Application Deadline:

September 27, 2023

Schedule of Sessions

All Virtual Sessions – Wednesdays 3:00-5:30 ET

• Session 1 – March 13, 2024 (virtual) 
• Session 2 – April 10, 2024 (virtual) 
• Session 3 – May 8, 2024 (virtual) 
• In person: June 24-28, 2024 – Wabash Center on the campus of Wabash College
• Session 4 – July 10, 2024 (virtual)
• Session 5 – August 14, 2024 (virtual) 
• Session 6 – September 11, 2024 (virtual) 
• Session 7 – October 9, 2024 (virtual) 

Leadership Team

Carolyn Medine, Ph.D., University of Georgia
Tat-siong Benny Liew, Ph.D., College of the Holy Cross

Participants

John Boopalan, Canadian Mennonite University
Sarah Dees, Iowa State University
Brian Hillman, Towson University
Lauren Horn Griffin, Louisiana State University
Itohan Idumwonyi, Gonzaga University
James Kwateng-Yeboah, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax
Shari Mackinson, Texas Christian University
Kelsi Morrison-Atkins, Denison University
Shayna Sheinfeld, Augsburg University
Shatavia Wynn, Rhodes College

Description

This hybrid workshop invites early career faculty in their first five years of full-time teaching, either on the tenure track or in a continuing term position (lecturer, instructor, teaching scholar, postdoctoral fellow) to join a community of peers who value being imaginatively and critically reflective and increasingly skilled teachers. The workshop will gather participants who demonstrate a commitment to joining a collaborative learning cohort for seven online sessions and an in-person, five-day, summer session at Wabash Center. Sessions will include small group and plenary discussions, structured and unstructured social time, and time for personal and communal discovery, relaxation, restoration, exercise, meditation, restoration, and shared meals.

We will grapple with such questions as:

• Who is the self who teaches? What is agency in the classroom and in career?
• What knowledge and guidance are required to accurately read institutional contexts, cultures, and politics?
• What are the advantages and challenges regarding difference that is present in the classroom?
• What kinds of self-care do we need to be, in an ongoing way, healthy, generative, and passionate teachers?
• Considering the seasons of a teaching career, what are some practices of good teaching and the good life that we should develop in the early years? How can we remain imaginative, creative, and, if it is important to us, spiritual in our teaching?
• What pedagogies might strengthen teaching in early career?
• What are the challenges for which a peer conversation might be beneficial?

Goals

• To form a collaborative and cooperative cohort of teacher-scholars who, in a generative space, can reflect on craft of teaching and envision career development and trajectories
• To develop ourselves as critically reflective and imaginative teacher-scholars
• To understand our teaching lives in the context of our institutions and the changing landscape of higher education
• To reflect on practices that help teacher-scholars to flourish and to care for self, family, students, and communities to which we are committed

Participant Eligibility

• Full time tenure track and continuing term
• 1-5 years of teaching experience in a full-time, tenure track or other continuing position
• Teaching religion, religious studies, or theology in an accredited college or university in the United States, Puerto Rico, or Canada 
• Doctoral degree awarded by January 2024 
• Institutional support and personal commitment to participate fully in all workshop sessions
• Tenure decision (if applicable) no earlier than January of 2025

Application Materials

Please complete and attach the following documents to the online application:

1. Application Contact Information form 

2. Cover letter:  

• An introductory letter that describes your teaching context and addresses why you want to be part of this collaborative community, including what you hope to get out of it, and what you might contribute to it. (Up to 500 words) 

3. Brief essay:  

• Describe a critical moment that pushed you to think more deeply about the intersections of identities within your teaching. What happened and how did you respond? (Up to 500 words)

4. Academic CV (4-page limit) 

5. 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.