Category Archives: Graduate School

White Paper: The Analytical Value of Minor Powers: Why Comparative Analysis Must Include the Small, the Marginal, and the Overlooked

Executive Summary Historical, political, and institutional analysis has long privileged the goals and achievements of major powers—empires, great states, dominant institutions, and hegemonic actors. While such focus is understandable, it is analytically incomplete. This white paper argues that examining the … Continue reading

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White Paper: Comparative Perspectives as a Foundation for Understanding Complex Phenomena

Executive Summary Understanding social, technological, theological, economic, and institutional phenomena requires more than isolated analysis. Phenomena acquire meaning through comparison: across time, space, scale, function, norms, and alternative realizations. This white paper argues that comparative perspective is not an optional … Continue reading

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White Paper: AI Proliferation and the Intensification of Publish-or-Perish Pressures and Intellectual Productivity Demands

Executive Summary The rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence—particularly large language models capable of generating sophisticated analysis, literature reviews, creative content, and technical writing—has transformed the economics of knowledge production. What was once a human-bounded endeavor is now accelerated by computational … Continue reading

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White Paper: Training Students and Educators to Use AI for Biblicist Analysis While Preserving Sound Interpretive Guardrails

Executive Summary As AI systems become increasingly capable of generating theological commentary, exegetical insights, and instructional materials, Christian educators face a growing need to integrate these tools without compromising biblically faithful interpretation. AI can accelerate learning, broaden access to historical … Continue reading

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White Paper: Historical Context as Interpretive Framework in the Brother Cadfael Series: Understanding the Medieval Detective and His Ethical Posture

Executive Summary Ellis Peters’s Brother Cadfael novels occupy a unique literary space: they are at once historical fiction, detective narrative, and moral meditation set against the backdrop of the English civil war known as The Anarchy (1135–1154). Their enduring appeal … Continue reading

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White Paper: Criminals as Instruments of Power: The Role of Lawlessness in Totalitarian States and the Roots of Contemporary Judicial Leniency Toward Violent Offenders

Executive Summary Throughout modern history, criminal elements have often been used—deliberately or structurally—by authoritarian or totalitarian governments as tools of political control, social destabilization, or regime preservation. This phenomenon arises from the strategic logic of regimes that see social disorder … Continue reading

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White Paper: Strategic Depth and Fragile Unity: Managing the Tensions Between Territorial Expansion and Internal Cohesion

Executive Summary States have long sought strategic depth—the acquisition or consolidation of geographic space that provides military buffer zones, control of transportation corridors, and protection of core population centers. Yet this expansion often incorporates peripheral regions with weak historical integration … Continue reading

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White Paper: From Isolated Works to New Genres — Understanding Artistic Transitions and Their Defining Marks

Executive Summary Artistic innovation often begins as a solitary anomaly: a painting that defies conventions, a novel that reorganizes narrative time, a musical track that deploys new production techniques, or a film that reconfigures genre boundaries. Yet only some of … Continue reading

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Policy Brief: Aligning Academic Scheduling and Athletic Program Commitments to Prevent Cross-Purpose Conflicts

Executive Summary Universities increasingly recognize that student-athletes face dual commitments—to academic progress and to athletic participation. However, institutional scheduling practices can unintentionally force coaches, athletes, and academic units into conflict: course times may overlap with mandatory practices; travel schedules may … Continue reading

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Policy Brief: Preventing Accidental Degrees in a New University: Ensuring Credential Integrity, Transparency, and Student Intent

Purpose This policy brief provides strategic guidance for a newly established university on how to prevent accidental degree completion—the unintended awarding of certificates or degrees without a student’s explicit awareness or intent. Such occurrences, although sometimes viewed favorably by students, … Continue reading

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