The Wabash Center's Dialogue On Teaching: Recent Episodes
The Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion
Dialogue on Teaching, hosted by Nancy Lynne Westfield, Ph.D., is the monthly podcast of The Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion. Amplifying the Wabash Center’s mission, the podcast focuses upon issues of teaching and learning in theology and religion within colleges, universities and seminaries. The podcast series will feature dialogues with faculty teaching in a wide range of institutional contexts. The conversation will illumine the teaching life.Webinar Producer: Rachel Mills Sound Engineer: Dr. Paul O. Myhre Original Podcast music by Dr. Paul O. Myhre
Joseph Tucker Edmonds, PhD is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Religious Studies at Indiana University Indianapolis.
Lakisha R. Lockhart, PhD is Associate Professor of Christian Education at Union Presbyterian Seminary.
Christine J. Hong, PhD is Associate Professor of Educational Ministry and Lead Professor of the DEdMin Program at Columbia Theological Seminary.
Tat-siong Benny Liew, Ph.D. is Professor, Class of 1956 Chair in New Testament Studies at Holy Cross College.
In this rich and reflective conversation, Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield and Dr. Tat-siong Benny Liew explore the complexities of mentoring within academic and theological contexts. They discuss mentoring as a relational, communal, and intergenerational practice rather than a top-down, ego-driven model. Emphasizing listening over advice-giving, they critique hierarchical approaches and advocate for mutual, organic relationships built on trust and care. Both speakers highlight the importance of multiple mentors across one’s career, including peer and reverse mentoring, and the vital role mentoring plays in sustaining intellectual and theological traditions. The episode concludes with reflections on mentoring as a form of invisible labor and collective responsibility to nurture future scholars.
Ryan Bonfiglio, PhD. is Associate Professor in the Practice of Old Testament at Candler School of Theology and Executive Director of The Candler Foundry.
Donald Quist is Assistant of English at the University of Missouri and Educational Design Manager at the Wabash Center. He is author of many articles, essays, and books including the literary tryptic To Those Bounded, For Other Ghosts, and Harbors.
Sophfronia Scott is Director of the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Alma College in Alma, MI and author a numerous books including Wild Beautiful and Free and The Seeker and the Monk.
Donald Quist is Assistant of English at the University of Missouri and Educational Design Manager at the Wabash Center. He is author of many articles, essays, and books including the literary tryptic To Those Bounded, For Other Ghosts, and Harbors.
Since ideas change lives - what does it take to write so that ideas are clear and accessible? How do we get our curiosity on the page? What is the writing life when you are a faculty member? How does creativity make you a better scholarly writer?
Eric Lewis Williams, Ph.D. is Director of the Office of Black Church Studies and Assistant Professor of Theology and Black Church Studies at Duke Divinity School.
Eric Lewis Williams, Ph.D. is Director of the Office of Black Church Studies and Assistant Professor of Theology and Black Church Studies at Duke Divinity School.
Williams quotes Zora Neale Hurston, "I was born with God in my house." Hear a scholar's story of having been raised in a Pentecostal household, mentored into the scholarship of religion with no contradiction, and working as a professor, museum curator, and higher education administrator. Williams' journey is one of curiosity, boldness, and creativity.
Adam Bond, PhD is Associate Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Baylor University.
Adam Bond, PhD is Associate Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Baylor University.
Teaching to unlock new abilities to see. Imagining new futures, building new worlds, seeing new possibilities can be incorporated into our classrooms if teachers can unshackle their own creativity. Bond reflects on a recent Wabash cohort experience which challenged participants to move past nostalgia and toward the challenge of shaping of new futures.
Sailaja V. Krishnamurti, Ph.D. is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Gender Studies at Queen's University.
Sailaja V. Krishnamurti, Ph.D. is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Gender Studies at Queen's University.
A sabbatical provides precious time but also points to exploitation, exhaustion, and rage. What is a generative sabbatical, especially when resisting dehumanizing patterns of productivity? What kinds of synergies are needed for a healthy work rhythm that resists burnout? How do sabbaticals assist with returning us to classrooms when we are feeling more rested, more centered, more ourselves?
Sharon Higginbothan, PhD is the Founder and Principle of the Higginbothan and Associates LLC where they do coaching, group facilitation, and consultation. She is also Adjunct Professor of Liberation and Womanist Theology at Chatham University.
For those who feel disillusioned by the professorate - even when having had accomplishments, for those who have invested in individualism over and against community, for those who cannot see the violences inherit in grind culture - this conversation is for you. The key is reconnection to community.
Sarah Farmer and Rachelle Green are Associate Directors for the Wabash Center.
If teaching is not about control, what approach is better? How do you create an environment for learning which takes into consideration the entire experience of the student? What is the prerequisite of learning for adult students? What does it mean to create an arc of learning across an entire semester? What kind of intentionality is needed to foster impactful learning experiences?
Sharon Higginbothan, PhD is the Founder and Principle of the Higginbothan and Associates LLC where they do coaching, group facilitation, and consultation. She is also Adjunct Professor of Liberation and Womanist Theology at Chatham University.
When we work until we are physically, mentally, and spiritually sick we are participating in being exploited by grind culture. When is enough enough? Sabbath (ceasing) might be a practice to lower fear, anxiety, and rage. What happens when you do not have the bandwidth to get through the day or the semester? What help is there for surviving grind culture?
Dr. Shatavia Wynn is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Rhodes College.
Our communities form us, but effort (to say nothing of time and distance) may be required to understand how. Wynn's folks taught through care, deep listening and storytelling. Wynn discusses the realization of just how formative those relationships are to current teaching approaches now and into the future.
Rev. Valerie Miles-Tribble, PhD DMin is Professor of Ministerial Leadership & Practical Theology at Berkeley School of Theology.
Dr.AnneE.StreatyWimberly is Professor Emerita of Christian Education at the Interdenominational Theological Center and Executive Director of the Youth Hope-Builders Academy, a youth theology program funded by the Lilly Endowment.
Sarah Farmer and Rachelle Green are Associate Directors for the Wabash Center.
Pursuing one's curiosity, seeking adventure, being open to mystery and problem solving is the stuff of good teaching, even if structures of academia would disagree or discourage. Learning reminds us of our humanity. Students can be some of our best teachers.
Rachelle R. Green is an Associate Director for the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion
Rolf R. Nolasco is the Rueben P. Job Professor of Spiritual Formation and Pastoral Theology and Director of the Rueben P. Job Institute for Spiritual Formation at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
Since we are conditioned to believe that thinking is the best way of knowing, what would it mean to rethink what we consider to be knowledge? What if our students know more than we know, then how do we share our know-how? Teaching toward the cognitive, the social, the spiritual, the political, the cultural (etc.) demands a new understanding of meaning making for adult education.
Stephanie M. Crumpton is Associate Professor of Practical Theology and Director of the Trauma Healing Initiative at McCormick Theological Seminary.
At what season in your career, if ever, did you make time for your own thoughts and curiosities? Who do we become over time and while teaching? What choices about our teaching are made easier with time? Whose permission do we need to be less productive and more creative?
Eric C. Smith is Associate Professor of Early Christian Texts and Traditions and Co-Director of the Doctor in Ministry Program at Iliff School of Theology.
Dr.AnneE.StreatyWimberly is Professor Emerita of Christian Education at the Interdenominational Theological Center and Executive Director of the Youth Hope-Builders Academy, a youth theology program funded by the Lilly Endowment.
The relationship bonds between faculty and student can be long-lasting and mutually lifegiving. What happens when, in the season post-teaching, former students become the teacher's mentor, teacher, and guide? When reverse-mentoring provides a sense of kinship, in what ways does it mean when former students offer hospitality to their "forever" teachers?
Kelly Campbell is Associate Dean of Information Services and Senior Director of the John Bulow Campbell Library at Columbia Theological Seminary.
Eric C. Smith is Associate Professor of Early Christian Texts and Traditions and Co-Director of the Doctor of Ministry in Prophetic Leadership Program at Iliff School of Theology.
What does it mean to create and sustain learner centered approaches for courses in Bible? When Bible courses are not neutral nor benign, but acknowledge a political dynamism in the conversation, what is the role of the teacher? What does it take to develop relevant courses for Bible in this day and time?
Almeda M. Wright is Assistant Professor of Religious Education at Yale Divinity School. Her research focuses on African American religion, adolescent spiritual development, and the interesections of religion and public life.
Laura Carlson Hasler is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies and Alvin H. Rosen Chair of Hebrew Bible at Indiana University.
What are teaching strategies when the religious identity of students presents obstacles to learning in religious study courses? How do you teach academic inquiry when curiosity is considered antithetical to faith? What does it mean to teach a student who cannot, by faith tradition, admit not knowing? When students have "ah-hah!" moments - what is the best way to acknowledge their learning and support their faith journey?
Kelly Campbell is Associate Dean of Information Services and Senior Director of the John Bulow Campbell Library at Columbia Theological Seminary.
A healthy ecology of teaching includes librarians and libraries. Libraries are magical nonjudgemental spaces. The responsibility of librarians for resourcing, teaching, and technology is invaluable and underacknowledged. The leadership role of librarians for needed shifts in educational systems is underestimated. Librarians must be at the table.
Almeda M. Wright is Assistant Professor of Religious Education at Yale Divinity School. Her research focuses on African American religion, adolescent spiritual development, and the interesections of religion and public life.
We discuss Wrights' latest book entitled, Teaching to Live: Black Religion, Activist Educators and Radical Social Change. The book profiles eight distinguished African American teachers and the ways each made a unique contribution as social change agents through their teaching. This is a must-read for early career scholars, colleagues interested in the power of teaching, and those who want an exceptional example of scholarship through ethnographic methodology.
Mindy McGarrah Sharp is Associate Professor of Practical Theology and Pastoral Care as well as Lead Faculty in the Master of Arts in Practical Theology Program at Columbia Theological School.
Willie James Jennings is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale Divinity School.
The disappointment is real! Early career colleagues report their disappointment after joining a faculty. Many excel during the doctoral program only to feel deflated, marginalized, or overlooked as a “junior” scholar. Many feel invisible, duped, or overworked on a faculty. How do you separate from the doctoral experience and step into your own voice as a teacher? What does it take to feel the joy and exhilaration of teaching? How do you overcome your fears and trust your own worth?
The Rev. Dr. Jennifer Harvey is the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Academic Dean at Garrett Evangelical Seminary.
The New York Times bestselling author discusses why her scholarship of religion focuses upon issues of race and anti-racism. She suggests that the work of translation, interpretation and meaning making (good teaching and good faith) is critical in the work of reconciliation and belonging. Through the use of storytelling, and with suggestions of daily habits and practices, Jen provides ways we might move from being overwhelmed to being in better relationships with one another.
Willie James Jennings is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale Divinity School.
Administrative duties are a work of care for the thriving of all in the community. Being a good administrator requires the ability to think organizationally, and the willingness to prioritize nurturing faculty, students, and staff. Effective leaders are capable of visioning for the future of the institution. Good leaders have a heart for their people, even those people who they do not agree with or like. Good leaders have an exit strategy.
Roger S. Nam is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Emory University Candler School of Theology.
What are the constructive aspects of being contract faculty? If you spend your career as a contract faculty person have you failed as a scholar? How do you find your place on a faculty with tenure-track and tenured colleagues? What can administrators do to assist contract faculty in having longevity? For the good of the student experience, what are the issues of equity, dignity, and professionalism concerning contract faculty?
Dr. Steed Davidson is the Executive Director of the Society of Biblical Literature.
Data show that the kinds of persons we bring into doctoral programs and hire onto faculty remain relatively unchanged. In what ways can directors of graduate divisions of religion attend to atrophying doctoral programs? What is the future of religious scholarship if our formation pipelines are stagnant?
Roger S. Nam is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Emory University Candler School of Theology.
When at the dawn of your career, how do you learn the institutional power dynamics, the unspoken social and professional obligations, the ways conflict is resolved or left open? How do you acquire agency, get accurate information, and gain the trust of colleagues? Who do you approach? How do you ask for help when you are an inexperienced beginner and need support?
Dr. Steed Davidson is the Executive Director of the Society of Biblical Literature.
What does it mean to examen the influences of the bible upon contemporary society? In what ways can classrooms encourage understandings of the bible's complex roles in culture, now and into the future?
Phillis Sheppard is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Religion, Psychology, Culture and Womanist Thought, and Executive Director of the James Lawson Institute for the Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements at Vanderbilt University.
Our careers will have disappointments, injustices, events which are unfair and, even shaming. How do we avoid boundary crossing, blaming, isolation, and personal ruin? What are communal and personal habits of coping, survival and collegiality in moments of unexpected professional grief and unmanageable career debacles?
Roger S. Nam is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Emory University Candler School of Theology.
What makes for mediocre, good, and exceptional administrators? Who should consider administration as an occupation, and who should remain on faculty? How do you balance the call for transparency in communication and the need for confidentiality? What kinds of assistance might be beneficial to those in administrative duties?
Dr. Steed Davidson is the Executive Director of the Society of Biblical Literature.
In what ways do faculty positions prepare you for administrative jobs? What kind of professional formation is needed to be an administrator? How important is your team to achieving an organizational vision? What if imagination is the best skill of an administrator?
Phillis Sheppard is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Religion, Psychology, Culture and Womanist Thought, and Executive Director of the James Lawson Institute for the Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements at Vanderbilt University.
Life is a series of transitions. Transitions of an academic career can leave one feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, or agitated and angry. How might life transitions be negotiated for wellness, mental health, and thriving?
Philip Butler is Assistant Professor of Theology and Black Post-Human Artificial Intelligence Systems at Iliff School of Theology.
What if teaching had the audacity to pose questions which disrupts reality? What if the disruption was generative, imaginative, and healing? This conversation grapples with what it means to teach at the intersection of neuroscience, technology, spirituality, and Blackness to prepare futures and reimagine leaders.
Phillis Sheppard is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of Religion, Psychology, Culture and Womanist Thought, and Executive Director of the James Lawson Institute for the Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements at Vanderbilt University.
When adult learners have learning styles and processes which are not expected, what is the role of the Academic Dean, the role of the faculty person, the role of the student? What pedagogical innovations are needed to support learning? When you receive an "accommodation letter" - what should be done?
Angela Parker, PhD is Associate Professor of New Testament and Greek with Mercer University's McAfee School of Theology.
Adult students sometimes feel confronted or disrespected when their personal faith is disrupted in bible and theological courses. In what ways does a professor prepare students for deeper learning? How do professors cope with belligerent students? What does it take to build trust between teacher and students? What happens when no trust is to be found?
Richelle White, PhD is Professor of Youth Ministry and Director of Field Practicum and Internships and Kuyper College.
Questioning as a tool of teaching is a skill to be developed and honed. Facilitating dialogue with provocative, poignant, even powerful questions takes consideration and practice. Connecting students with the right questions, especially about turbulent issues and during challenging experiences, can be the precursor to insights and more caring communities.
Angela Parker, PhD is Associate Professor of New Testament and Greek with Mercer University's McAfee School of Theology.
People in the public are curious about, and hungry for, conversations on bible and religion. What if scholars intentionally created public-facing scholarship on, of all places, social media? What if public policy and national discourse could be impacted through teaching the bible on TikTok?
Sarah Farmer is Associate Director of the Wabash Center.
What happens when scholarship is the work of passion and social change? What happens when learning mobilizes persons for liberation? What if theological education focused upon who we are to become - what then, would that curriculum look like?
Sarah Farmer is Associate Director of the Wabash Center.
A conversation on Dr. Farmer's latest book pointing toward the ways hope is life giving. Hope is not sanitized - not a luxury. Hope is about possibility, survival, creativity and resilience. Learning from and with incarcerated women is life changing.
Emily O. Gravett is the Assistant Director of the Teaching Area in the Center for Faculty Innovation and Associate Professor of Religion at James Madison University.
The power dynamics of classrooms are as varied as the teachers and the learners. Building classroom communities means being attentive to and curious about students, while allowing students the space to be eager, afraid, anxious, disagreeable, and sometimes, tired. Approaching students as real, whole people, who themselves possess considerable classroom power, must be considered and critically reflected upon.
Rev. Dr. Aizaiah G. Yong is Assistant Professor of Spirituality at Claremont School of Theology.
What does it take to create a classroom experience where the relational ethos among diverse learners is that we belong to one another? Learner-centered pedagogies become especially complex when learners are from a wide range of backgrounds, theologies, communities, and also possess a wide variety of aspirations and intents. What does it mean to take seriously the ways diversity of learners challenges, enriches, and creates risk in a classroom? What if teaching in diversity means humility is a primary pedagogical practice? What is the finitude of our teaching and what are our personal limits while teaching in all-kinds diversity?
The Rev. Dr. Luke Powery is Dean of Duke University Chapel and Professor of Homiletics and African and African American Studies at Duke Divinity School.
In this conversation, hear stories of what happened when teaching spirituals in a federal prison, and the ways prisoners became teachers and "outside" teachers and students became learners. Hear how the Spirit can move in a classroom and make such spaces sites of Divine Encounter. What if the remedy for oppression is unleashing the power of teaching as theopathy in classrooms?
Dr. Kenneth Ngwa is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Director of Religion and Global Health Forum at Drew University Theological School.
Dreams are states of the awake and the asleep. Dreaming is a pedagogical space for vibrancy, nurturing, healing, new knowledges, creativity, and protection and should be centered inside the development of new pedagogies. Pedagogical austerity and bankruptcy can be helped with pedagogies that heal and repair through dreaming. Dreams help humanity understand existence, reality, and freedom. Such notions as the necessity of co-dreamers, risk-sharing, and reigniting a sense of mystery are explored.
Dr. Ted A. Smith is Associate Dean of Faculty and the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Divinity.
What could happen if several scholars, writing in community, grappled with the shifting of theological education then made their learnings accessible? The book series Theological Education Between the Times, is just that. Hear one of the series' editors discuss the generative, challenging, and joyful process of writing in community. He also discusses his own book and his hope for the future of theological education.
Sophfronia Scott is Director of the Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Alma College in Alma, MI and author a numerous books including Wild Beautiful and Free and The Seeker and the Monk.
Teaching scholars to write better undoubtedly fosters better teaching. What does it take to pivot away from the stale conventions of scholarly writing, and move toward writing that expresses genuine and needed ideas? How do we learn to write what we are thinking and challenged by?
Elías Ortega is President and Professor of Religion, Ethics, and Leadership at Meadville Lombard Theological School.What would it take for theological education to become an agent of social impact? How could theological education help us learn to be better human beings? What would it mean for theological education to teach students to meet the challenges of their communities of origin? What if the scholarly contribution was synthesizing theory for the creation of the good community in regions across the country and around the world?
Rev. Dr. Jennifer Harvey is Vice President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean and Professor of Christian Ethics at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
In an aching world, what does it take to make education accessible, meaningful, affordable, and relevant? What is the role of educational leadership when institutions are faltering, and people are in pain?
What is to be done when there is no quick fix?
Rev. Dr. Kristina Lizardy-Hajbi is Assistant Professor of Leadership and Formation
Director of the Office of Professional Formation at Iliff School of Theology.
Education is a formational endeavor. Explicit and implicit teaching outcomes are operative in our classrooms, and yet a concise agreement of the aim of teaching is too often illusive and too often un-met. What does it take to be more cohesive and coherent with curriculum?
Dr. Alton B. Pollard, III is President Emeritus of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
Now in retirement, President Pollard shares his reflections, considerations, musings and convictions on the practice of rest, the benefit of pacing one's work, the place of stillness for deeper knowing in community and the necessity of embracing the genuine self for a meaningful vocation.
Rev. Dr. Kenyatta Gilbert is Dean of Howard School of Divinity.
Shifting from being a longtime faculty member to the role and responsibility of dean can be gratifying and terrifying. Hear the story of becoming a dean who successfully raises funds, supports a diverse faculty, listens to students, and keeps the faith.
Samantha Miller, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Theology at Whitworth University.
How do you give permission to adult learners to drop their intellectual guard and engage openly in the complex thinking of your course? How do you assist students with pushing past those fears which keep them self-conscious and hinder their learning? Making use of gaming, imagination, simulations, the outdoors, i.e. play in many forms, strengthens adult classroom experiences.
Rev. Dr. Kenyatta Gilbert is Dean of Howard School of Divinity.
Dr. Gilbert discusses the dream of being an architect, the surprise of being able to create space for oneself, the joy of lightbulb moments, and the superpower of prayer.
Grace Kao is Professor of Ethics and the Sano Chair of Pacific & Asian American Theology at Claremont School of Theology and Joy McDougall is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Emory's Candler School of Theology.
McDougall and Kao reflect upon the experience of participating in a Wabash Center grant project entitled, "Teaching at the Intersections: Re-Imagining Feminist, Womanist, Asian, Latin, and Indigenous Theological Pedagogies." The imaginative and generative project, using a case study approach, convened a diverse spectrum of colleagues to reflect pedagogically and programmatically to strengthen teaching.
Donald Quist is Assistant of English at the University of Missouri.
Donald Quist discusses the developmental editing approach that helped create Glimpses of Me and Mine by Nancy Lynne Westfield. Their conversation describes the writing technique called fragmentation and how it is advantageous for scholarly writing. Westfield and Quist discuss the challenges and potential rewards of writing with intimacy, transparency, and personal disclosure in fiction and nonfiction.
The Rev. Dr. Boyung Lee is Professor of Practical Theology at Iliff School of Theology.
In this Silhouette Interview, Lee covers reflection over the impetus of her teaching, being mindful when what's being taught isn't being embodied, the path not trodden of being a physicist, and more.
Yohana A. Junker, PhD is Assistant Professor of Art, Religion, and Culture and Associate Dean for Strategic Planning at Claremont School of Theology.
Employing arts-based pedagogies allows students' analysis and curiosity to get inside the systems which oppress, wound, and hobble in order to dismantle, rethink, or jettison. Designing classroom experiences which takes seriously a story-centered approach asks students to use their imaginations to learn and grow for the good of community. Experience-praxis methods invite students to seek healing, remedies, and reclaim the passions which brought them to the classroom in the first place. Using creative practices, engaging all the senses in learning activities, beckons students move to new kinds of meaning making and learning. The aim of these classrooms is for student and teacher, together, to walk into potential, possibility, and hope.
The Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey is Vice Presidents for Academic and Student affairs and Associate Professor of Constructive Theology at Meadville Lombard Theological School.
Dr. Lightsey discusses the childhood dream of being a civil rights attorney and using the discipline you have to help other people as well as the importance of a job that allows you to bring your full, creative self and the joy of learning from students.
Donald Quist is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Missouri.
Improved writing means improved teaching - and vice versa. The Wabash Center's initiative on creative writing supports imagination, creativity, and scholarship. Hear from the Wabash Center's expert in creative writing on ways to expand scholarly writing, rekindle the passion of teaching, and nurture your own habits and practices toward new kinds of publications.
Rev. Dr. Steed Davidson, Executive Director of the Society for Biblical literature.
What kind of professional development, formation, and imagination is needed for career longevity as a scholar of religion and theology? What kinds of adaptations, new perspectives, and new conversation partners are needed for a life of scholarship? What new and needed academic and academic adjacent careers will be accessible? What is a career trajectory plan when there is so much change and opportunity?
Dr. Eric D. Barreto is the Frederick and Margaret L. Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. In this Silhouette Interview he discusses the childhood desire for a life with words, the influence of high school teachers, the faith required of the teaching life, the power of community in the work, and the miracle of playing a part in bringing about God's justice.
Through arts based research methodology, the documentary Seeing the Future of the African American Church in the Rainbow: A Year in the Life of Real Inspirations Ministry was created.
The documentary is complemented by a photo exhibit. R. Watkins is the photographer and videographer. Both pieces of artwork were created in pursuit of asking about Black religious expression and the place of LGBTQ persons in the life of the Christian church. The conversation discusses the ways story and storytelling can enliven our research, teaching, and approaches to meaning making with and for our students.
Ralph Basui Watkins is the Peachtree Associate Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth at Columbia Theological Seminary.
The Rev. Dr. Daisy Machado is Emerita Faculty in Church History at Union Theological Seminary in New York and the Director of the Hispanic Summer Program. In this Silhouette Interview, she discusses her childhood dream of being a translator at the United Nations, rebellion out of Pentecostalism and into the Disciples of Christ, life-changing work at the southern border, the happiness that the teaching life generates, and the superpower of perseverance.
Gregory Cuéllar, PhD is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Austen Presbyterian Theological Seminary. In this Silhouette Interview, Cuellar discusses the childhood dream of flying helicopters in the military, being a part of a long line of teachers, the importance of nurturing curiosity, the superpower of discernment, surviving violence by being savvy and ready with quick wit, and the miracle of staying the course.
Marcia Y. Riggs, PhD is the J. Erskine Love Professor of Christian Ethics and Ombudsperson at Columbia Theological Seminary. In this Silhouette Podcast Interview, Riggs discusses wanting to be an artist who made statements with her art, the inspiration of Bell Hooks' "Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope," reinventing oneself in the classroom, the value of a position to help manage conflict, the superpower of seeing pattern and connection, and the importance of confronting violence rather than ignoring it as well as believing in the inherent goodness of people.
Dwight M. Hopkins, PhD is the Alexander Campbell Professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School. In this interview, Hopkins discusses his desire to be a writer as early as kindergarten, the freedom of the teaching life, the superpower of cross-cultural engagement, and the miracle of helping students realize that they much more than they think they are.
Steed Davidson, Ph.D is Dean of the Faculty and Vice President of Academic Affairs and is Professor of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament at McCormick Theological Seminary. In this Silhouette Interview, Davidson discusses his childhood desire to be a meteorologist and the pride of his family in his profession. Also: surprise at the difficulty of the teaching life with its constant attention, the superpower of mediation and the "Sense of We," surviving violences by writing and community, and the miracle of igniting students' curiosity.
Lisa L. Thompson, Ph.D is Associate Professor and the Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of Black Homiletics and Liturgics, Homiletics and Liturgics at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. Thompson discusses the childhood dream of being an OBGYN, rejecting the false dichotomy between scholarship and teaching, and the ways in which faculty can be punished for being good teachers. Also: the superpowers of intuition and the facilitation of creativity, community as the key to surviving violence, the miracle of helping people own their voices, and cultivating institutions that facilitate creativity.
Peter T. Cha, PhD is Professor of Church, Culture and Society at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Cha discusses his childhood desire to be an architect and how that love of design informs his teaching and class creation. He also talks about the demands of institutional citizenship, the superpower of distillation, and the joy of the 'aha' moments.
Rolf Jacobson is Professor of Old Testament and the Alvin N. Rogness Chair of Scripture, Theology, and Ministry at Luther Seminary.
In this Silhouette Interview, Jacobson discusses early thoughts of a career in finance, bafflement at the pace of technological and societal change, being a musician, dogged persistence of his students and colleagues in a world filled with violence, as well as the superpower of sarcasm--one of the gifts of the spirit Paul didn't get a chance to enumerate!
Dr. Tina Pippin is the Wallace M. Alston Professor of Bible and Religion at Agnes Scott College. In this Silhouette Interview, Dr. Pippin talks about how she always wanted to be a teacher and was particularly inspired by teachers who pushed boundaries. She discusses being driven to connect the Word with the world, and in her fight for just wages, her superpower is the ability to show up and stand fast in the places where power doesn't want you.
Rev. Dr. Stephen G. Ray is the Crump Visiting Professor and Black Religious Scholars Group Scholar-in-Residence at the Seminary of the Southwest.
Dr. Ray discusses longing, as a child, to do anything in the future that allowed him to read books, being an only child with the encyclopedia for a friend, and rebounding from an initial undergrad attempt where he had a .75 GPA. Ray also touches on miseducation and the loss of historical knowledge in students, his ability to educate, challenge, and inspire with media and narrative, and the importance of being about your projects--not your institutional job.
What scholarly skills are transferrable to other enterprises? What does it mean to consider an executive position like a deanship or presidency?
How do I manage speaking engagements, book deals, and other kinds of opportunities? When should a LLC be established?
The Rev. Dr. Gay L. Byron is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the Howard University School of Divinity in Washington, DC.
Scholarly careers are not linear or tidy. Hear about helpful tools for career management like: creating a map/plan for tenure process and promotion (6 year plan), having more than one mentor, knowing when to leave the first job and when to stay, finding conversation partners for career decisions.
Silhouette Podcast Interview with Mary Hess, Professor of Educational Leadership at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN.
What is possible as you accept a new job? What kind of agency is needed to feel like you belong at hire?
What does it mean to know your worth and value?
Learning to read institutional budgets, understand endowments, and be knowledgeable about financial reports will assist faculty persons.
Being informed about your school’s financial picture is an aspect of personal wellness.
Healthy and career stability includes planning for the financial future and managing personal funds.
Understanding TIAA, investments, and estate planning is part of faculty wellness.
Miguel A. De La Torre is Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at Iliff School of Theology.
In this Silhouette Podcast Interview, De La Torre discusses what it means to have come from poverty, discovery of Liberation Theology, gratitude for political failure, and creative expression in the scholarly life.
A Silhouette Interview with Mai-Anh Tran, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean with Garrett–Evangelical Theological Seminary.
Silhouette Interview Podcast with Tat siong Benny Liew, Class of 1956 Professor of New Testament Studies at College of the Holy Cross
Silhouette Podcast Interview with Elizabeth Conde-Frazier director of the Association for Hispanic Theological Education.
With or without our awareness, artificial intelligence routinely influences our classrooms. Chat GPT has brought new challenges to learning and assessment. How can Chat GPT become a tool of the course? What new practices will be needed to measure learning given students’ use of Chat GPT? What conversations can faculties convene to learn the nuances of this technology and how it impacts pedagogy? As new technologies emerge, what is adult learning?
A Silhouette Podcast Interview with Alton Pollard Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
To whom are you obligated when you complete your degree? If education is for the public good – then what does it mean that public education promotes and forms individualism? What is the purpose and aim of public education, of higher education? What if the policing of teaching is detrimental to the thriving of a democratic republic? What would it mean to promote communal values in classrooms bound to shaping individualistic mindsets?
Chelsea Yarborough
Assistant Professor of African American Preaching, Sacred Rhetoric, and Black Practical Theology
Phillips Theological Seminary
When students are emotionally tender accusations do not help. Distressed students and colleagues are increasing in number. Hear ways of referring persons for professional help.
Faculty are human and can succumb to dangerous behaviors. Institutional patterns of care and support might need to include a wide array of local resources.
The colleagues of St. Andrews Theological Seminary, Philippines, are innovating their approach to theological education.
Dr. Hong recounts her recent visit and the ways indigenous theologies and new epistemologies are replacing the colonized mindset.
Hear how theological education in the Philippines is inspirational, courageous, and aspirational for those of us in the USA.
Students are signaling a zeal for learning and, equally, a saturation with life’s challenges.
Nimbleness in teaching is, indeed, a scholarly practice. Re-tailoring the syllabus during the semester models health, balance, and life-lasting learning.
Slowing the pace can lower anxiety and reaffirm accountability.
What does the phrase “paying Black tax” mean and why is it pervasive in predominately white institutions (PWI)?
How do you cope when faculty-life is not what you expected? Are there new models of faculty nurture and care?
Can faculty cultures be well, whole, and healthy?
Modeling collaboration by colleagues invites students into the complexity and beauty of thinking.
Collaboration invites students to witness the good struggle of colleagues.
Learning to navigate complex problems could be enriched by creating shared classroom spaces of power, diversity and authority.
There is great benefit in incorporating collaborative relationships into even our introductory courses.
How are colleagues hired during the quarantine surviving?
What is authority if you are younger than your adult students?
What is scholarship when teaching is multi-modal, publishing is fragmented, and service requires many, many committee obligations?
Who is the self who teaches during the first seasons of the teaching career?
How you enter a place, a job, a career is important. Processes of interviewing, hiring, onboarding inform concerning belonging or lack of belonging of the community.
How does a faculty inform a newly hired colleague that they want them to succeed? What hospitality is offered? What resources are provided for early career people to manage their own interests, projects, and aspirations?
What does it mean when the messiness of our humanness and family relationships is precisely what makes us better teachers? The courage to be vulnerable and act as a learner with our students can be inspired by our own parenthood. What does it take to navigate the racial dynamics of diverse classrooms? What practices of wholeness will sustain the dedicated minorized teacher over the long-haul of a teaching career? How does being aware of the identity politics of the USA make you, potentially, a better teacher?
What happens when the teaching life is a grind? How does one manage the institutional pressures of academic life?
Without mentoring how do I know if I might be a good administrator? What does it take to raise the morale of faculty?
What can be taught and what must be caught? What does it take to choreograph student discovery, detection, encounter, experience, stumbling upon, and notice of the unexpected?
What practices allow teachers to be aware of students’ knowledges? What does it mean to measure and reflect upon teaching that takes into account the art of catching?
So often scholarship is mired in a narrative of guilt for women who choose the mother. Too often mothering is thought to be a squandering of time for those pursuing tenure or promotion. What does it mean to intellectual communities if motherhood were to be embraced? How is the scholarship of teaching enriched by those who are mothering? What is the detriment of living in a bifurcated identity that silos mothering away from career and vocation? How does motherhood impact the twenty-first century identity politics of scholarship?
Creating classrooms where learners have agency, trust, and are encouraged to bring their own knowledge to bear upon the conversation is challenging but possible.
What does it mean to craft learning activities with more variety and intention than long lists of required readings? What if ah-hah! moments require cognitive dissonance?
What if we attempted less volume of material and more depth of the material in our classrooms? Learning to teach better requires risking new practices.
New patterns of institutional power, new visions, and the capacity to make unpopular decisions still does not guarantee successful leaders.
In this current wilderness experience, how are leaders trained – who trains? How are leaders identified, mentored and supported for success?
Good leaderships have the dynamic capacity to set direction, can lead to new places, is not cohesive or cruel. Leadership skills are scholarly skills.
Doctoral students were challenged to the brink to remain in school during the pandemics. The chaos of closed libraries, restructured exams, and isolation might have foreclosed on some students. Hear one doctoral candidate's story of how the inherited knowledges from her family helped her reorient her approach to completing her program and electing to take a job with the Wabash Center.
The narrative of decline concerning theological education is better met with a narrative of complex opportunity. Now is the time, even in liminality and contradiction, to consider pedagogical pivots toward etymologies of collaboration, embodiment and story. Suppose needed pedagogies can be extrapolated from the ancient knowledges of Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal traditions? What would it mean to transform the hope and harm of theological education with narratives born of the experiences of testimonials in charismatic traditions?
Does the church want theologically educated leadership? What kind of learning is needed now for effective ministry? In what ways can the seminary benefit from the knowledge production of the church? What if this is a moment of great capacity and great opportunity – but it is being squandered by the church and theological education!
Who has the boldness to reinvent (rather than adapt) the seminary? What kinds of spaces will be needed for the learning experience? Perhaps, we need assistance from artists who are world builders and imagineers? What if … we convene to dream a new way, with new collaborators?
What do we ask our students to risk when we refuse the pretentions of expertise? What if the uncanny things which occur in our classrooms are the refiner’s fire changing us, student and teacher alike? If we would allow ourselves the joy of astonishment, would we teach with more depth? What are the new habitations for theology which will be lifegiving, life-affirming and meant for human thriving?
Demystifying the voluntary, non-voluntary, peer process. How do you know when good decisions are made and how blunders are corrected? What about learning outcomes? Before joining a faculty, read the accreditation report.
Spring of 2022 is proving to be a difficult semester. Increasingly, students exemplify behaviors of distress. Faculty are ill-equipped to meet needs of strained students while they themselves are struggling. Perhaps vocational dexterity will provide some new strategies.
The institutional step after grappling to become anti-racist is to move toward communal thriving. A sign of hope, impact and accomplishment is when students hold faculty and administration accountable. Thriving in covid requires communal care and change.
Classroom lessons cannot be reduced to benign, disembodied facts. Teaching must acknowledge cultural complexity, the lack of truth telling and embrace the trouble likely to be stirred up in and beyond the classroom. Teach to stretch our own imaginations. Inclusion must include change, shifts in power and new methods of teaching.
Teaching can be a profound act of power. So then, teaching with an ethic of love, care, compassion, and kindness is paramount, especially during the viral and racial pandemics. What if academic rigor is not compromised in generous classrooms, but enhanced when we shift what counts as knowledge? The discussion lingers over teacher-burnout and knowing when it is time to leave the vocation and the classroom.
Learner based pedagogies must constantly ask the question - “who is our learner?” Answering this question brings the startling realization that first career, entering students do not know classrooms without the internet. Unlike the teacher, those learners do not know a world other than the current age. Their cultural formation is drastically different from that of the faculty. Their reality is a different reality. What does it mean to teach adults who were formed exclusively in the digital world? What are the challenges of teaching students born in 2000?
The complexity of this era requires leadership who are passionately willing to live in the ambiguity, uncertainty, and still make progress. Institutions must find ways to enable, empower, and inspire leaders for work in the middle of the muddle.
Recreating education during the prolonged pandemic takes more than the choice between face-to-face or online courses. Issues such as public health concerns, diversity-equity-inclusion, digital mindsets, and the downward spiral of denominational structures requires educational leaders to employ design theory, skills, and practices. How do we create optimal learning environments, right now and into the future?
Imagine classroom laboratories that move from the presumptive geo-physical context and digitally connect students located across more than fifteen time zones. Imagine hard conversations across mutual registers that nurture the ability to interrogate local, national, and international reality as the cornerstone of theological education. The digital interface created by global networks of online learners is reshaping, reforming, and enlivening theological education.
Convening colleagues for regular conversation to dream, think, confess, learn and celebrate teaching and the teaching life can improve individual efforts and strengthen the overall teaching community. Nurturing the curiosity for such questions as: who is the self who teaches?; what does it mean to teach in Covid?; what can we learn from folks like bell hooks? – can provide excellent formation for faculty. Mutual discussions helps teachers feel less alone and more connected.
The racial/cultural identity of teachers contributes to the formation, influence and dynamics of student learning. Given the climate of the national discourse on issues of race, racism, inclusion, and xenophobia, classrooms can become places where intercultural dynamics can be unpacked and relearned.
Teaching the Hebrew Bible as a source of hope and strength is complex and necessary during the pandemics. What does it mean to use BLM as a hermeneutical lens? In what ways can students be helped with bringing new understandings to the local church? Nancy Lynne Westfields hosts Dr. Wil Gafney (Brite Divinity School at TCU).
Fundamental influences upon theological education are the shape of higher education, the cultural pulse of society, and the religious practices of the people whose leadership is seminary trained. How might consideration of these variables assist with reimaging theological education? What if diversity is the bedrock of the future of theological education?
Conversations on Teaching and Spirituality
Series One: Exploring Thurman's The Sound of the Genuine
Series One: Episode 2 of 3: Expressions of the Genuine
What if hearing the genuine inside yourself requires a quest, a leaving home, or an exploration of the unfamiliar? If you leave home, can you find a home again? Does the genuine come from within you or does it come through you from somewhere else? What does it mean to offer the genuine as you teach?
Dr. Amy G. Oden
Adjunct Professor of Early Church History and Spirituality
Independent Scholar
Rev. Dr. Shively T. J. Smith
Assistant Professor of New Testament
Boston University School of Theology
Why don’t white people know the tenets, behaviors, patterns, and core values of racism? What’s at stake for not knowing? What practices, rules, and policies might a faculty agree upon to combat white surprise? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield will host Dr. Melanie Harris (Texas Christian University) and Dr. Jennifer Harvey (Drake University).
Welcome to Conversations on Teaching and Spirituality.
Series One is entitled Exploring Thurman’s “The Sound of the Genuine”.
The featured speakers of this video series are Dr. Nancy Westfield, Dr. Amy G. Oden and Dr. Shively T.J. Smith.
Using Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman’s baccalaureate address at Spelman College (May 4, 1980), entitled “The Sound of the Genuine,” these colleagues discuss the challenges of teachers attempting to bring their whole-selves to teaching. Each episode includes a spiritual practice, as well as excerpts from Thurman’s article.
In what forms does racism show itself in faculty cultures? What does it take to identify the performance of racism before it happens and while it happens? What can be done to combat the visible and invisible practices of racism in a faculty? The conversation with Dr. Melanie Harris and Dr. Jennifer Harvey will be hosted by Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield.
It takes time to unfurl from the processes of a doctoral program and lower the anxieties created in a job search. Now that you are an early career colleague, in what ways might you recompress and create strategies for bringing your genuine voice into your classroom? What does it take to shed the impulse of conformity and work toward your own distinctive generativity? In aspiring for a lifelong teaching career, who might be your mentors, conversation partners, and guides? Rather than reduce teaching to perfunctory tasks, what does it mean to develop the artistry of teaching? As an early career scholar, what does it mean to live into your own imagination, creativity, and courage for teaching?
A critical challenge during the first years of teaching is defining, forming, and living into a scholarly identity which is healthy, has integrity and is generative for your own scholarly project. This conversation discloses some of the pitfalls and risks when institutions provide little to no mentoring. What does it take to have a common sense and reasonable perspective for being a scholar and for doing scholarship ... over the long haul? What practices might support habits of self-care, creativity, and imagination for sound teaching, scholarship, and service? What is "good" citizenship while on a faculty?
Seasons of a Teaching Career
Series One is entitled Exploring Early Career Issues. The featured speakers of this video series are Leah Payne (Portland Seminary, George Fox University), Roger Nam (Candler School of Theology, Emory University) and Nancy Lynne Westfield (The Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion).
Common sense conversations meant to provide perspective, inspire, and encourage colleagues who are new to the academic enterprise. The discussions are frank, heartfelt and oftentimes personally reflective about the challenges, obstacles, pitfalls and joys of a life of teaching while early in the career.
This podcast episode is taken from a video series, Seasons of a Teaching Career.
Series One is entitled Exploring Early Career Issues.
The featured speakers of this episode are Leah Payne (Portland Seminary, George Fox University), Roger Nam (Candler School of Theology, Emory University) and Nancy Lynne Westfield (The Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion).
Common sense conversations meant to provide perspective, inspire, and encourage colleagues who are new to the academic enterprise. The discussions are frank, heartfelt and oftentimes personally reflective about the challenges, obstacles, pitfalls and joys of a life of teaching while early in the career.
Rather than repeating sounds made long ago by those who mastered academic fields, what must we now do to produce new knowledges? From where will our confidence and agency come to create ways of knowing fashioned for the complexity of pluralism? What new stories will we metabolize for the better formation and preparation of students? How do we teach differently than we were taught?
Being a critical reflective teacher means grappling with our own miseducation. Colleagues who have been proactive about the necessity of aligning teaching content, institutional mission and values with teaching approaches and methods share their strategies. If teaching is not politically neutral, then what practices can we employ to lessen the oppression and violence in our classrooms?
Personal reflection on issues of prejudice, bias, and cultural insensitivity is key to improving teaching. At any season of the teaching career new considerations for equity is possible. This conversation with the author of White Christian Privilege: The Illusion of Religious Equality in America challenges our vocational, curricular, and personal conventions and suggests resources for social justice standards in teaching.
Decolonizing teaching is an experiment in synergism. In developing new pedagogies, we can only guarantee crisis – crisis to reconstruct identities of the teacher and the learner, alike. What would it be to teach in a way that taboos, barriers and boundaries become meeting places? How will we learn to collaborate, build coalitions, and create partnerships for new epistemologies?
During the extended pandemic students are voicing discontent with courses which inadequately relate to minoritized views. Students are impatient when classrooms, yet and still, do not take seriously the complexity of all students’ experience. This is a moment, if we can seize it, to learn to open classrooms to practices of collaboration, partnership and coalition building to teach with our students rather than at our students.
Academic fields change when the teachers are people who have not previously taught in that field and when we resist the colonial presumptions built into the field. What does it mean to re-train, re-learn, re-educate ourselves to teach toward a decolonized mindset? In what ways might intersectionality be embodied in our teaching? What are pedagogies by emerging scholars and how are they grappling with the identity politics of the academy?
Too often the work of those who create, compose, build, or choreograph are not supported by our academic institutions. Many scholars pursuit their artistic passions in their “spare time” leaving their teaching and institutional life unfulfilled. Burn out is common. Narrowly defined, legitimacy of scholarship is strangling possibility and new vision. What would it mean to incorporate the tools of imagination, creativity and innovation into the life of scholarly teaching? What would it take to redefine academic rigor so as to regularize, require, and necessitate the innovative, the new, the creative?
At a time when theological educational institutions are struggling, the mainline church is floundering, and we are still disoriented by the racial pandemic, the viral pandemic, and afraid of the near future, what is flourishing? How would we teach differently if theological education was seen as a critical enterprise for creating a better world during this time of crisis?
Writing is part of the scholarly teaching life yet few of us have been trained to write well. Many of us have published articles and books without benefit of reflection upon our writing identities and our writing voices. It takes time to embrace the genuine writing voices and courage to write for resistance, liberation, and incarnation. What does it take to write as if your voice matters? What does it mean to express your thoughts, ideas, and know-hows in the artistic medium of writing?
Who do we want our students to become, what do we want them to build, and how do our classrooms form them for these tasks? Are we willing to relate to our students as co-knowers, co-producers of knowledge, equal partners in the quest of learning? What kind of trust is needed for students to bring the wisdom and knowledges of their communities to bear in the classroom? How do the commitments, obligations, and values of the teacher effect the wellbeing of the students and the role of the university in a democratic society?
We are tasked with teaching while being under siege. We are teaching persons who are living under siege. This inspirational conversation frames the need for teachers to learn communal strategies of survival which may have been previously abandoned or never learned. Learning to leap away from conformity might require teaching as the act of dreamers, conjurers, time travelers, and pilgrims. What if the vision for a new paradigm of education espoused education for everyone? What does it mean to teach what we do not know but what we have glimpsed? How do we keep job obligations from dampening our teaching and truncating our imaginations? How do we push through the fear to risk new paradigms for communal teaching?
This conversation, dappled with Dr. Jennings’ readings of original poetry and prose, examines the destitution of faculty when the only legitimate expression of scholarship is to perform the values of being a white, self-sufficient, and male. Individualism, competition, and arcane merit standards have fundamentally distorted theological education. Jennings asserts that the generative aim of education ought to be belonging. He challenges us to muster the courage and creativity for the discovery of our genuine contributions to the production of knowledge. Without this risk we fail our students and one another. What is the collective sound of your faculty? When the faculty plays together - what is original tune? In what kinds of improvisation does your faculty revel? How does the music of the faculty inspire students to join in?
Learning to listen to, attend to, and care for your body strengthens our ability to cope with stress, anxiety, and trauma. In this moment of pandemics when something has happened to every-body, regularly checking-in with your body can inform if professional help is needed.
Dialogue about these questions: How can we teach better during COVID? What does it mean to be mindful of our students’ burdens, aware of the trauma our students are carrying - so that their trouble does not impede their learning? What approaches and practices of teaching might lower student anxieties so that they might learn? What assignments can we design that will have a generative impact upon the students’ churches, neighborhoods, families, and communities? To what places beyond our secluded campuses can we send students to explore in order to expand their learning? In what ways might honesty about our own identities inspire our students? What contemplatives spiritualities re-ignite and foster our passions for teaching – even during the viral pandemic?
Given the continued effects of the viral pandemic, compounded by weather disasters, world news of crisis and devastation, rising incidents of racism, plus any troubles unique to your own family, etc. – THIS IS A COMMUNAL MOMENT OF LONG-TERM STRESS. Teachers must ask, in the midst, how are we showing up? We know everyone is not equally affected by this moment, everyone is not participating in the same reality, and yet we know all of us are strained, taxed, and stressed. Uncertainty fatigue is pervasive. This conversation helps know how to check-in with self, students and colleagues. We discuss the difference between submission and surrender for the health of self and community. We discuss ways of coping with despair, suffering, how to be together in sorrow, grief, and practices of spirituality which will hold us during this extended chaos.
The barage of sustained crisis is weighing heavily. Even while enduring crisis, moments of clarity about issues of vocation, identity, and spiritual awareness are possible. What are questions of discernment which comfort, guide, and stabilize us during this time of flux. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Su Yon Pak, Senior Director and Associate Professor of Integrative & Field Based Education at Union Theological Seminary.
The initial shock of the pandemic crisis is over - the prolonged crisis keeps unfolding. Our up-ended lives are riddled with fear, grief and uncertainty. What does it mean to cope with the experience of “working twice as hard to get half as much done?” This is a conversation with Mindy McGarrah Sharp (Columbia Theological Seminary) about coping in these moments.
What kinds of preparedness is there for events like mass shooting or a devastating storm? What does it mean to teach immediately after these events? What happens when these events occur in your school or immediate community or in your classroom? How does one teach when there is a national interruption? What is a trauma informed classroom?
What is trauma and how does trauma affect body, mind, and spirit? Are there different kinds of trauma? Since classrooms are spaces of human interactions, understanding how fear and woundedness affects the teacher and the learner is critical to effective teaching. What classroom practices might lessen the experience of fear, helplessness, voicelessness, and being overwhelmed?
How are you? The response to this question can be weighty during the COVID 19 pandemic. What we teach can be disturbing. What adjustments in our syllabi and teaching practices might aid in care? What could go wrong while attending to the needs of students? Why are classrooms never to be spaces of therapy?
Informed definitions of trauma are needed. Classrooms are never spaces for therapy. Ways of developing trauma awareness, self-care strategies and referrals. Creating spaces of respect, regard and care are needed for faculty, administration, and students. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Lisa Cataldo (Fordham University).
What will it take to teach toward racial justice and away from white supremacy? Thinking about ways to incorporate minoritized voices into the entire curriculum. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Jill Crainshaw (Wake Forest University Divinity School).
What is white rage? What does it mean that racism so permeates school ecologies that white rage is not noticed by anyone other than its victims? What is the loss to the institution for white rage? How can white rage be counterbalanced? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Melanie Harris (Texas Christian University) and Dr. Jennifer Harvey (Drake University).
This podcast was originally featured as a webinar with Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield, Dr. Melanie Harris (Texas Christian University), and Dr. Jennifer Harvey (Drake University). White America must challenge its high capacity to tolerate racism, to overlook racist acts, and to look past racist behaviors. Personal agency is required to become anti-racist. Disrupting systemic racism requires a shift in public policies as well as a rethinking of institutional norms, traditions, and procedures. These shifts require the work of dedicated people. Equally, personal agency is required to genuinely welcome persons targeted by racism. To shift personal and familial attitudes, beliefs and behaviors persons must speak out for justice. This requires education and action. Our questions for this webinar:
• If racism is so pervasive as to be like “smog in the air” (Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum) – how do we identify acts of racism?
• What does it mean to be complicit with racism?
• What kind of listening is needed to become anti-racist?
• Is there such-a-thing as “microaggression?”
The courses and conversations needed to teach away from white supremacy and toward equity, freedom and humility require new conversation partners, creating new kinds of courses, and bravery. Such a conversation emerged when Dr. Smith (Columbia Theological Seminary) welcomed Dr. Ulrich (Bethany Theological Seminary & Earlham School of Religion) and students from their respective schools into a new course that she developed and taught on African American and Womanist hermeneutics and the Gospel of Luke. Smith and Ulrich will reflect on what they have learned through that experience, which has included consultations and writing supported by the Wabash Center. Learning in consultation throughout the project took imagination, patience, and vulnerability.
In this time of urgent potential, higher education has a particular role and responsibility to re-frame and fully center our collective commitment around the well-being and thriving of Black and Brown people. Predominantly white institutions have long noted, but tolerated, racial disparities in rates of retention, persistence to graduation, and grade point average--all data that indicate students of color are being negatively impacted by hostile racial climates in so many of our institutions. Those of us who work within higher education, especially faculty, can and must transform our institutions by centering the experiences of Black and Brown students. Rev. Dr. Jennifer Harvey will speak to these issues, by sharing her journey as Faculty Director of the Crew Scholars Program at Drake University. Crew is an academic excellence and leadership development program for students of color at Drake. In its eight years of existence, among students in Crew, Drake has seen the gpa gap close, student of color retention rates soar, and Crew Scholars persistence to graduation outpace and outperform all other Drake students (including white students).
Attending to the public pressure to rethink societal oppressions requires trustees, faculty, student and administrative alignment. Leaders taking risks for prophetic agendas is the work of justice in theological education. Do not be forced into silence! Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. L. Serene Jones (Union Theological Seminary).
What are the practices which might assist us as we endeavor to still ourselves to sustain the genuine? Who are the trusted people who we rely upon? What role does the body play in sustaining the sound of the genuine, the feeling of the genuine, the experience of the genuine?
The current rebellions and outrage is appropriate given the history of race politics in the USA. White scholars are called to use their curiosity, imagination and teaching competencies to embed into the curriculum anti-racist content, tactics, and strategies. Find ways not to let racial violence be overwhelming; practice deep listening, dialogue and community building with minoritized people. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts a conversation with Dr. Jan Love (Candler School of Theology - Emory University).
Dr. Willie James Jennings (Yale Divinity School) is this week’s guest on the Dialogue On Teaching podcast. Jennings and Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield discuss his upcoming book, “After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging,” which will be published in October 2020.
Creativity can be learned, practiced, and matured. Encourage yourself to ask - "why not?" "what if?" and "suppose ....?". Be brave in your teaching, suspend judgment, and learn to listen inside and outside of yourself. Dare to learn inspiration as a skill. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Delvyn Case (Wheaton College: Massachusetts)
Getting through the pandemics will take all of us, plus the willingness to allow our imaginations to be chaotic and refuel the soul. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Christine Hong (Columbia Theological Seminary).
Creating worthwhile experiences for students using a digital platform can provide new, interesting and creative options in teaching. Cultivating the digital imagination will help teaching into the future. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Kwok Pui Lan (Candler School of Theology - Emory University).
Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Emilie Townes (Vanderbilt University - The Divinity School) and Dr. Valerie Bridgeman (Methodist Theological School in Ohio). In crisis times, the creative voice speaks to the soul. The scholarly voice does not have to eclipse the creative voice. As published poets and scholars, these womanists will talk about their creative process and its influence upon their scholarship. They will also read original works.
What is spiritual formation for teachers? Teaching during the chaos of the pandemic is soul work. It requires a soul pedagogy. This discussion provides insights into nurturing the spiritual awareness of teachers to better support and assist the learner. The conversation provides practices for the online classroom, encourages teachers to risk creativity and imagination, and suggests that formation or deformation of students is a matter of attentiveness, flexibility and freedom.
Teaching during the pandemic requires we care for our students as well as ourselves. This podcast features a conversation with Rachel Harding (University of Colorado, Boulder) about rebuilding spiritual practices for this uncharted moment.
Teaching online can honor the body, encourage agency and nurture intellectual community. A pedagogy of hospitality for this moment of crisis. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Evelyn Parker (Perkins School of Theology) in this conversation.
What kinds of preparedness is there for events like mass shooting or a devastating storm? What does it mean to teach immediately after these events? What happens when these events occur in your school or immediate community or in your classroom? How does one teach when there is a national interruption? What is a trauma informed classroom?
What is trauma and how does trauma affect body, mind, and spirit? Are there different kinds of trauma? Since classrooms are spaces of human interactions, understanding how fear and woundedness affects the teacher and the learner is critical to effective teaching. What classroom practices might lessen the experience of fear, helplessness, voicelessness, and being overwhelmed?
What does it mean when scholars of religion are forbidden from teaching about racism? Who is harmed and what problems are created when sophisticated and common-sense approaches to race are part of the curricular experience? In what new ways is tenure necessary for scholars who risk teaching critical race theory? Dr. Finley’s work on whiteness is sparking controversy in and beyond his Louisiana State University classroom. As a scholar of religion, what preparation is needed for the moments our work spills-over into the larger society and provokes social discourse with the potential to catalyze social change? Scholar, who told you that you could think freely, think boldly, and think imaginatively? What is it to garner the courage to do the scholarly work our souls must have?
The measures of scholarly productivity are often premised upon a life without the distractions of children and family. The challenges of tenure and promotion are amplified for young parents, yet schools seldom support new mothers with policies, procedures, and cultural norms of welcoming and belonging. Too many schools punish, shame, or blame women who choose to parent. This conversation with young theologians raises the problem of living integrated, whole lives as generative women in the academy. What are alternative institutional practices which would affirm, nurture, and strengthen young mothers who are dedicated to scholarship and a life of teaching in the academy? What if the life of the mind included pregnant women, nursing women, and mothers of infants and toddlers?
What conditions prepare schools and classrooms for racist and other harmful events? What knowledges are needed to create spaces of compassion, confrontation, and moral accountability? What do students know and what do they need to know when issues of injustice, inequity and transformation must be faced?
Schools have a lack of preparedness for students and colleagues who are recent immigrants. What theologies inform the practices, policies and procedures of educational institutions concerning support for recent immigrants? What kinds of advocacies are needed in learning communities? When is the stranger not to be considered strange and why is that so important?
How are you? The response to this question can be weighty during the COVID 19 pandemic. What we teach can be disturbing. What adjustments in our syllabi and teaching practices might aid in care? What could go wrong while attending to the needs of students? Why are classrooms never to be spaces of therapy?
What is at risk for those teachers who teach about the connection between religion, the siege on the Capital Building and racial progress? What kinds of evaluations are levied against the professor whose work is noticed for its impact upon the public? What happens when administrators do not know how to respond to assaults on faculty whose work is contested by those beyond the school? What is the toll of societally transformative teaching upon the faculty person?
When the student body becomes majority people of color - what is the response? Who are the leaders capable of grappling with intersectionality? What is public accountability?, who wins?, and what is lost?
All of us are experiencing the pandemics differently; the shifting and changing varies. Yet, gaging the classroom and the learning by our students is integral. The losses, responses, and disruptions of COVID 19 has dulled skills and left many teachers feeling as if we are simply muddling through. What does it mean to learn to recalibrate? How do we respond when there is no one right way? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Sarah Azaransky (Union Theological Seminary).
Teaching as a focus of institutional change might be a lynchpin in creating sustainable schools. What if we free faculty to teach, then redesign institutional shifts around their teaching? What would it mean to collaborate beyond the seminary walls and into the neighborhoods? What would it take to suspend judgement of institutional mistakes long enough to experiment for change? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Ben Sanders, III (Eden Theological Seminary).
Informed definitions of trauma are needed. Classrooms are never spaces for therapy. Ways of developing trauma awareness, self-care strategies and referrals. Creating spaces of respect, regard and care are needed for faculty, administration, and students. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Lisa Cataldo (Fordham University).
Learning about teaching during the Covid lockdown. Combating transactional teaching. Approaching scholarship for and with the public. Creativity required for the larger questions and teaching. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Randall Balmer (Dartmouth College).
What meanings do youth place upon these pandemics? What are the fears of young scholars challenged to work from home? What strategies have scholar-parents devised to teach from home? How has this moment of pandemics heightened the fear of early career faculty concerning issues of presumed incompetence? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Sarah Farmer (Indiana Wesleyan University).
Revamp the syllabus so assessment is fair, generative, and manageable. Thriving as an early career faculty might mean new and different kinds of assignments and assessment. Get rid of assignments that overwhelm and cause suffering. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Roger Nam (Candler School of Theology - Emory University).
Shifting from face-to face to online took many professors by surprise in March of 2020. Now, one year later, this conversation is an insightful reflection about having grappled with the fear and the hard challenges of having rethought the syllabus. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Arthur E. Farnsley, II (Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis - IUPUI).
This podcast episode is taken from a recording of a webinar.
Body indicators such as nose, hair, and flesh tones are relied upon for the perpetuation of prejudice, bias, and presumed privilege. What would it mean to unlearn, then relearn more liberative ways of reading the body? Can the truncated imagination which only sees value in the white body be rekindled to see worth in all bodies? The featured speakers for this event are Dr. Melanie Harris (Texas Christian University) and Dr. Jennifer Harvey (Drake University).
Centering creativity in knowledge production and teaching. The best scholarship comes from animating our ideas, refusing to be policed, nurturing curiosity, and pursuing a spirit of play. We all need a no-judgement zone, a designated space where mistakes are encouraged, even rewarded. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Ralph Basui Watkins (Columbia Theological Seminary).
Student Formation can no longer ignore educational debt. Why are faculty reticent to confront student debt? What does it mean that the burden of debt is significantly higher among minoritized students? What if justice for students requires strategies concerning money, wealth, and debt management? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Jo Ann Deasy (The Association of Theological Schools).
The current liminality is not temporary, is not new, and is a huge challenge to the traditions and norms of educational institutions. What kind of leadership/management is needed? To what kind of student preparation will we shift? Can creative innovation inform our decisions and transform our schools? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Angela D. Sims (Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School).
Helping students look for and find ways to celebrate the strengths and possibilities of democracy and be clear about the damaged and harming aspects. Who are the teaching exemplars who exude graciousness, compassion, and power? What does it mean to be a human being in this society and in our classrooms? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Rachel Harding (University of Colorado, Denver).
Play, with and for adult learners, recognizes embodied aesthetics, assists in meaning making, redefines productivity, and welcomes wisdom. Diversities of epistemologies through play pedagogies enhance adult learning. Learning to have fun together rejuvenates and transforms classrooms. What does it mean to maintain health and wellbeing through play? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts (Chicago Theological Seminary).
Designing innovative ways to integrate research with the classroom experience. Students' questions vary with aspirations - course preparation must anticipate students' needs, wants, seasons of life. All ah-hah! moments are not the same! What if creative bravery is needed for better teaching and original scholarship? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Monique Moultrie (Georgia State University).
This episode is taken from a previously recorded webinar. The everyday pressure of racist climates wears upon the body, mind and soul of teachers. What practices of health, wellness, and self-care might prolong the life of a scholar in a racist, toxic, climate? The featured speakers for this event are Dr. Melanie Harris (Texas Christian University) and Dr. Jennifer Harvey (Drake University).
The challenge of discussing contested ideas is not the threat of personal offense, but the likelihood of continued violence and oppression in the wider society. What does it take to foster life-orienting discussions which generatively reflect upon the insurrection, the quarantine, and the BLM? Can we reconstitute the very nature of the adult classroom to grapple with our changed and changing society? What does it mean to teach students who possess different core values than our own? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Ben Sanders (Eden Theological Seminary).
Now, students are multi-vocational and depend upon theological education to address this expanding complexity. What does it mean to prepare students to be socially conscious and justice minded? What if innovative models overtax faculty capacity? Digital-age students require new meaning making strategies. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Vanessa Lovelace (Lancaster Theological Seminary).
For good teaching, we must consider teaching and personal economics, institutional economics, societal economic influences. In what ways do vocational aspirations and goals need to align with the economics of the school? Where do I find information about the economic viability of my school? What is the 2026 cliff? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Roger Nam (Candler School of Theology - Emory University).
Logos Evangelical Seminary teaches in Mandarin - a radical and timely seminary. Given the rise in immigrant people and churches, what kind of seminaries are needed? What does it mean to teach a blend of East and West? New seminaries embody a counter-cultural, counter-narrative of hope for the future. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Chloe Sun (Logos Evangelical Seminary).
Creativity can be learned, practiced, and matured. Encourage yourself to ask - "why not?" "what if?" and "suppose ....?". Be brave in your teaching, suspend judgment, and learn to listen inside and outside of yourself. Dare to learn inspiration as a skill. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Delvyn Case (Wheaton College: Massachusetts)
With no manual for this moment in teaching, we have these questions: After triage strategies, what does it take to pursue a discovery process to reestablish education? What are the new sets of questions and who are the new communities of accountability? What is the un-making and the making-anew of the theological educator? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran (Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary).
Where do we fit? How do we talk about the caste supremacy of South Asia as well as of the USA, without our students exoticizing us? What does it take to teach as racialized scholars who teach the disciplinary cannon as well as disrupt the disciplinary cannon? What kinds of collaborations are needed to refine liberative teaching practices in each season of the teaching career? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Hrshita Mruthinti Kamath (Emory University).
Given the insurrection of January 6, anti-queer, anti-Black, anti-Semitic, xenophobic views have got to be questioned. Sustained awareness, analysis, and teaching for justice is necessary. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Phillis Sheppard (Vanderbilt Divinity School).
"I did not, initially, want to be a teacher. God snatched me up! I learned to teach to my own design and for students' needs." Advise for new teachers from an emerita faculty elder. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Diana Hayes (Georgetown University).
Previously recorded as a Wabash Center webinar. Dismantling the systems and healing the wounds of racism requires a communal effort. What habits, strategies, and practices might a school undertake to learn together anti-racist work? The featured speakers for this event are Dr. Melanie Harris (Texas Christian University) and Dr. Jennifer Harvey (Drake University).
What is embodied teaching? What is the politics of body in on-line classrooms? What is a professional online face? How do I provide the best of my public self? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Melanie C. Jones (Union Presbyterian Seminary).
What does it take to orient yourself and students to on-line conversations? Meeting the complexity of remote teaching takes imagination, time and struggle. Walking along-side students during social upheaval and pandemic quarantine requires commitment and conversation partners. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Eric Barreto (Princeton Theological Seminary).
Taking time to breathe, calm and focus is critical to effective teaching. How does one avoid the pitfall of adding to the CV at the expense of personal health and wellness? In what ways can course planning encourage student attention to health and wholeness?
What is white rage? What does it mean that racism so permeates school ecologies that white rage is not noticed by anyone other than its victims? What is the loss to the institution for white rage? How can white rage be counterbalanced? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Melanie Harris (Texas Christian University) and Dr. Jennifer Harvey (Drake University).
Rekindling engagement of the unknown, the unsure, the uncertain can happen in on-line teaching. What does it mean not to shame, blame, or cringe while making mistakes in front of students? Practicing adaptation, nimbleness, flexible is key to kindling passion for teaching. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Carol B. Duncan (Wilfrid Laurier University).
What obstacles hinder faculty of color from being successful? What institutional strategies might remove unnecessary obstacles? How do creative and committed faculty survive with their hearts intact? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Miguel De La Torre (Iliff School of Theology).
What does it mean to honor a call to scholarship when tenure-track is not an option? What would it mean for senior scholars to assist contingency faculty? Communities of accountability are needed in every season of scholarship. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Edwin Aponte (Louisville Institute).
How are people who are alive doing theology? What does it mean to be Catholic given the surge of Hispanic members? Teaching the Catholic religious experience as a Latino scholar? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Hosffman Ospino (Boston College).
Society needs scholars who are curious about right now and the coming future. The production of knowledge includes creativity and imagination. In these moments of pandemics, consider your responsibility to the people. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Leah Gunning Francis (Christian Theological Seminary).
This podcast was originally featured as a webinar with Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield, Dr. Melanie Harris (Texas Christian University), and Dr. Jennifer Harvey (Drake University). White America must challenge its high capacity to tolerate racism, to overlook racist acts, and to look past racist behaviors. Personal agency is required to become anti-racist. Disrupting systemic racism requires a shift in public policies as well as a rethinking of institutional norms, traditions, and procedures. These shifts require the work of dedicated people. Equally, personal agency is required to genuinely welcome persons targeted by racism. To shift personal and familial attitudes, beliefs and behaviors persons must speak out for justice. This requires education and action. Our questions for this webinar:
• If racism is so pervasive as to be like “smog in the air” (Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum) – how do we identify acts of racism?
• What does it mean to be complicit with racism?
• What kind of listening is needed to become anti-racist?
• Is there such-a-thing as “microaggression?”
What is the freedom that language provides? Speaking in the dialect of the people honors the people and makes scholarship accessible. Who is the self who dares wield the power of voice for social change? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Pamela Lightsey (Meadville Lombard Theological School).
What does it take to ready schools for diversity? What is the evidence of the shift to anti-racist culture? Hear the story of a seminary who is making the commitment to diversity and cultural humility. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Boyung Lee (Iliff School of Theology).
What does it mean to mentor and be mentored? Who is the person(s) who will nurture, affirm, encourage, listen and support vocational decisions? Who is the person who will allow themselves to be mentored? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Kimberly Russaw (Christian Theological Seminary).
Hispanic Theological Initiative (HTI) has been supporting Latinx scholarship for 25 years. Hear the story of this timely and much needed project; gain insights about ways racially particular projects strengthen all of theological education.
Since theological education has many starting points, how do we include encounters with our grandmothers? In what ways might theological education restructure in order to honor our ancestors and babies yet to be born? What would student formation become with a focus on healing, holiness, wisdom and love – traditions of our grandmothers? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Patrick Reyes, Forum for Theological Exploration (FTE).
What does it mean to create virtual community…when you are new to teaching? Creating healthy intimacy and appropriate vulnerability in online courses takes planning. Give yourself permission to be slow. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfields hosts Dr. Rachelle Green (Fordham University).
What could it mean to seize this moment as a time for creativity and opportunity to rethink teaching? In what ways can data driven decisions impact design of new educational paradigms? What are the new set of skills needed by professors in this digital age? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Frank Yamada (Association of Theological Schools).
Kwok Pui Lan (Candler School of Theology at Emory University) and Tat-siong Benny Liew (Holy Cross College) interviewed Dr. Sarah Bogue of the Candler School of Theology at Emory University . They discussed ways for building community in virtual teaching and online learning. Creative ways of using Zoom and other technologies in online learning are explored. Incentivizing student interaction both within and outside of class meeting times helped to foster a community of learning.
Kwok Pui Lan (Candler School of Theology - Emory University) and Tat-siong Benny Liew (Holy Cross College) interviewed Dr. Kristina Reardon, Director of the Writer’s Workshop at the College of the Holy Cross. They discussed the challenges of turning a class into a community while teaching remotely. Strategies for supporting and resourcing student learning needs, especially for college students, are explored in the video.
What does it mean to teach for the honoring of body? Insights on approaches which disrupt “neck-up” teaching; encouragement toward classrooms for mutual experiences of one another. What if the scholarly production of knowledge included body, spirit and community? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Courtney Bryant (Manhattan College).
What does it mean to teach students with unexamined biases against immigrant faculty?What happens to faculty when “fitting in” requires loss of cultural identity? In what ways can skills of translation assist with the wounds of assimilation? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Jin Young Choi (Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School).
Teaching to help one another become ourselves requires a different model of education. Nurturing the curiosity of teacher and learner would need new forms and new functions. Daring to be creative might help shift the paradigm of theological education. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Brian Bantum (Garrett-Evangelical Theological)
Even for the seasoned scholar, understanding the digital mindset as well as navigating educational platforms is a necessity for effective teaching. Incorporating new collaborations and resources is a key to effective classroom experiences and learner success. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Gay L. Byron (Howard University School of Divinity).
The courses and conversations needed to teach away from white supremacy and toward equity, freedom and humility require new conversation partners, creating new kinds of courses, and bravery. Such a conversation emerged when Dr. Smith (Columbia Theological Seminary) welcomed Dr. Ulrich (Bethany Theological Seminary & Earlham School of Religion) and students from their respective schools into a new course that she developed and taught on African American and Womanist hermeneutics and the Gospel of Luke. Smith and Ulrich will reflect on what they have learned through that experience, which has included consultations and writing supported by the Wabash Center. Learning in consultation throughout the project took imagination, patience, and vulnerability.
Nurturing sensibilities and sensitivities for the pluralism of identities is a challenge to teaching and learning, alike. Teaching what you know is only the starting point.
What does it mean to do race differently in classrooms? What risks can teachers take to better prepare learners for issues of injustice, oppression, and liberation? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Elizabeth Bounds (Candler School of Theology - Emory University).
In this time of crisis, intergenerational connections make a difference in teaching and in being taught. Healthy community requires interdependence one to another across the generations. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfields hosts Dr. Dwight Hopkins (University of Chicago Divinity School).
Getting through the pandemics will take all of us, plus the willingness to allow our imaginations to be chaotic and refuel the soul. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Christine Hong (Columbia Theological Seminary).
What does it mean to shape our curriculum into a story our students can tell? What kind of pedagogical imagination is needed to shape old courses into new? In what ways might lightheartedness bring soulful teaching alive? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Carole Barnsley (Transylvania University).
Descriptions of mutuality between students and teacher; Suggestion that teaching is about translation – academy to town square, culture to culture, race to race. Teacher as translator requires courage and a blending of worlds. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Sarah Farmer (Indiana Wesleyan University).
His mother said that he was “born to push a pencil and run his mouth.” And what world-shaping-words have come from her son, Princeton University Professor Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.. “There’s a story of me going to a Pentecostal church for the first time,” narrates Glaude, “this woman gets the spirit right next to me and I had no language to understand it.” He describes the experience as, “wholly foreign but decidedly familiar.” But he “has a language for it now.” And this language serves as a way into and means to understand such religious expressions as “transformative experience[s] for those who occupy those spaces.” Here Prof. Glaude deploys the language of reflective teaching and learning in order to illumine the teaching life as it has shaped him and he in turn shapes his students. Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, where he is also the Chair of the Center for African American Studies and the Chair of the Department of African American Studies.
Becoming a learner once a seasoned scholar is a task fraught with discomfort, identity challenges, and the gaining of new confidences. Dan Ulrich (Bethany Theological Seminary) reflects upon a shared project with womanist colleague Mitzi Smith (Columbia Theological Seminary) where they explored issues of intercultural knowledges and unlearning white supremacy.
The multiple pandemics have caused a rethinking of community, connection, the sacredness of the body, and what it means to depend upon creation. Teaching cannot ignore the politics of relationship between one another, the planet and God. Teaching is justice work. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Cheryl Kirk-Duggan (Shaw University).
At the time of this conversation, Eric Barreto was on the faculty at Luther Seminary, but he has since joined the faculty at Princeton Theological Seminary. His teaching practice is informed by his bi-regional and multi-lingual backgrounds. The biblical text and the ancient world are sites for destabilizing contemporary notions about the stability of historical conceptions of the possibility/ies of living harmoniously within diverse communities.
This podcast was taken from "The “I” That Teaches” series, a video project that invites senior scholars to talk about their teaching lives. These scholar-teachers candidly discuss how religious, educational, and family backgrounds inform their vocational commitments and, also, characterize their teaching persona. From the vantage point of a practiced teaching philosophy we get an intimate account of the value and art of teaching well.
This podcast is from “The “I” That Teaches” series - a video project that invites senior scholars to talk about their teaching lives. These scholar-teachers candidly discuss how religious, educational, and family backgrounds inform their vocational commitments and, also, characterize their teaching persona. From the vantage point of a practiced teaching philosophy we get an intimate account of the value and art of teaching well. In this episode, we feature an interview with Victor Anderson, Vanderbilt School of Divinity.
Anita Houck, Saint Mary’s College, enriches her teaching with skills she learned from Improv. She always addresses students’ questions with a “Yes” before nudging them beyond their scope of inquiry. She is a humorist who meets students where they are and, then, tickles them into a deeper sense of the subject and, perhaps, themselves. She is a recipient of the institution’s prestigious Maria Pieta Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2004 and the College Theology Society's Monika Hellwig Award for Teaching Excellence in 2017.
This podcast was taken from the video series, "The “I” That Teaches," a project that invites senior scholars to talk about their teaching lives. These scholar-teachers candidly discuss how religious, educational, and family backgrounds inform their vocational commitments and, also, characterize their teaching persona. From the vantage point of a practiced teaching philosophy we get an intimate account of the value and art of teaching well.
For Kenneth Ngwa, Drew Theological Seminary, teaching is not just a vocation but it’s a way of life. He confesses, “I cannot but teach.” Teaching is about a community of learners coming together to make meaning from a set of texts or artifacts. “I think teaching is a powerful tool, ” continues Ngwa, “to shape not just individual perspectives but how society functions.” He teaches classes in the Hebrew Bible and is an important voice in the field of African Biblical Hermeneutics.
This podcast is taken from the "The “I” That Teaches” video series - project that invites senior scholars to talk about their teaching lives. These scholar-teachers candidly discuss how religious, educational, and family backgrounds inform their vocational commitments and, also, characterize their teaching persona. From the vantage point of a practiced teaching philosophy we get an intimate account of the value and art of teaching well.
“Teaching is an art and not a science,” states David Blix, Wabash College. It is about “interacting with students” in a “friendly manner” which is to say that teaching is about what he does in his everyday life. A deeply engaged student-centered teacher of religions of the world, Blix was a Carnegie Scholar at the Carnegie Institute for the Advancement of Teaching in Palo Alto, California.
This podcast was taken from the "The “I” That Teaches” - a video project that invites senior scholars to talk about their teaching lives. These scholar-teachers candidly discuss how religious, educational, and family backgrounds inform their vocational commitments and, also, characterize their teaching persona. From the vantage point of a practiced teaching philosophy we get an intimate account of the value and art of teaching well.
This podcast was taken from the "The “I” That Teaches” video series. It is a project that invites senior scholars to talk about their teaching lives. These scholar-teachers candidly discuss how religious, educational, and family backgrounds inform their vocational commitments and, also, characterize their teaching persona. From the vantage point of a practiced teaching philosophy we get an intimate account of the value and art of teaching well.
“My mother’s faith was foundational, and still is foundational, in terms of what it means to care about other people,” says New Testament scholar Mitzi Smith. “But what is different is that…my faith has developed into a critical faith.” It is a critical engagement with the Gospels, in the service of helping others to deepen their sense of shared responsibility, that she brings into the classroom. Early family experiences, formative relationships and training informs our teaching identity. “I teach with all that I am,” pronounces Prof. Smith. A native of Columbus, Ohio she began her teaching career at Ashland Theological Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. However, Dr. Smith has recently accepted an appointment as the J. Davison Philips Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia.
What is at-stake is a nation fit for our children to inherit - in other words, everything. Change will take a learning journey, culture re-shaping, and actions which change the purposes theological education. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Dori Baker (Forum for Theological Education).
In this time of urgent potential, higher education has a particular role and responsibility to re-frame and fully center our collective commitment around the well-being and thriving of Black and Brown people. Predominantly white institutions have long noted, but tolerated, racial disparities in rates of retention, persistence to graduation, and grade point average--all data that indicate students of color are being negatively impacted by hostile racial climates in so many of our institutions. Those of us who work within higher education, especially faculty, can and must transform our institutions by centering the experiences of Black and Brown students. Rev. Dr. Jennifer Harvey will speak to these issues, by sharing her journey as Faculty Director of the Crew Scholars Program at Drake University. Crew is an academic excellence and leadership development program for students of color at Drake. In its eight years of existence, among students in Crew, Drake has seen the gpa gap close, student of color retention rates soar, and Crew Scholars persistence to graduation outpace and outperform all other Drake students (including white students).
Will there be a church that matters in the 21st century? What stories will we inhabit that are life-giving and for who? Leading evangelical theological education is about risk taking, failure and change. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Mark Labberton (Fuller Theological Seminary).
Attending to the public pressure to rethink societal oppressions requires trustees, faculty, student and administrative alignment. Leaders taking risks for prophetic agendas is the work of justice in theological education. Do not be forced into silence! Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. L. Serene Jones (Union Theological Seminary).
Drastic shifts causing de-centering Theological Education calls for more than managerial responses. This project promotes ways of surfacing and exploring different ideas, different voices, and justice-minded changes. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Ted Smith (Candler School of Theology - Emory University).
The necessity of faith formation through public ministry is underscored now during the rebellions, pandemic and US economic uncertainty. Showcasing a new text: From Lament to Advocacy: Black Religious Education and Public Ministry (2020) for use by faculty, staff, and students. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Annie Lockhart-Gilroy (Phillips Theological Seminary).
With the peculiar upheaval of COVID-19, and the recent, flagrant events of racist violence, what competencies are needed by institutional leadership? What does it mean to lead change in this moment of volatility? What courage is necessary? What approaches in higher education will bring new stability in a more equitable society? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Rev. Stephen Lewis (FTE - Forum for Theological Exploration) and Rev. Matthew Williams (Interdenominational Theological Center).
What will it take to teach toward racial justice and away from white supremacy? Thinking about ways to incorporate minoritized voices into the entire curriculum. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Jill Crainshaw (Wake Forest University Divinity School).
The current rebellions and outrage is appropriate given the history of race politics in the USA. White scholars are called to use their curiosity, imagination and teaching competencies to embed into the curriculum anti-racist content, tactics, and strategies. Find ways not to let racial violence be overwhelming; practice deep listening, dialogue and community building with minoritized people. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts a conversation with Dr. Jan Love (Candler School of Theology - Emory University).
What if this moment of waiting is full of meaning and seeing, anew? Fostering ways of knowing, nimbleness, and sensitivity for teaching and the teaching life. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Michael Shire (Hebrew College).
What if scholarly endeavor was about podcasting? Twenty-first century knowledge production and making intellectual products accessible means podcasts! Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Leah Payne (George Fox University).
While the learning curves of faculty are sharp and while there is uneven institutional change – re-tooling and adapting to virtual environments is happening. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Israel Galindo (Columbia Theological Seminary).
While the mission of theological education remains solid, the institutional turmoil has been exacerbated by the crisis of the pandemic. These two prominent presidents will discuss the ramifications, implications and possibilities for seminaries during this societal upheaval. Additionally, they will discuss the heightened uncertainty of the vocations of religion and theology scholars in the academy. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Stephen G. Ray, Jr. (Chicago Theological Seminary) and Dr. Angela D. Sims (Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School).
What if this is a moment to recast educational institutions toward integrity and imagination? This threshold moment could be a time for justice in education. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Maureen H. O'Connell (La Salle University).
What if my presence is dangerous to the well-being of others? Taking agency and responsibility as an act of spirituality and faith maturity. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Emmanuel Y. Lartey, the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Pastoral Theology and Spiritual Care at Candler School of Theology.
What if face-to-face is not the best kind of teaching? Constructing community must be intention in any delivery system. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Marcia Riggs (Columbia Theological Seminary).
In this time of uncertainty and grief, religious leaders need new and old imaginations to unleash the power of liturgy and sermons to heal, comfort, and inspire. What intellectual, spiritual and creative wells can be drawn upon to address the suffering of the people? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Lisa L. Thompson (Vanderbilt University) and Dr. Richard Voelz (Union Presbyterian Seminary).
How is the pandemic a cause of revelation? Resisting the sink into doom, and rather unveiling opportunities for hope, might be the challenge of the moment. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Tina Pippin (Agnes Scott College).
The pandemic has caused questions and new curiosities to come alive in this moment. Learning through discovery is of mutual benefit to teacher and learner. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Mary Hess (Luther Seminary).
Teaching during the pandemic needs deep listening, resistance to expedient actions, and awareness that people are differently vulnerable and differently resourced. Adjusting syllabi might mean asking ,“In what ways does the course content relate to this crisis moment?” Every course will need a different pivot, adjustment, or change. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Joretta Marshall (Brite Divinity School).
Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Marsha Foster Boyd (Luther Seminary) and Dr. Stephanie Crumpton (McCormick Theological Seminary). Pandemic, crisis, quarantine, homeschooling, working remotely, job loss, grief and sorrow - all experiences of stress, strain and struggle. This conversation will focus upon issues of care for the soul during this time of Covid-19. What practices of self-care are needed in this moment?
We start where we are! Teach from the disorientation of the pandemic with reliance upon mutuality and interdependence one with another. Our adult learners share in the suffering, as well, they share in the discovery as we learn together. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Bobbi Patterson (Emory University).
Conventional and online teaching are two options, and competency based theological education is a third option. Adding competency based theological education is a viable response to the COVID crisis in education. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Kent Anderson (Northwest Baptist Seminary, British Columbia).
School campuses and classrooms have become ghost towns. What has the pandemic crisis done to all of education. Crisis is calling us to think creatively about the need for communal epistemologies. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Kenneth Ngwa (Drew Theological School).
Students are asking questions about the pandemic, the messages of the Bible, and faith during crisis. What does it mean to teach the Bible in ways that recognize contemporary crisis and opportunity? Dr. Mitzi Smith (Columbia Theological Seminary) and Dr. Roger Nam (Portland Seminary) discuss their creative approaches to teaching biblical literature and interpretation during this pandemic.
What would it mean to face failures in education which are being laid bare in this moment of crisis? Risking the perilous questions could lead to prophetic imagination and moral renewal of church and society. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Katherine Turpin (Iliff School of Theology).
In this time of liminality, listen for student needs and student requests about their own learning, curiosity and unique family situations. Consult with colleagues about teaching in ways previously unexplored. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Rolf Jacobson (Luther Seminary).
Creating worthwhile experiences for students using a digital platform can provide new, interesting and creative options in teaching. Cultivating the digital imagination will help teaching into the future. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Kwok Pui Lan (Candler School of Theology - Emory University).
The theo-poetic is the root from which all theology grows; discussion on the importance of rituals and rites of passage during crisis and the poetry which assists in survival and “thrival.” Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Heather Murray Elkins (Drew Theological School).
Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Emilie Townes (Vanderbilt University - The Divinity School) and Dr. Valerie Bridgeman (Methodist Theological School in Ohio). In crisis times, the creative voice speaks to the soul. The scholarly voice does not have to eclipse the creative voice. As published poets and scholars, these womanists will talk about their creative process and its influence upon their scholarship. They will also read original works.
Do not confuse online teaching with crisis teaching – we are in crisis! Rather than fighting to maintain normal, consider ways of survival, ways of being realistic, and humane while teaching during the pandemic. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Almeda Wright (Yale Divinity School).
This moment of crisis has rendered most of us speechless, unable to articulate or reflect upon the unfolding crisis. What other kinds of knowledge will assist us with grappling with this kind of suffering, isolation and grief? What metaphors, similes, sounds, body postures/movements, or ways of knowing will aid us? Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Carolyn Medine (University of Georgia).
The barage of sustained crisis is weighing heavily. Even while enduring crisis, moments of clarity about issues of vocation, identity, and spiritual awareness are possible. What are questions of discernment which comfort, guide, and stabilize us during this time of flux. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Su Yon Pak, Senior Director and Associate Professor of Integrative & Field Based Education at Union Theological Seminary.
Practical and heartfelt ways to bring closure to the semester, be in quarantine with your family and loved ones, and not succumb to unrealistic expectations during the pandemic. What is the least you will require from your self and from others? Dr. Angella Son (Drew Theological School) discusses.
The initial shock of the pandemic crisis is over - the prolonged crisis keeps unfolding. Our up-ended lives are riddled with fear, grief and uncertainty. What does it mean to cope with the experience of “working twice as hard to get half as much done?” This is a conversation with Mindy McGarrah Sharp (Columbia Theological Seminary) about coping in these moments.
What does it mean to coach students as the course moves to online teaching? Teaching during the COVID 19 crisis requires we maintain classroom community. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts a conversation with Dr. Bernadette McNary-Zak (Rhodes College).
Online teaching, even for those teachers who abruptly made the transition weeks ago, is here to stay. Improving and enriching online teaching means better use of image and storytelling. This conversation provides insights, practices, and know-how-suggestions for including poetry, film, novels, music – all forms of the arts – into learning sessions and student assignments. The courage of being an artist who teaches, and the inspiration to take risks, is a central theme of the dialogue. The use of technology does not have to be a hindrance to creative teaching; it might actually be an asset.
What is spiritual formation for teachers? Teaching during the chaos of the pandemic is soul work. It requires a soul pedagogy. This discussion provides insights into nurturing the spiritual awareness of teachers to better support and assist the learner. The conversation provides practices for the online classroom, encourages teachers to risk creativity and imagination, and suggests that formation or deformation of students is a matter of attentiveness, flexibility and freedom.
This crisis moment is a time to rethink formation into being a more embodied learning. Doing theology in crisis is about prayer, intimate conversations and hope.
Teaching during the pandemic requires we care for our students as well as ourselves. This podcast features a conversation with Rachel Harding (University of Colorado, Boulder) about rebuilding spiritual practices for this uncharted moment.
Teaching online can honor the body, encourage agency and nurture intellectual community. A pedagogy of hospitality for this moment of crisis. Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Evelyn Parker (Perkins School of Theology) in this conversation.
Leadership, in moments of crisis, must find new and ancient ways of being humane and acting creatively. This wisdom conversation with Dr. Alton Pollard, III (Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary) is a call to compassion.
Adapting new ways of teaching during the pandemic requires grace be extended to others as well as ourselves. Allow yourself to risk being creative; suspend judgement.
Less ambition and more conversational pedagogy to engage students struggling in this COVID-19 moment.
A conversation with Dr. Steed Davidson (McCormick Theological Seminary), Dr. Teresa Delgado (Iona College) and Dr. Christopher Tirres (DePaul University) about projects that connect the classroom to the wider world for social action.
Student formation is connected to a teacher’s spirituality. Hear insights on the use of mindfulness and imagination for re-orientation and flourishing.
What if, rather than a burden, this moment is an adventure for teachers? Dr. Beverly McGuire (University of North Carolina, Wilmington) provides insights for determining how to move forward with the rest of the semester online.
In this moment of upheaval as we switch to online learning – don’t panic! Dr. Richard Ascough (Queen's University) helps colleagues know what questions to ask for online learning when the professor only has a moment to make the switch.
The pandemic of 2020 is changing teaching. With little to no notice, faculties have been asked to switch from face-to-face formats to teaching online. This conversation with Dr. Kimberleigh Jordan (Drew University) and Dr. Shively Smith (Boston University School of Theology) provides advice, perspective, and insights for this moment of immediate adaptation. We are glad these colleagues joined us by phone.
Dr. Willie James Jennings (Yale Divinity School) is this week’s guest on the Dialogue On Teaching podcast. Jennings and Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield discuss his upcoming book, “After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging,” which will be published in October 2020.
As we celebrate 25 years of the Wabash Center, Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts Dr. Raymond Williams, the founding Director of the Wabash Center. Dr. Williams discusses and reminisces about the Wabash Center’s growth, starting at the beginning.
Patricia Killen, Professor Emerita of Religion at Pacific Lutheran University and Wabash Center leader, joins Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield as they discuss learning activities in the classroom. Dr. Killen has worked with the Wabash Center in a number of capacities since the foundation of the Wabash Center. This work has included: Advisory Committee Member, Workshop Leader, Consultant, and Editor of the Center’s Journal.
Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield hosts scholars of the Asian Diaspora for a conversation in the third episode of Dialogue On Teaching. This episode’s guests include Dr. Susan Abraham (Pacific School of Religion), Dr. Boyung Lee (Iliff School of Theology), Dr. Roger Nam (Portland Seminary), Dr. Sharon Tan (Eden Theological Seminary), Dr. Mai-Anh Le Tran (Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary), and Dr. Tat-siong Benny Liew (College of the Holy Cross).
In episode 2 of Dialogue on Teaching, Wabash Center Director Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield talks with Latinx professors of higher education as they discuss their perspectives on race critical consciousness and essentialism. Guests include Dr. Efrain Agosto (New York Theological Seminary), Dr. Gregory L Cuéllar (Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary), and Dr. Teresa Delgado (Iona College).
The first episode of the Wabash Center’s podcast, Dialogue On Teaching, hosted by Director Nancy Lynne Westfield. Guests on this episode include Brian Bantum (Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary), Willie Jennings (Yale Divinity School), Deb Mullen (Columbia Theological Seminary), and Evelyn Parker (Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University). The group discusses race critical consciousness in society, higher education institutions, and in the classroom.
Music written and performed by Paul O. Myhre
Podcast Engineer: Paul O. Myhre
Podcast Administrator: Carly Hollensbe