Contributor

Julia Stronks

Dr. Julia Stronks holds the endowed Edward B. Lindaman Chair and is a professor of political science at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. She speaks and writes on faith and public policy matters.

Stronks’ research focuses on faith, law, and public policy. During her four-year tenure as Lindaman Chair, she will be working on several projects related to immigration; sex trafficking; high school curriculum that emphasizes citizenship and life-long learning; employment rights of faith-based institutions; and what it means to be a Christian lawyer. A number of students are working with Stronks on these projects.

Stronks has served as director for the Murdock Charitable Trust’s $1 million grant for the Lives of Commitment Project since 2001. She is a regular contributor of op-ed pieces to local and national media outlets, in which she analyzes national and regional legal questions and issues. She also is author of the forthcoming book So You Want to Be a Christian Lawyer, and author of the book Law, Religion and Public Policy: A Commentary on First Amendment Jurisprudence (2002). She is co-author (with her mother, Gloria Goris Stronks, a professor emeritus at Calvin College), of Christian Teachers in Public Schools: A Guide for Parents, Teachers and Administrators (2000). In addition, she and her mother wrote an e-book, Living in the Fabric of God’s Faithfulness: Parents and Children Explain What Works, which is available at http://www.whitworth.edu/fabricoffaithfulness.

A graduate of Dordt College, Stronks earned her J.D. from the University of Iowa College of Law and her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. In 2003, she was honored with Dordt College’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

Her students and college age son keep her current on American culture—because of them she has follows Adele and Bon Iver, parasails and spends time on a shooting range (where she is surprisingly skilled).

If Wishing Made it So: Teaching Students to Make Change

Parents and teachers want children to have the skills to make a difference. But what can we teach to help them survive their teen years, 20s, and 30s with convictions and character intact?

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