On Oct. 21, APU was one of six CCCU schools to be awarded a $5,010 grant from Values & Capitalism, a project sponsored by The American Enterprise Institute. With the mini-grant, five professors will partner with select students for a six-week reading seminar about free enterprise.
The format of the seminar entails three one-on-one discussions along with three group discussions. Students and professors will explore The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution by Barry Asmus and Wayne Grudem; From Prophesy to Charity: How to Help the Poor by Larry Mead; and Home Economics: The Consequences of Changing Family Structure by Nick Schulz.
“[The] goal is to encourage conversations about the nature of free enterprise and exploring ways that Christian faith, economics and public policy relate to one another,” said Dr. Abbylin Sellers, assistant professor of political science and participating professor in the seminar.
The five professors represent various departments here at APU, with Dr. Keith Reeves from the School of Theology, Dr. Adele L. Harrison from the School of Business and Management, and Drs. Bradley Hale, Daniel Palm and Sellers from the Department of History and Political Science. Each of them will be working alongside a student of their choosing to follow and discuss the readings together.
“This is an inter-disciplinary group,” Sellers said. “It’s not just political science or just history.”
The students selected to participate in this seminar are senior social science major Daniel Parsons, senior business management major Jennifer Lee, junior political science major Nicholas Primuth, junior economics major Joseph Coleman and senior business finance major Riley Mckee.
This is the first year that AEI’s Values & Capitalism has started awarding these mini-grants to CCCU schools around the nation. APU has hopes that this opportunity can continue on in the future.
“It’s a one-time thing, but we would hope that it could be done again in the future,” said Palm, who chairs the Department of History and Political Science. “It’s always great to get a grant initially because then you have the beginnings of a relationship, and we hope it can grow into something further.”