Description 

Where have you placed your imagination, here at the middle of your career? Years of teaching may have caused us to lose sight of the importance of cultivating the imagination for our students and ourselves. We only want participants willing to take risks to allow their imaginations to reinvigorate the teaching life. This workshop is designed for mid-late career faculty who are clear about their need for renewal and longing for new possibilities in their teaching. We want participants who are open to and excited about non-expert artistic experimentation in a variety of media. Through collaborative experimentation and courageous reflection, we will expand and re-craft the vision for teaching drawing on the spirit of art.

Goals

• Participants will encourage one another towards ongoing creative risk-taking in our teaching
• Participants will cultivate a greater use of the raw materials of their artistry: life experiences, life in institutions, scholarly expertise.
• Participants will gain greater appreciation of their classroom as a place of artistic cultivation and expression
• Participants will access more easily the creative energy of their imaginations

Eligibility

Participants must be/have:

• Full-time, tenured, or continuing term relationship, with one school
• Teach religion, religious studies, or theology in an accredited college, university, or seminary in the United States, Puerto Rico, or Canada. If working in related fields must be teaching primary courses focused on issues of religion or theology
• Institutional support and personal commitment to participate fully in all workshop sessions
• Hold a job description or contract that includes at least 50% teaching responsibility
• Minimum of 10 years full-time teaching experience in higher education. Participant is beyond tenure and/or equivalent institutional commitment. For example, a process of review and movement into a longer-term contract.

Application Materials

1) Contact Information

2) Cover Letter and/or Essay

• In up to 250 words per question:
  • Tell us why you are seeking renewal or reinvigoration at this point in your career? 
  • Where do you still find the spark, no matter how small, in your current teaching and the teaching life?
  • Tell us what you have gotten, or are getting, out of art in your life at this moment?

3) Academic CV (4-page limit)

4) Letter of Institutional Support 

• Please provide a letter of institutional support for your full participation in this workshop from your Department Chair, Academic Dean, Provost, Vice President, or President. Please have this recommendation uploaded directly to your application according to the online application instructions.