Prof.
Randall
Smith
Associate Professor of Theology
University of St. Thomas, Houston
rsmith@stthom.edu
During his college and graduate school years, Dr. Smith took on a number of interesting part-time jobs, including various jobs in a hospital, concrete factory worker, telephone operator, security guard, donut baker, research technician for Frito-Lay Research and Development, gate agent for an airline, IT support, UPS box loader, and high school teacher. Of them all, perhaps his most interesting job was as a school bus driver.
“My favorite vehicle to drive is a school bus,” says Dr. Smith.“When you drive a school bus, everyone gets out of your way. I once drove a school bus the wrong way down a one-way street in downtown Manhattan, and even the New Yorkers just got out of the way. If you break down by the side of the road in a bus, people will actually stop to help you. For me, there's just nothing better to drive than a school bus.”
As much fun as driving a school bus was, Dr. Smith loved teaching more. His first university teaching position was at the University of Notre Dame, and in the fall of 2001, he joined the faculty at UST. Since that time, Dr. Smith has taught a number of theology courses including “Teachings of the Catholic Church” and “Modern Challenges to Christianity,” as well as the second Honors course, HNRS 1392, “From Empire to Christendom.” He always takes great pleasure in his job. “I love teaching. And I really love talking with my students. In fact, I love talking with just about anybody about things that really matter to them.”
Curriculum
Vitae (updated March 2011)
Philosophy
of
Teaching (updated July 2010)
A Partial List of
Recent Publications (for a more complete list, see the updated
c.v.)
More Popular Publications (Both On-Line and In-Print):
“Our Numbered Days: Certain Death & the Last Lectures of Socrates & Jesus,” Touchstone, March-April 2011, Volume 24, Issue 2.
“Quick, Call the Police! It’s an Academic Lecture,” The New Oxford Review, January-February 2011, Volume 78, Number 1.
“Waiting for God? On the Meaning of “Providentially, Just in Time,” Touchstone, January-February 2011, Volume 24, Issue 1.
“Revelations Public and Private,” The Catholic Thing, 28 January 2011.
“The Missing Foundation of Social Justice,” The Catholic Thing, 23 December 2010.
“How to Ride an Elevator,” Notre Dame Magazine, Winter 2010-11
“Studying With Ralph McInerny,” The Catholic Thing, 22 September 2010.
“Say It Again: What Is There To Talk About In Heaven?” Touchstone, September-October 2010, Volume 23, Issue 5.
“Fides et Ratio: The Aeterni Patris of this Generation?” The Catholic Thing, 19 August 2010.
“Reading the Church Fathers and Doctors,” The Catholic Thing, 13 June 2010.
“Books and the Hungry Soul,” The Front Porch Republic, 8 June 2010.
“But I by Backward Steps Would Move,” The Front Porch Republic, 26 February 2010)
Recent Scholarly Publications In-Print or Accepted for Publication:
“Thomas Aquinas,” encyclopedia article in Encyclopedia of Christian Literature, ed. G. T. Kurian (The Scarecrow Press, 2010).
“The Hebrew Bible and Creation,” in Green Discipleship: Catholic Theological Ethics & the Environment, edited by Tobias Winright (accepted for publication and scheduled for print in the Fall of 2011, St. Mary’s Press).
“Christian Temperance and Mimetic Desire,” in Temperance, ed. R. E. Houser (accepted for publication and scheduled for print in the Fall of 2011, Catholic University of America Press).
“Don’t Blame Vatican II: Modernism and Modern Church Architecture,” in Sacred Architecture (Fall 2007).
“How to Read a Sermon by Thomas Aquinas,” (scheduled for publication in Nova et Vetera, Fall 2011)
What the Old Law reveals about the Natural Law According to Thomas Aquinas,” (scheduled for publication in The Thomist, Summer 2011)
