The Wabash Center's Dialogue On Teaching

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 foreig...

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 o...

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...

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...

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 He...

“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 p...

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 i...

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...

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 Th...

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.  D...

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).