2025 Sessions
Teaching and the Futures of Freedom
Educational prophet bell hooks long asserted that education is a practice of freedom. But education is not inevitably so. Education that imagines and invites freedom must be made to do so by educators and students alike. Where might we turn for wisdom, dreams, strategies, and stories about the nature and shape of teaching that rehearses freedom? According to practical theologians and religious educators Rachelle Green and Almeda Wright, we should look at Prisons and Archives. In this session, Green and Wright will put their recent scholarship into conversation with one another: Learning to Live: Prisons, Pedagogy, and Theological Education (2024) and Teaching to Live: Black Religion, Activist-Educators, and Radical Social Change (2024). This conversation will explore how teaching and learning in prison and during times of social change can help us wrestle with the question of how and why we teach when freedoms are threatened. The future of education depends on our ability to imagine futures beyond the present and shape them in and through our teaching.
Date & Time
Saturday, November 22, 2025
9:00 – 10:30am
Location
Westin Copley Place, Great Republic
Wabash Center Reception
We invite you to our 30th Anniversary Reception—a night filled with drinks, tapas, music by our DJ, and delicious desserts. Join us for a special evening as the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion celebrates 30 years of supporting faculty in religious studies and theological education! Connect with past, present, and future participants of Wabash Center workshops, colloquies, consultations, and grants. Enjoy an evening of fellowship, networking, and celebration with colleagues and friends in the field. Let’s come together to honor three decades of transformative teaching and learning—we can’t wait to celebrate with you!
Date
Saturday, November 22, 2025
8:00 – 10:00pm
Location
Westin Copley Place, Essex Ballroom Center & South
The Classroom as a Site of Healing: Pedagogies of Care and Justice
Healing is not just a therapeutic aim—it is a pedagogical imperative. In a world shaped by systemic harm, oppression, and crisis, educators must create learning spaces that acknowledge students’ full selves—their identities, histories, and lived experiences. Traditional educational models have too often ignored the ways trauma, racism, sexism, and class divisions shape students’ engagement, confidence, and sense of belonging. Yet, these forces also affect educators, who face their own emotional, intellectual, and institutional challenges in teaching?
How do we foster meaningful learning when students arrive in distress? How do we, as educators, sustain ourselves while holding space for students’ realities? This panel explores the tensions and possibilities of teaching in ways that prioritize healing, care, and transformation. Panelists will share concrete strategies for designing classrooms that cultivate agency, curiosity, and intellectual growth—spaces that recognize harm but do not center it. Join us for a conversation about how education can be a practice of healing for both students and educators.
Moderator
Adam Bond, Baylor University
Panelists
Heath Carter, Princeton Theological Seminary
Stephanie Crumpton, McCormick Theological Seminary
Michael Hogue, Meadville Lombard Theological School
Kenneth Ngwa, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
Shana Sippy, Centre College
Date
Sunday, November 23, 2025
3:00 – 4:30pm
Location
Westin Copley Place, Great Republic
BIPOC Faculty Luncheon
Deadline
November 1, 2025
Date & Time
Sunday, November 23, 2025
11:30 – 1:30pm
Location
Westin Copley Place, Essex Ballroom North
Click here to register for the AAR & SBL 2025 Annual Meetings
Questions about the Wabash Center’s activities at AAR & SBL may be directed to
Sarah Farmer, PhD
Associate Director
farmers@wabash.edu