Advent in Academia: Three Conversations

“As much as I have this deep desire to live into the four weeks before Christmas and to observe Advent, I am totally being kind of rocked and shaken by the academic calendar, and how exams wait for no one.” — Charlene Brown

In this second episode of our special Advent mini-series, WAP associate Caroline Triscik interviews three women in the midst of academia about how they practice Advent in conjunction with the academic calendar. Listen in on our conversations with full-time graduate student en route to medical school Charlene Brown, teacher and graduate student Alison Pichel, and campus chaplain Rev. Amy Shorner-Johnson. Join us in thinking about how to stay present to God and to our communities in the frenzy of the last few weeks of the semester.

You can listen on iTunes or at All Shall Be Well: Conversations with Women in the Academy and Beyond. We hope you enjoy these conversations as much as we did.

Links mentioned in this interview:

High Street Hymns and their version of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel"
"Comfort, Comfort, Ye My People" (lyrics and music)
"We Have This Hope" (lyrics and music)
“A Noisy Advent” by Mary Luti

Tags:

advent | graduate school

About the Author

Charlene Brown

Charlene Brown holds a BA in Religion from the University of Virginia, a Master of Divinity from Duke University, and is currently in grad school plotting her way to medical school. She has served in an array of ministry contexts and is an ordained pastor in the Association of Vineyard Churches. She resides in the North Street Community in Durham, North Carolina, a community dedicated to living intentionally with men and women with and without developmental disabilities.

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Alison Pichel

Alison Pichel is a wife and mother of two young children from the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. She works in an elementary school as a reading interventionist. Currently, Alison is pursuing her Master's in Literacy Education from Hamline University. She worships with a beautifully diverse community at Southview Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Alison is especially blessed that her children (usually) sleep through the night, her husband cooks, and Christmas in Minnesota will be snow-covered.

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Rev. Amy Shorner-Johnson

Amy Shorner-Johnson is the assistant chaplain and assistant director of religious life at Elizabethtown College. She is also a mom and wife and advocate. She Is an adventurer at heart and is most grateful for the work of spiritual direction.

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Caroline Triscik

Caroline served with InterVarsity since 2002 as a campus staff member in northwest Indiana and most recently in central Pennsylvania. She received her bachelor’s degree in English with a focus on creative writing from Purdue University in 2002 and holds a master's degree in clinical mental health counseling from Messiah College. Caroline, her husband, and their three children live in “the sweetest place on earth,” otherwise known as Hershey, Pennsylvania. In her spare time, she likes to read, discover new music, and attempt to train her exuberant Labrador retriever, Pax. Caroline is a clinical mental health counselor and a former associate with Women in the Academy and Professions.

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