing these intellectual skills, the University encourages its students to apply their knowledge to the needs of the world – as servants, as leaders, as agents of reconciliation.
In line with these objectives, Messiah’s educational programming seeks to ask tough questions, represent different viewpoints, and contribute to the development of critical thinking skills in students. The aim of this educational approach is that students learn to use wisdom in their choices concerning popular culture, becoming active culture engagers and makers, rather than passive consumers. We believe that this happens through a dialogue that is often difficult, but developmentally essential. And so we seek to start and guide a conversation.
In short, Messiah University is actively engaged in popular culture as part of our educational mission, and to ensure that students will be successful in their roles as servants, leaders, and reconcilers in church and society.