The Wabash Center's Dialogue On Teaching

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...

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...

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...

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.  D...

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...

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...

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. 

Writing for liberation of faculty voices to speak with courage and agency. 

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 Sta...

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?