Stories from the Front

Though this particular meeting of the Academic Standing Committee was five or six years ago, my memory of a request as filed by a student yet lingers.  Bonnie, not her real name, was petitioning for a grade change from “B” to “A” in our required ethics course.  In the rationale ...

“Timeliness is next to cleanliness and godliness; we don’t want to waste a minute. Plus, I’ve been looking forward to this moment since at least January, and it was hard to sleep a week ago.” That’s how we began. Welcome to this crazy class. I started imagining ...

Baby Suggs, holy, is an enslaved, woman in the novel Beloved, by Toni Morrison.  In the passage cited below, Baby Suggs, holy is preaching in the woods on a Saturday afternoon.  Baby Suggs, holy stands on a huge flat-sided rock, prays, and then begins to preach proclaiming the essential message ...

By the time you read this, I will have met the students in “Religious Dimensions in Human Experience: Between Animals and Gods.” In this completely redesigned dual-level (grad/undergrad) course, we will explore how people can know a single animal—the snake—as an earthly creature and a supernatural entity. ...

Teach students where they are!  This forthright adage is deceptively difficult.  The question becomes – where are they in proximity to my own location? In other words, what does it mean for the effectiveness of my teaching if the cost of locating my students is heart wrenching? I am invested in ...