The Wabash Center's Dialogue On Teaching

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 challeng...

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...

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, disa...

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...

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 an...

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 h...

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...

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...

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 th...

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 n...

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 cohes...

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...

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,...

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...

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-center...

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...

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 y...

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...

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&apos...