While most freshmen spend their first term at Dartmouth soaking up all the College has to offer, Andrew Schuman ’10 started planning a new publication—one that would influence a nationwide movement—during his first days in Hanover. It began when the engineering and philosophy double major from Lee, New Hampshire, befriended other students questioning the relationship between their religious beliefs and academic studies.

Their conversations led to the creation of The Dartmouth Apologia, a biannual publication that examines the connection between faith and the search for knowledge. In its first three years the journal has tackled, among many other topics, Galileo’s trial, the resurrection of Christ, and religion in Dartmouth’s history. Its editors, headed by Schuman, have helped students on other campuses start similar publications.

“We believe that God has given us minds to explore about him and to explore his world, and so part of loving him is thinking rigorously about the world,” Schuman says.

Although contemporary discourse places intellect and faith on opposite ends of a spectrum, Schuman instead imagines a coordinate system in which the two are not mutually exclusive. “The quadrant is open for an intellectually rigorous, Christian perspective that is not a contradiction in the concept,” he says. “That is the quadrant we’re aiming to inhabit.”

Getting started, though, proved rocky. Although the editors’ goal was clear, the steps to achieving it seemed hazy. Help came when Schuman attended a meeting of the Dartmouth Faculty/Staff Christian Fellowship in October 2007. There he met Gregg Fairbrothers ’76, Tuck professor and founding director of the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network, which supports entrepreneurial initiatives at the College. Fairbrothers turned his experience helping people get ideas off the ground to the proposed publication, and now serves as its faculty advisor. “I helped them think through what success would look like and how to define their vision,” he says.

Schuman and the journal’s other founders, including Tessa Winter ’09, drew on prototypes such as those from early Christian scientists who pursued knowledge with a religious perspective. “We wanted it to look like the Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science, an academic publication,” says Winter. “That was our template. We knew we couldn’t enter into an opinion-only conversation. We wanted articles that could be published in a scholarly journal.”

Apologia avoids controversial issues such as abortion and evolution because, as Fairbrothers says, too much ink has already been spilled and those battle lines have been drawn. “The goal was not to be a position vehicle but a contemplation vehicle,” he says.

Student writers examine topics such as spirituality in Bach’s compositions and the discovery of beauty in science. Guest writers also weigh in, including University of Tennessee history professor William McClay discussing education in modern America. The journal’s 15 staff members collaborate on articles ranging from “The Religious Roots of the Dartmouth College Case” to “J.R.R. Tolkien and the Significance of the Fairy-Story.” The articles are supported by a bibliography of sources and flanked by creative writing and interviews. The four-color journal also features original photography and artwork.

The magazine attracts attention beyond campus. Schuman says a handful of current students chose the College because they had first read Apologia. “Last year,” he says, “there were three students who came up to me and said, ‘If there’s a publication and students at Dartmouth who really want to think intellectually and vigorously about their faith, this is a place where I want to be.’ ”

With a grant from the Cecil B. Day Foundation (which supports Christian programs), the journal’s editors have organized three annual conferences with similar collegiate journals attended by representatives from Harvard, Williams, Yale, Brown, Columbia and Princeton. “The journal conference offers encouragement for starting journals and provides support and connections for those who already have one,” says Winter.

The most beneficial relationship, though, is the one forged between students and alumni. Jonathan Crane ’71 of Hanover recalls his first impression of the journal. “I saw this publication, read it and just said, ‘Wow, what a great way to get people to be willing to have a conversation about faith,’ ” he says. Eager to get involved, Crane met with other alumni, including Fairbrothers and David Allman ’76, and formed the Eleazar Wheelock Society to provide mentorship and funding for Apologia and its related projects.

Along with the journal, the Wheelock Society aims to foster conversations among students and alumni about integrating faith in one’s life. In April the society hosted its inaugural Wheelock Conference, featuring alumni speakers from various fields discussing the integration of religion in their vocational lives. The society also supports the journal financially—providing around one-quarter of the $4,000 each issue costs to produce. The rest is funded by the College’s student organizations budget.

“Apologia is a new way of approaching a very old conversation between faith and reason,” editor-in-chief Charles Clark ’11 says, “and a lot of people see the need for that.

Karen Iorio, a former DAM intern, is working on a master’s in education at Columbia. Apologia can be found online at www.dartmouthapologia.org.