Students Offered Financial Incentives for Good Ideas

News Release
For Immediate Release

(Madison, WI) — Graduate students, faculty, and professionals have a chance to win cash prizes for innovative ideas on how they connect their field with Christian faith. As a part of InterVarsity’s Following Christ 2008 conference, which will be held in Chicago, December 27-31, 2008, the Bosscher-Hammond Prize Competition is inaugurated.

The purpose of the Bosscher-Hammond Prize Competition is to encourage the integration of faith, learning, and practice — something that is part of InterVarsity’s core values. The three winning submissions will each receive awards of $2,000 during the Following Christ 2008 conference.

The competition is named after Peter Bosscher, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who passed away in 2007, and Pete Hammond, a retired senior staff member and vice president at-large with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Both men committed their lives to the integration of faith, learning, and practice. Bosscher was the organizer of a chapter of Engineers Without Borders on the UW-Madison campus. Hammond founded and led InterVarsity’s Ministry in Daily Life Resource Group, originally known as Marketplace.

Entrants must file an “Intent to Submit” form by October 1, 2008. Entries may include works of art or media, a thesis or dissertation, a business- or social-development plan, or other creative approaches to integrating faith, learning, and practice. Further details on the competition can be found at the Following Christ website: http://fc08.info/bhp.

Twenty-six semifinalists will be announced in early November 2008 and will win free registration to the Following Christ 2008 conference in Chicago. Seven finalists will present their entries in person for the final judging.

The Following Christ 2008 conference is InterVarsity’s triennial conference for graduate students, faculty, and professionals, with a focus on applying the Christian faith within specific career disciplines. It is sponsored by InterVarsity’s Graduate & Faculty Ministries and InterVarsity Press and will be held at the Marriott Magnificent Mile hotel, in Chicago. Plenary speakers include N.T. Wright, the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England, and Francis Collins, the Director of the Human Genome Project.

For more information contact:

Gordon Govier
608/443-3688