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Rick & Sonya Hove








Executive Director of Faculty Commons since 2005, Rick Hove has also directed the student ministries of Campus Crusade at Rice University and Duke University. He is a summa cum laude graduate from both Georgia Tech and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Rick, his wife Sonya, and their three children live in Durham, NC.
From The Directors Desk–

Who Cares?

Did you know that robots—through discerning various speech and sound patterns—can now accurately assess and respond to human emotions like anger?

Experts claim that robots can be more empathetic than humans. One day soon, you may call customer service and discover that a robot fields your call! The robot will analyze your voice patterns and let the company representative know if you are angry or happy.

These companies can spare their money and time; after I am forced to choose between countless irrelevant options, I am already agitated. Trust me: if I find out that a robot is on the other end of the phone I will become MORE perturbed.

I don’t want them to know that I am upset. I want them to care. To care is to be human at a completely different level than to merely recognize emotion.

We at Faculty Commons devote our lives to bringing the hope of Jesus Christ to university professors. It is one thing to recognize this specific audience as an important mission priority.

It is another thing to care.

If You Want To Care…


Professors, for some reason, do not elicit warm, caring feelings from most of us. Some of us view them as distant and condescending. Others feel stupid around them, or find them socially awkward. Typically most people care about professors about as much as they care about quantum physics.

But if you want to care . . .
• Step into the office of a new professor who is a Christ-follower, close the door behind you, and listen to the fear and confusion in his or her voice. It is a terrifying journey to figure out how to be a Christ-follower in elite U.S. universities. Many never make it.
• Sit in a dorm room and listen to the spiritual journeys of students who came to school professing faith, but who have now lost all hope because they’ve been taught by their professors that God is irrelevant.
• Slow down enough to recognize the not-so-subtle messages (like “sexual experimentation of all kinds is healthy and natural”) that percolate through our entertainment, music, and TV shows. These destructive messages originate in the ivory towers of academia. Every day our kids and grandkids absorb these messages, unaware of the consequences for their own lives and futures.
If you’re close enough to the carnage, it is easy to care.

The Apostle Luke tells us of Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem: “And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it” (Luke 19:41). Jesus didn’t simply pronounce that the city was a “wreck.” He walked through it, saw it for what is was, and cared.

So who cares about the broken professors of the world? We do.

We pray that God will give us eyes to see their brokenness and pain—but also hearts that care enough about their tragic condition to bring the hope of Jesus to them.

Something is wrong if we are content only to recognize that much is broken. No. God has made us to be people who care. —Rick