Each year, the voluntary academic extracurricular club Cui Bono votes on the faculty member of the year. For the 2019/2020 year, they selected Dr. Kristen Koenig. To kick off our podcast, we decided to start with her opening convocation speech, which is traditionally presented by the previous year’s CUI Bono faculty member of the year. While the audio isn’t perfect, her oration perfectly sets the tone for our first season. Note that we will have a variety of formats in coming episodes, including interviews, special lectures and short reflections.
I call on you, students—past and present—faculty, staff: find and search meaning in apparent meaningless, understanding over ignorance, hope over despair, life over death, despite our brokenness. How are we going to do that? The old-fashioned way. We are going to read and write and debate, confront concepts of truth. We are going to ask what is beautiful and why. We are going to search for and embrace all that is good as Christ has embraced us. We’re going to look for the freedom to discover Christ anew in our neighbor, in the world and ourselves and recognize we can’t fix this on our own.
Dr. Kristen Koenig
Dr. Kristen Koenig completed her Master’s degree at Oxford University and her Doctorate of Philosophy at the University of York, England. Dr. Koenig joined the faculty at Concordia University Irvine in 2013 after teaching twelve years at Concordia College – New York. Her expertise is in the area of globalization, but her true passion is encouraging students to adapt the sociological imagination to understanding the contemporary world around them. Dr. Koenig encourages students to critically analyze everyday life and enjoys presenting on a variety of salient topics. Some of these presentations include: “The Sociology of Freaks;” “Finding Goodness, Truth and Beauty: From Kaepernick to Kavanaugh;” “The Sociology of Death;” “America the Beautiful: What does this mean?” and “Finding Wisdom in the State of the Union.” Dr. Koenig lives with her family on campus in the Living Learning Community of Bella Amore, and hosts numerous events that bring students and faculty into more informal academic conversations.