Teagle-Wabash Projects Host Helen and Alexander Astin

First Row (l to r): Michael Sepidoza Campos, Melissa James, Helen "Lena" Astin, Elizabeth Drescher, Erin Brigham.

Second Row: (l to r): Sanna Reinholtzen, Maureen Maloney, Steven Bauman, Alexander "Sandy" Astin, Brian Green

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February 20 was a full day for the GTU's Teagle-Wabash Fellows as well as for many of their mentors when reknown UCLA educational psychology scholars Alexander and Helen Astin visited the GTU to discuss their research on the relationship between education and spirituality. For more than 30 years, the Astins have conducted extensive research on the attitudes, beliefs, expectations, and educational experiences of undergraduates at colleges and universities throughout the United States. More recently, they have explored how both students and faculty engage questions of meaning and value in educational contexts. In 2003, they launched a project with funding from the John Templeton Foundation called “Spirituality in Higher Education: A National Study of College Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose" which surveryed more than 112,000 undergraduates at 236 colleges and universities nationwide and more than 65,000 faculty members at 511 colleges and universities nationwide. In 2006, with colleage Jennifer A. Lindholm, the Astins published Spirituality and the Professoriate (Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA)


In two thought-provoking sessions, the Astins shared findings from their research and took advantage of the opportunity to engage scholars in religion and theology disciplines--people generally assumed to be in the "big questions" business.


In a morning session, the Astins met with a large group of GTU doctoral students from across academic areas. Conversation here tended to focus on the ways in which student-centered pedagogies help to develop students' experience of spiritual and ethical growth during the course of their college education.


In an occasionally intense evening session with the GTU Core Doctoral Faculty and the Teagle-Wabash Fellows, the Astins again presented findings from their research on spirituality and higher education. In this session, Teagle-Wabash Fellows Jenny Patten Gargiulo and Michael Sepidoza Campos offered responses on the basis of their reading of the Astins' research and their own teaching experience. We'll share Jenny and Mike's responses as well as data and commentary from the Astins in a future issue of GTU Currents, which we'll link to the project blog.


In general, the focus of faculty interest in the CFD meeting was the Astins' definition of the term "spirituality" and how that traditionally Christian terminology might skew survey participation in a religiously pluralistic world. Other faculty were interested in how the survey results differed in denominational colleges and universities from those seen in public, secular schools.

Information on the Astins and the Spirituality in Higher Education project, including an extensive menu of downloadable research reports and other publications, is available on the web at http://www.spirituality.ucla.edu/index.html.

[Posted by Elizabeth Drescher, February 21, 2008]

TW Fellows Present Pedagogical Colloquia

GTU Teagle-Wabash Fellows:

Bottom Row, l to r: Steven C. Bauman, Brian Patrick Green, Jenny Patten Gargiulo

Middle Row, l to r: Dante Quick, Maureen A. Maloney, Ed.D. (Project Adminstrator), Elizabeth Drescher, Ph.D. (Cand.) (Research Associate), Sanna Reinholtzen, Michael Sepidoza Campos, Erin Brigham

Top Row, l to r: Terri Tanaka, Ph.D. (Cand.), Melissa James, Courtney Gulden, Ricky Manalo, Ajit Abraham

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"I subscribe to pedagogical methods that re-imagine shared knowledge and accountability as a means of engaging text. Within such spaces, learning is evaluated just as much by the student as the teacher; and knowledge is understood not as a commodity to be acquired, but as holy space that must be held in reverence."

~Michael Sepidoza Campos, Teagle-Wabash Fellow in Interdisciplinary Studies

Fresh from a winter break in which they had the opportunity to let the lessons of the Fall 2008 Teagle Seminar for Future Faculty soak in a bit, the GTU's twelve Teagle-Wabash Fellows were back to work in January during the two-week Learning and Teaching Academy II. During this follow-up to the summer LTA I, the focus has been primarily on the Fellows' own pedagogies as they play out in practical approaches to classroom teaching. Following content sessions by Alyssa Ninan Nickell, Ph.D. (Cand.) (St. Mary's University) on collegial communication, Kelly Bulkley, Ph.D. (GTU, JFK) on classroom management, Kris Veldheer (GTU) on advanced classroom technologies, and Linda Buckley (USF) on student assessment, the fellows have been presenting pedagogical colloquia that illustrate their developing teaching and learning practice.

The pedagogical colloquia model emerges from the work of Lee Shulman, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and an advisor to the Teagle-Wabash Preparing Future Faculty project. "Traditionally, in hiring...we have candidates give a talk on their doctoral dissertation. The pedagogical colloquium is a way for a hiring institution to say that it would like candidates to do something that begins to demonstrate their understanding of the teaching of their discipline," he explains. The goal, then, is to enter the academic job market prepared to talk not only about scholarly research, but also about how pedagogical preparation and reflection and classroom practice has prepared a scholar to teach real students in a real institutional session. The Teagle-Wabash Fellows' colloquia have aimed to show their development as teaching scholars along these lines.

In a generous conversation with GTU President Jim Donahue and Teagle-Wabash Research Associate Elizabeth Drescher last spring, Shulman recommended the pedagogical colloquium as a tool that would enable to fellows to present themselves professionally as "plug-n-play" faculty. "The more prepared doctoral students are to situate their research in the context of teaching as it happens in an academic department with all its disciplinary commitments and institutional obligations," Shulman insisted, "the more successful they are going to be not just as scholars who can get a job, but as scholars and educators who can connect their own work to the 'big questions' that drive institutions, disciplines, departments, classroom teaching, and the larger world."

Through the first week of colloquia, it is clear that the Teagle-Wabash Fellows have embraced the challenge of illustrating the ways in which their scholarship is animated in a classroom setting through the practice of what George D. Kuh and Robert M. Gonyea, drawing on the research of Alexander and Helena Astin at the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, have highlighted as "deep learning"--learning which engages students as ongoing, intentional learners who are able to carry the lessons of the classrooms into their longer and wider life trajectory. Michael Sepidoza Campos, Teagle-Wabash Fellow in Interdisciplinary Studies, addressed this kind of 'big questions'-oriented learning in his colloquium through a "Pedagogy of Listening" that will shape a course he is teaching in Spring 2008 at Pacific School of Religion entitled "EnGendered Pedagogy: Queer and Postcolonial Imaginations in Teaching."

"I subscribe to pedagogical methods that re-imagine shared knowledge and accountability as a means of engaging text," Campos explained in his colloquium. "Within such spaces, learning is evaluated just as much by the student as the teacher; and knowledge is understood not as a commodity to be acquired, but as holy space that must be held in reverence. A transformative pedagogy enlivens a “third space” that embraces, rather than dispels, difference."

Inspired by Chela Sandoval's metaphor of the learning process as not unlike falling in love, Campos continued, "A loving encounter provokes an ecstatic positionality that destabilizes static notions of selfhood and alterity. The lover and the beloved are dis-located—forced to stand beyond self, rendered ecstatic—and so opened to possibilities that allow for the reconfiguration of traditional discourse. When teacher and student apprehend each other for the first time, difference can easily melt into assimilation or give birth to new ways of being."

Attempting to avoid the risk of the pedagogical colloquium highlighted by Shulman--that it not become an "occasion ... for soliloquies on teaching" -- Campos and other Fellows were challenged to apply their reflections to classroom activities that demonstrate their pedagogical range as educators within defined institutional settings and disciplinary locations with specific student populations. This challenge will continue through the Spring 2008 semester as the fellows teach courses at various GTU schools and the University of California, Berkeley under the supervision of their project mentors.

GTU students and UCB graduate students can register for these courses during the regular Spring 2008 registration period. GTU Teagle-Wabash Fellows and Mentors will have the opportunity for sustained engagement with Helen and Alexander Astin in the February project forum.

Sources mentioned in this post include:

George D. Kuh and Robert M. Gonyea, "Spirituality, Liberal Learning, and College Student Engagement," Liberal Education (Winter 2006): 40-47.

http://cpr.iub.edu/uploads/Kuh,%20Gonyea%20%282006%29%20Spirituality,%20Liberal%20Learning,%20and%20College%20Student%20Engagement.pdf

Lee S. Shulman, "The Pedagogical Colloquium: Three Models," Electronic Educational Environment, University of California, Irvine.
https://eee.uci.edu/news/articles/0512colloquium.php

Michael Sepidoza Campos, "Pedagogy of Listening," Unpublished seminar paper (December 12, 2007).

[Posted by Elizabeth Drescher, January 19, 2008]

GTU Teagle-Wabash Fellows Offer Wide Range of Spring 2008 Courses

A key component of the GTU Preparing Future Faculty project sponsored by the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Religion and Theology and the Teagle Foundation is the mentoring of doctoral students for excellence in classroom teaching. To that end, the twelve Teagle-Wabash Fellows have worked extremely hard through the summer and fall of 2007 to hone their approaches to classroom teaching. First, in an intensive Learning and Teaching Academy in August, the fellows worked through very practical issues in the design and delivery of courses, dealing with issues of content, structure, evaluation and measurement, and various modes of classroom diversity. During the Fall 2007 semester, in an advanced doctoral seminar on questions of meaning and value in liberal education with GTU President James Donahue and Dean of Students Maureen Maloney as well as teaching/research assistants to their faculty mentors, the Fellows engaged questions of pedagogy, disciplinarity, and vocation as these shape their approach to teaching. In Spring 2008, the fellows’ intense engagement with the theory and practice of teaching and learning are brought to bear in courses they will teach under the supervision of their faculty mentors. In many cases, these courses will only be offered during the Spring 2008 semester. GTU and member school students in all program areas are invited to consider the following courses as they register for the spring semester:

(Click here for a full description of all of these courses.)

UCB C104 Babylonian Religion
Instructor: Terri Tanaka, Ph.D. (Cand.), (Near Eastern Religions)
Mentor: Dr. Neik Veldius (UCB/Near Eastern Religions)

IDS 4202 Re-Imagining Globalization and World Christianity:
Contemporary Thea/ological Challenges & Alternatives
Instructor: Ajit Abraham (IDS)
Mentor: Dr. Gabriella Lettini (SKSM)

PS 1010 Introduction to Pastoral Theology
Instructors: Steven Bauman (Psychology & Religion) and Dr. David Gortner (CDSP)
Mentor: Dr. Kelly Bulkeley (JFKU)

STHS-2478 Women and the Church in the 20th Century
Instructor: Erin Brigham (Theology)
Mentor: Dr. Deena Abramoff (GTU/CJS)

RSED 2492 Engendered Pedagogy
Instructor: Michael Sepidoza Campos (IDS)
Mentor: Dr. Boyung Lee (PSR)

CE-2045 Fundamental Moral Theology
Instructor: Brian Green
Mentor: Dr. John Berkman (DSPT)

NTRS 3510 Apocalyptic Then and Now
Instructor: Courtney Gulden (Bible)
Mentor: Dr. Tat-siong Benny Liew (PSR)

CE 1053 Introduction to Christian Ethics
Instructor: Melissa James (Ethics & Social Theory)
Mentor: Dr. Martha E. Stortz (PLTS)

BSFT-3114 Healing in the Bible
Instructor: Sanna Reinholtzen (Liturgical Studies)
Mentor: Dr. LeAnn Flesher (ABSW)

LS-4510Asian Liturgies and Devotions
Instructor: Ricky Manalo (Liturgical St.)
Mentor: Dr. Mary McGann (FST)

SRA 4638 The Jesuits and the Arts
Instructor: Jenny Patten Gargiulo (Art & Religion)
Mentor: Dr. Mia Mochizuki (GTU/JSTB)

STCE 4218 Theology and Ethics in Black and White: Aesthetics and the Political
Instructor: Danté Quick (Theology)
Mentor: Dr. Christopher Ocker (SFTS)

Transforming a room into a space for learning and big questions

by Melissa James, Teagle-Wabash Fellow in Ethics and Social Theory

For many and sundry reasons I have been in a multitude of elementary school classrooms. The best and most effective classrooms seem to be those in which the teacher has transformed the room into a world unto itself. What I am constantly reminded of and amazed by is that through their efforts a simple room is transformed into a space where learning happens.

While very few higher ed classrooms will include a rug for story time or the classroom pet, there is something to be learned from the transformation of elementary school classrooms. A question that has been floating among the PFF fellows is: How do we transform a classroom into a space where learning happens, where “big questions” can emerge? Taking my queue from effective classrooms, I offer a few preliminary thoughts on this question:

1) Mind the space. Foucault suggests that the set up of a space displays and even defines the power dynamics of the interactions therein. There is no one “right” set up for a classroom, but, depending on the type of environment one is trying to create or dynamic one is trying to foster there are certainly set ups that hinder this.

2) Provide a variety of tools. Unfortunately this may not be play dough (though I have considered this); it can, however, be asking the question of what tools are available in the classroom to explore the question or content at hand? How can I use all of the room? How can I provide many entry points for engagement?

3) Don’t define all of the questions. My task as a teacher isn’t to define all the questions that students ought to ask in order to get the correct answers. There are times and places for prescribing questions, but, by helping students identify and name the questions they are asking (or trying to ask) the door is wide open for “big questions” to emerge.

This list isn’t even close to exhaustive of ways to create a space for big questions to emerge. What would you add?

Vocation as Pilgrimage

by Michael Sepidoza Campos, Teagle-Wabash Fellow in Interdisciplinary Studies

"I am slowly learning that vocation is intimately woven within the posture of listening. The “big questions” cannot be removed from the minutiae of class preparations, student-teacher engagement and syllabus formulation. There is much to be done at maintaining vigilance before systems that silence; at fostering spaces of honest engagement rather than suffocating 'formation models' that prescribe uniformity."

In the first quarter of the Teagle Seminar for Future Faculty, “vocation” occupied a pivotal space in our discussions concerning pedagogy, method and professional accountability. It was a familiar conversation that I initially shared with Benedictine monks who likened “vocation” to a posture of listening, an engagement where God is found most profoundly in the ordinariness of quotidian relationships. While I was content among these brothers, I sensed a perennial ambivalence within the community’s commitment to stability. An elder monk reassured me that this ambivalence stood at the heart of monastic life: stability assumes that one must remain a pilgrim. Thus, vocation evokes not a definitive response to static questions, but a deeper commitment to seeking.

In reflecting upon the “big questions” among the Teagle-Wabash Fellows, I was pushed to ask: For whom do I speak? And more importantly, from where do I seek? The rhetoric of social location—and the accompanying implications of social accountability—resonates deeply with Benedict’s counsel to listen with the ear of our hearts. This is a highly politicized space where the implicit narratives of race, class, gender and power differentials must be confronted and named for the doors that they both open and shut. My access to university in the United States was mitigated largely through affirmative action. While I remain critical of a system that, at its worst, reverses dynamics of discrimination, it remains the very location that opened access to conversations that problematized ethnicity, neocolonialism, gender and class. It gave structure and language to issues that were apprehended viscerally within my community. Learning to negotiate around systems serves as much an act of listening and as it is a tactic of survival.

If the “big questions”---as tied to vocation---were configured within the political, higher education must be willing to challenge prevailing canons that privilege one perspective at the expense of another. For bell hooks, an “engaged pedagogy” does not avoid complexity through the easy prescription of universal solutions. What girds life-giving curiosity arises from encounters with difference, disjuncture and conflict. This emerges poignantly in my context as GTU grapples with its own response to diversity. For learning to be transformative, one must engage diversity as a complex body of relationships, not merely a “category of difference” to which all ethnic, class, gender and intellectual “minorities” are pigeonholed to challenge power. Learning and committed pedagogy must begin in places where incomprehensibility opens forth avenues for creative translation; where the longing for wisdom is spurred by the confusion of difference.

There is a theological underpinning to yoking one’s professional obligation to the vocational imperative behind the “big questions.” The correspondence of “calling” and “response” is itself an encounter with difference, mystery—God. It is a place of tension where theoretical engagement is embodied within:

• An institution’s commitment to financially support students from underrepresented communities;
• The encouragement of alternative assessments that honor diverse learning styles; and
• The re-imagination of a liberal arts curriculum that transcends the boundaries of traditional disciplines.

Creative pedagogies at the GTU take place among students who critique from places of interdisciplinarity, from the margins of ethnic, gender, class and religious categories; at centers like the PANA Institute where proactive outreach to underrepresented communities enliven the configuration of popular education; and within conversations that “queer” theological language and trite assumptions of multi-culturality. At spaces both within and in between conventional academic study, the GTU attempts to engender creative pedagogies that pique my deepest longing for meaning. This is the posture of listening that frames my vocational commitment. There is life here, but like all efforts at transformation, there remains much more that needs to be done.

I am slowly learning that vocation is intimately woven within the posture of listening. The “big questions” cannot be removed from the minutiae of class preparations, student-teacher engagement and syllabus formulation. There is much to be done at maintaining vigilance before systems that silence; at fostering spaces of honest engagement rather than suffocating “formation models” that prescribe uniformity. I suspect that answers, really, are not what I seek. Thoughtful students ask provocative questions. Responding to one’s vocation is thus less about finding stability as it is about falling intentionally into the quagmires of our curiosity.

In this vein, the vocation of a teacher stands squarely alongside that of the monastic pilgrim who seeks.