Telos: The Destination for Nazarene Higher Education

A collection of essays that attempts to articulate the common “center pole” around which Nazarene higher educators stand and the theological and pedagogical commitments that draw them together. An end product of the Pole Project, the volume is a values document for Nazarene educational institutions and was produced and reviewed by 51 faculty at 16 institutions from six countries. The title, Telos, comes from the Greek term used in the New Testament to address the perfect end, or destination, for which Christians are designed. We achieve this when we are perfectly aimed by God. Each contribution in the collection discusses where Nazarene higher education is headed and seeks to explain why the end goal of Nazarene education is unique. The volume is organized into three sections. The first provides theological and epistemological foundations. The second illustrates how those commitments are applied to particular academic disciplines. Finally, four Nazarene educators from various parts of the world balance these North American views with cultural commentary.https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/acaff_books/1000/thumbnail.jp

Telos: The Destination for Nazarene Higher Education

A collection of essays that attempts to articulate the common “center pole” around which Nazarene higher educators stand and the theological and pedagogical commitments that draw them together. An end product of the Pole Project, the volume is a values document for Nazarene educational institutions and was produced and reviewed by 51 faculty at 16 institutions from six countries. The title, Telos, comes from the Greek term used in the New Testament to address the perfect end, or destination, for which Christians are designed. We achieve this when we are perfectly aimed by God. Each contribution in the collection discusses where Nazarene higher education is headed and seeks to explain why the end goal of Nazarene education is unique. The volume is organized into three sections. The first provides theological and epistemological foundations. The second illustrates how those commitments are applied to particular academic disciplines. Finally, four Nazarene educators from various parts of the world balance these North American views with cultural commentary.https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/acaff_books/1000/thumbnail.jp

Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium: Accelerating Evidence-Based Practice of Genomic Medicine

Despite rapid technical progress and demonstrable effectiveness for some types of diagnosis and therapy, much remains to be learned about clinical genome and exome sequencing (CGES) and its role within the practice of medicine. The Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research (CSER) consortium includes 18 extramural research projects, one National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) intramural project, and a coordinating center funded by the NHGRI and National Cancer Institute. The consortium is exploring analytic and clinical validity and utility, as well as the ethical, legal, and social implications of sequencing via multidisciplinary approaches; it has thus far recruited 5,577 participants across a spectrum of symptomatic and healthy children and adults by utilizing both germline and cancer sequencing. The CSER consortium is analyzing data and creating publically available procedures and tools related to participant preferences and consent, variant classification, disclosure and management of primary and secondary findings, health outcomes, and integration with electronic health records. Future research directions will refine measures of clinical utility of CGES in both germline and somatic testing, evaluate the use of CGES for screening in healthy individuals, explore the penetrance of pathogenic variants through extensive phenotyping, reduce discordances in public databases of genes and variants, examine social and ethnic disparities in the provision of genomics services, explore regulatory issues, and estimate the value and downstream costs of sequencing. The CSER consortium has established a shared community of research sites by using diverse approaches to pursue the evidence-based development of best practices in genomic medicine

Desert Mothers: The Differential Treatment of Female Saints of the Desert

The early Christians were attracted to the desert as a place where they could become more spiritually keen by practicing their beliefs and communing with God in solitude. The earliest desert dweller who fled to the desert to try to perfect his spirituality was, according to Ethel Rolt-Wheeler, St. Antony the Great who lived from 251-356 (5). Helen Waddell identifies the founder of this way of living as Paul of Thebes (29-30). St. Paul of Thebes was 23 years older than St. Antony, and they met at the end of St. Paul\u27s life (Waddell 32, 34-39). Regardless of the identity of the first desert father, the term by which these men and women have been referred historically, there were many Christian desert dwellers. Rolt-Wheeler says that in spite of all opposition and difficulties, the lure of the desert and the desire for communion with the divine drew men in their tens of thousands to the wild places (7). She goes on to note that It is computed that the number of Egyptian monks in the year 395 was seventy-six thousand; and of nuns, twenty thousand, seven hundred (7). This means that in 395 A.D., more than 20 percent of the Christian desert dwellers were women

The Genomic Medicine Integrative Research Framework: A Conceptual Framework for Conducting Genomic Medicine Research

Conceptual frameworks are useful in research because they can highlight priority research domains, inform decisions about interventions, identify outcomes and factors to measure, and display how factors might relate to each other to generate and test hypotheses. Discovery, translational, and implementation research are all critical to the overall mission of genomic medicine and prevention, but they have yet to be organized into a unified conceptual framework. To fill this gap, our diverse team collaborated to develop the Genomic Medicine Integrative Research (GMIR) Framework, a simple but comprehensive tool to aid the genomics community in developing research questions, strategies, and measures and in integrating genomic medicine and prevention into clinical practice. Here we present the GMIR Framework and its development, along with examples of its use for research development, demonstrating how we applied it to select and harmonize measures for use across diverse genomic medicine implementation projects. Researchers can utilize the GMIR Framework for their own research, collaborative investigations, and clinical implementation efforts; clinicians can use it to establish and evaluate programs; and all stakeholders can use it to help allocate resources and make sure that the full complexity of etiology is included in research and program design, development, and evaluation

The Clinical Sequencing Evidence-Generating Research Consortium: Integrating Genomic Sequencing in Diverse and Medically Underserved Populations.

The Clinical Sequencing Evidence-Generating Research (CSER) consortium, now in its second funding cycle, is investigating the effectiveness of integrating genomic (exome or genome) sequencing into the clinical care of diverse and medically underserved individuals in a variety of healthcare settings and disease states. The consortium comprises a coordinating center, six funded extramural clinical projects, and an ongoing National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) intramural project. Collectively, these projects aim to enroll and sequence over 6,100 participants in four years. At least 60% of participants will be of non-European ancestry or from underserved settings, with the goal of diversifying the populations that are providing an evidence base for genomic medicine. Five of the six clinical projects are enrolling pediatric patients with various phenotypes. One of these five projects is also enrolling couples whose fetus has a structural anomaly, and the sixth project is enrolling adults at risk for hereditary cancer. The ongoing NHGRI intramural project has enrolled primarily healthy adults. Goals of the consortium include assessing the clinical utility of genomic sequencing, exploring medical follow up and cascade testing of relatives, and evaluating patient-provider-laboratory level interactions that influence the use of this technology. The findings from the CSER consortium will offer patients, healthcare systems, and policymakers a clearer understanding of the opportunities and challenges of providing genomic medicine in diverse populations and settings, and contribute evidence toward developing best practices for the delivery of clinically useful and cost-effective genomic sequencing in diverse healthcare settings