Quaestus Journal

Because it will be most conducive to clear communication, I’m going to take this opportunity to be somewhat informal. Quaestus (Kway-stus) is basically a group for students who want to get people to talk about important topics. Together, we form an editorial board of between five and seven undergraduate or graduate students, led by Dr. Scott Niederjohn with Dr. Daniel Sem as an advisor. We run two writing contests, one in the fall and one in the spring. Student editors are either chosen from the winners of these contests or invited by the current editorial board after demonstrating writing ability.

Quaestus serves two main functions. First: we publish two periodicals a year, one in the fall and one in the spring. The fall periodical involves transcriptions from speakers at CUW’s annual Liberty, Faith, and Economics summit. The spring periodical includes articles by students, faculty, and Quaestus editors. Any CUW student or faculty member can publish articles through Quaestus, although they must be accepted and peer-reviewed by the editorial board. The idea is that people can read the fall periodical for inspiration, then write articles for the spring periodical based on the themes of the fall periodical. Themes generally relate to free speech, economics, healthcare, and politics.  

Second: we develop and lead forums to promote conversations on contentious topics. Our general model is to select one or more experts to speak on an issue. If we can, we will invite speakers with opposing perspectives. Our speakers will present publicly on the topic, demonstrating to the student audience that a healthy and productive conversation on this topic is possible. Students always get a chance to question our speakers at the end of the forum. In the past we have led forums on racial relations, Roe v. Wade, educational issues, and the like. This spring our topics will be climate change, gender and feminism, and religious freedom. Expect one forum each month of February, March, and April.

For the members of the editorial board, Quaestus serves as an excellent opportunity to practice writing, editing, and publication. We experience the peer-review process, develop strategies for marketing our publications, and learn to sharpen our thoughts. There are also opportunities to interact with leading experts in various fields, as well as chances to attend and present at conferences.

The following periodical includes transcriptions from the fall Liberty, Faith, and Economics (LFE) Summit at Concordia Wisconsin. This event is run by the Concordia Free Enterprise Center in association with the Action Institute, an American think tank focusing on religion and liberty. The summit is held annually and has drawn numerous high-profile speakers including this year’s keynote, Yeonmi Park. The focus of this year’s LFE summit was freedom under pressure. A second periodical will be published in the spring including student and faculty articles related to this topic.

Ultimately, our goal as an institution is to practice fruitful conversations and careful thought. Quaestus, which means profit in Latin, has a special emphasis on things that are profitable for us to be thinking about and discussing. As you read the following transcriptions, we hope you will be inspired by them into further questioning of our world, conversations about truth, and perhaps even to step into publication yourself.

Isaiah Mudge
Editor-in-Chief

The contest for the 2022-23 academic year has concluded. Thank you to all who submitted! Information about the 2023-24 contest will become available closer to the Liberty, Faith, and Economics Summit in the fall.

The Hong Konger Viewing Party (October 25th, 2022)

CUW students came together to watch Acton Institute’s new film The Hong Konger, which describes the harrowing journey of Jimmy Lai, a young, scrappy businessman from Hong Kong who roused a wave of revolution unlike any other seen in this generation as China grew increasingly hostile to the freedoms of his fellow citizens. To find out more about this modern-day hero, follow this link. 

Life in a Post-Roe America: Rick Esenburg (November 3rd, 2022)

In response to the historic Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization this past summer, Dr. Rick Esenburg thoroughly illustrated the legal precedent which led to the decision and legal perspectives involved in the case itself. Dr. Esenburg is the Founder, President and General Counsel of WILL, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and regularly litigates in state and federal courts with a specialty in First Amendment issues in constitutional law.

The Value of Higher Education: Kevin Sheridan, Scott Niederjohn, William Cario, Dr. Gonzalez-De Jesus (November 8th, 2022)

Students wondering about the worth of their tuition dollars in light of recent conversations about “student loan forgiveness,” “falling enrollment numbers,” and the like came to hear a panel of informed economists and university administrators discuss the value of higher education from their respective backgrounds. Dr. Scott Niederjohn is a Professor of Economics and the head of the Concordia Free Enterprise Center here at CUW and Mr. Kevin Sheridan is the director of Financial Aid at CUW. Together, they tackled the economical angle of this conversation by bringing together statistical details and important insights from trends in the field. On the other hand, Dr. William Cario, then Interim President of CUW, and Dr. Naydeen Gonzalez-De Jesus, Executive Vice President of Student Success, gave a great reminder of the intrinsic, lasting value that higher education has for the mind and the soul of the young American citizen today.

Three Perspectives on Climate Change (February 6th, 2023)

In order to push past the surface level limitations of the common debate surrounding climate change, Quaestus invited a panel of thinkers across disciplines to discuss the various perspectives which surround our response to environmental catastrophe and growing concern about the future of our planet. Dr. Angus Menuge, Mr. Steve Einhorn, and Dr. Joseph Jacobsen, representing the fields of Philosophy, Business, and Environmental Science respectively, shared their take on the matter and dialogued in response to one another and questions from student listeners in an insightful exploration of our ideal response to the climate change question.