Transforming the Mind – The National Christian Postgrad Conference – was an initiative that originated in the University of Nottingham, and is an independent, self-funding venture. The conference does not have any official links to any other groups.
University is a place where truth is pursued – however distorted some of the pursuit might be. To some degree it acknlowdges the possibility of understanding the world around us and we can celebrate the human impulse to discover the nature of our world and our common humanity. The earth, and the universe, is indeed the Lord's and the fulness thereof!
The vision for the Conference emerged during my doctoral studies in the University of Nottingham. It arose out of dissatisfaction at the divide between faith and academic life in postgraduates' lives, as well as the absence of a celebration of academic pursuit as an aspect of our Worship. I was concerned by the absence of respected Christian thinking or voices in academia.
Some International Christian Postgrads had already been involved in the setting up of a Graduate Christian Fellowship at the University of Nottingham – a venture initiated by Debbie Dickson (then International Chaplain) and Ian Tarrant (then Senior Anglican Chaplain). I discussed the possibility of a National Christian Postgrad Conference with Debbie Dickson in 2002. This led to a core committee consisting of the two chaplains - Ian and Debbie, a Nottingham academic – Dr Mike Clifford, an American Postdoc – Dr Aaron Romanowsky, a Singaporean Postgrad - Chye Foong Yong, and myself (a Sri Lankan Postgrad). The vision for the conference (as well as its title) was drawn up in Nottingham by some members of the core committee, together with Dr Nishan deMel - then a postgrad in Oxford. The outcome was the first conference in June 2003, which I chaired. The theme for this and subsequent conferences was Transforming the Mind.
The Conference committee in the first two years had representation and input from Oxford (including Joe Martin and Nishan de Mel who had restarted the GCF there) and Cambridge (including Ard Louis who was involved with Postgrads there). Subsequently, a committee of postgrads, postdocs, chaplains and academics of the University of Nottingham planned and coordinated the conference until a national committee emerged. The conference was chaired in 2004 by Dr Jennifer Siggers (then a postdoc in Nottingham), in 2005 - 2007 by Dr Mike Clifford, and from 2008 by myself.
The financial backing for the first two conferences came from The Veritas Forum, Harvard. Dr Aaron Romanowsky and Dr Nishan deMel, both Harvard graduates who knew Kelly Monroe (the pioneer of Veritas), organised a meeting with Kelly and us to discuss support and funding for the conference. We realised that the vision of Veritas was similar in its desire for holistic engagement with academic life and the world, and so Kelly persuaded Veritas to support the conference financially for its first two years. She also attended two of our earliest conferences. Subsequently the conference has been funded by small donations and the conference fees.
The planning committee now consists of several academics from across the UK.
To strengthen and safeguard the long term vision of the conference, a formal organisational structure including a board of Trustees or Council of Reference is being considered.
