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Like so many of us, I’ve watched my standard assessments crumble under the assault of AI.I’d been doing a low-stakes writing assignment for years, asking students to very informally summarize and reflect on the reading.  It’s been a great assignment, helping me ensure that most students work through the reading before class and come in to class prepared with ideas and questions, and students have generally liked it.  But I’m starting to see AI-generated summaries (duh) and I’m sure more are coming.  I’m also noticing that my more anxious students treat the assignment as something high stakes, obsessing about the end product in an assignment designed to focus on process.  Bad for their stress levels, plus it tempts them to turn to AI which is bad for my stress levels.I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do instead.  I tried just dropping the assignment, but then my students didn’t do the reading.  I don’t want in-class quizzes because they shift the focus to memorization and performance under pressure.  I don’t want online quizzes because they seem even less AI-resistant than my current assignment.  Some of my colleagues are switching to cold-calling, interrogating students in ways that remind me of law school pedagogy from the movies.  I don’t want to cold-call because I have equity concerns and because I don’t want to put my students on the spot.  I don’t particularly like it when it’s done to me, and I’m much less anxious than they are. And I don’t care for the atmosphere it creates in the classroom.Instead, I decided to come up with an assignment that supports what I do want:I want my students to read deeply, slowly and carefully, listening to the text as though it was a person they respected but had trouble understanding.I want my students to feel safe in my class, willing to speak honestly and to listen and think deeply.I want the assignment to be a tool that helps them do the reading, not an extra hoop for them to jump through.To get started, I had a long conversation with my first-year honors students early this semester, asking them to describe how they read.  The conversation made me very happy.  They responded with a wealth of detail.  They annotate the book, underlining and writing in the margins (or on sticky notes or in a separate notebook).  They mark key passages and put things in their own words.  Several had elabrate, and personalized, systems. Some color code with highlighters and different color tabs, others insist on pencil only.  In other words, my stronger students already know how to read actively in the way I want them to.  And at least some of the time, they read that way for class.  Knowing that, I decided to develop an assignment that has them read that way in a more intentional, structured, and consistent way.  What I came up with is much like the “show the work” journal that Emily Gravett describes in her blog about teaching Religion and Film.My writing assignment is entirely analog.  My students use a paper book, a notebook, and a pen.  And the assignment takes them through the process that we know works: marking up the text, taking notes, jotting down questions, turning pages.Here are the instructions:You’ll submit pics of your work on Canvas for every reading assignment.  These will be graded credit/no credit.Twice a semester, you’ll submit all the materials as a portfolio and that will be graded.  This means you’ll hand in Your book (which will have your notes in it)Your notebook (the notes/reflections that didn’t fit in the margins of the book)I prefer that you write notes directly in the book and that you write by hand in the notebook.  If you want to type or don’t want to write in the book, let’s talk about it and make a plan, OK?  I’m interested in the process here (seeing your mind and heart at work!) and not in a clean and neat end product.  That means that it is ok if your materials look messy.  You’re allowed and encouraged to go back and add or revise materials after class.  If you do that, don’t erase the original, just cross it out and add the new ideas afterwards.Feel free to use different colors, draw diagrams, cross things out, draw arrows, and so on.  Make it work for you!This does not need to be formal writing.  Play with it, swear if you need to, and feel free to complain about annoying ideas and confusing writing.  Don’t worry about Writing complete sentences – bulleted lists are fine!Writing neatly (but I do need to be able to read most of it)Being rightWhen I grade the portfolio, I’ll be looking for evidence of strong engagement with the text.  You should be Summarizing: Mark important points and put them in your own words, identify the thesis, draw diagrams if they help, note confusing areasReflecting: ask questions, articulate issues for the class to discuss, reflect on how the reading connects to your life or to other readingsWe’re 7 weeks in now and it’s going very well.  We had to set aside some time for figuring out how to submit pics on Canvas.  And some of them still don’t believe me when I say it doesn’t have to be neat.  But they are doing good work.  They come to class with their books and plenty of notes, they can find the passages that defeated them, and they ask about them.  And – oh glory! – they have done the reading and thought about it and as a result they have interesting things to say.I’ll try it with my regular classes in the spring.  Fingers crossed!For more visit: “Is This the End of the Take-Home Essay?”

“Is collaboration always empowering – or might it sometimes be quietly exhausting?”I often invite students to see our classrooms as spaces where “we co-create learning together.” Theological education is, after all, about formation rather than just information. Yet, I’ve started to wonder if our hopeful ideas about mutual empowerment and flattened hierarchies might sometimes hide deeper tensions – particularly for those teaching and learning from marginalized social locations.The more I reflect on collaborative pedagogies, the more complicated the picture becomes. I find myself wrestling with difficult questions: What tensions remain unseen or unspoken? Who truly bears the emotional and practical burdens of collaboration, particularly among marginalized educators and students? Are flattened hierarchies genuinely equal, or do they quietly demand extra emotional labor from those already burdened by systemic inequalities?I don’t offer easy answers here. Instead, I invite you into critical reflection about the real demands of collaboration – and the hidden costs it may entail. Lie #1: We pretend collaborative pedagogy naturally leads to equal participation.Last semester, my teaching assistant emailed me with an unsettling dilemma: “I’m a little uncertain how to grade this. According to my records, two international students spoke significantly less than others, but subtracting points feels like punishing them for cultural differences.” Her task seemed straightforward – evaluate classroom participation – but it quickly exposed troubling contradictions. Should international students be penalized for speaking thoughtfully yet hesitantly due to language barriers? Conversely, should students who confidently dominated discussions – often without genuinely engaging the readings – receive higher marks simply because they spoke frequently and assertively?Her email revealed how participation in collaborative spaces is often influenced by invisible power dynamics and cultural assumptions. If I continue grading participation based solely on who speaks and how often, my “collaborative” pedagogy inadvertently reinforces rather than disrupts existing inequalities. It risks obscuring the real barriers marginalized students face in making their voices heard.Not every voice holds equal power. Some students speak freely, confident their contributions will be valued. Others – particularly students of color, LGBTQ+ students, disabled students, international students, or those from working-class backgrounds – may speak cautiously, code-switch, or fear judgment. True collaborative pedagogy demands careful attention to these social and cultural realities. It also requires us to rethink how we evaluate classroom participation with genuine cultural sensitivity, always aware of the underlying power dynamics. Lie #2: We pretend collaboration equally distributes risks and rewards.As a transnational educator, I’ve personally navigated these tensions, often weighing the risks before speaking. Throughout my academic journey, both as student and educator, I’ve experienced firsthand how silence or selective verbal participation can be misread as flaws needing correction or a lack of confidence. Quiet reflection, thoughtful pauses, or cautious engagement were often interpreted negatively, pressuring me to challenge my thoughtful silence and reshape how I claimed authority in classroom dynamics.Each semester, I enthusiastically embrace collaborative methods – co-designing syllabi, fostering open dialogue, and inviting student-led sessions. Initially, these approaches feel refreshing and energizing. Yet inevitably, sometime during the course tensions arise: awkward silences, confusion about roles, and blurred boundaries. For marginalized educators, these methods often invite scrutiny of authority, competence, and intent, inadvertently reinforcing existing power imbalances rather than dismantling them.Perhaps we’ve too quickly assumed that collaboration automatically empowers everyone, overlooking persistent power imbalances deeply embedded in our classrooms. Are we genuinely ready to support students and educators as they navigate these unequal risks, or have we conveniently assumed collaboration to be inherently equitable? Please, don’t pretend…I fully acknowledge the significant benefits collaborative pedagogies bring, such as vibrant learning environments and mutual empowerment. I always integrate collaboration with my course pedagogy. However, I want to explore the ways in which collaborative methods can disproportionately burden marginalized participants.These “lies” push us to reimagine what a truly collaborative classroom might look like – not simply as a pedagogical trend, but as ethical, pastoral, and cultural commitments. We must critically reassess classroom dynamics: Who defines collaboration? Whose participation genuinely counts? Who determines what matters? Collaborative pedagogy demands ongoing attention to power dynamics, attentive inclusivity, and cultural sensitivity. It invites vulnerability and complexity, necessitating continuous ethical reflection and pastoral attentiveness. Flattening hierarchies alone isn’t sufficient; we must recognize and navigate subtle, persistent power realities.So, let’s stop pretending that fully collaborative pedagogies emerge naturally. They require intentional cultivation, careful attention, and relational sensitivity – bringing both meaningful opportunities and hidden burdens. As we dream about collaboration in our learning journeys, perhaps it’s time to pause and honestly ask ourselves: What exactly are we co-creating, and who silently shoulders its emotional costs?

What they don’t tell you about writing while parenting a toddler … is anything. Radio silence. It never came up in graduate school. All the books told me to schedule writing and be disciplined. But what is discipline to my craft when caring first for my child, a growing, ever-evolving bundle of joy, creativity, and imagination?Write when he naps … What are naps to a 2-and-a-half-year-old? Write when he’s with the nanny or in school or at childcare … I am nanny. I am school. I am childcare. And at my choice. I want every minute of this wonderful life.What they don’t tell you is that writing while parenting a toddler will seem impossible to those who have never had to do it, or to those who did it under very different circumstances.What they didn’t tell me was that writing would come in sputters and scraps—notes scribbled on paper with crayon drawings of cars and trucks on the other side; voice memos recorded at the park, creaks from the swing and melodies of laughter as its soundtrack; random audio recordings during car rides on my commute to campus twice a month, stream of consciousness replacing satellite radio.They didn’t tell me that the creativity and imagination bursting from this little boy would awaken in me a fresh imagination to build new ideas like LEGO and shape and reshape recurring thoughts like the Play-Doh sent to us too soon for Miles to play with it. Keep it around long enough, my mom said, and he will grow into it.They didn’t tell me that when this little human inspires me, I will actually want to write. I will learn that I have things to say, things this human I am raising is giving me the confidence and courage to conjecture. What can I say that you would want to hear one day? What do you need to know that I can put on paper? If you see me writing, will you love words and ideas, too? Can we write together one day?What they didn’t tell me about writing while parenting a toddler is that this toddler will not always be a toddler. There are ideas and powers special to youthfulness that must be lived into while they are happening. So, let me tell you, in case no one has: Write the scraps. Record the memos. Watch them grow and allow yourself to grow into them in due time. Stay tuned.

(Content Warning : mentions of vulnerability, death, and excrement)One cool, wet, overcast February morning we were leisurely circling a small retention pond, our pace mirroring the unhurried arrival of spring. The students were examining some Green Frog tadpoles (Lithobates clamitans), and an unidentified corixid (an aquatic insect with oar-like back legs) we’d temporarily detained when I found and netted a Six-Spotted Fishing Spider (Dolomedes triton) and brought it over. In the excitement and commotion at meeting this new neighbor, one student slipped down the embankment towards the muck. “Oh sh*t!” she exclaimed. Her right foot found solid ground just before water’s edge, her left knee firmly planted in the mud upslope. After confirming she was uninjured and helping her to both feet, we continued our work. It was a profound moment of vulnerability. Sh*t happens! Excrement is unavoidable in Creaturely Theology.[i] Suffering and death are too. Just a half an hour before that encounter by the pond, we’d discovered the carcass of a White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus), a doe, tragically caught on a rusted, derelict barbed-wire fence in a thicket of non-native honeysuckle and privet. Even if she’d made it over, though, she would have still had to risk crossing the road. We don’t cross roads or barbed-wire fences. The most dangerous thing we do—at least statistically—is traveling by van for field trips. I always take every precaution to ensure the welfare and safety of all my students. No one is permitted to touch any animals or plants or fungi we cannot identify—or any medically-significant ones we can! Weather-and terrain-appropriate footwear and clothing are required in the field. We always move at a calm, careful pace—we’d miss out on so much if we rushed, after all. But risk and danger are inevitable. They are unavoidable in human life. Such realities play an important role in all human growth and education. In the Christian theological tradition, the fear of God, and our smallness in relation to God’s other creatures, are both instructive. The kinds of encounters we can have with the divine Other, and creaturely others, teach us our vulnerability and interdependence (see Job 38–41). In facing risks and dangers we can learn resilience, and we grow.  Spiders, centipedes, and snakes always elicit the most excitement from my students. On our first day outside in spring of 2025 I was privileged to introduce this year’s cohort to an impressive female Southern Black Widow (Latrodectus mactans). I gently excavated her from her tangled web with a long twig and coaxed her onto a small piece of white paper. Her jet-black body and legs gleamed in the sunlight, contrasting sharply with the brilliant red hourglass on her abdomen, a striking sign of her formidable venom. She barely moved as we admired her. I returned her to her rock lair, and we parted ways. Later the same day an Eastern Red Centipede (Scolopocryptops sexspinosus) danced excitedly from one end of a longer stick to the other as I steadily alternated hands, taking care to avoid the wiggling antennae on his bitey end. While I have never found a venomous snake on campus, we regularly encounter about a dozen harmless species.[ii] As long as a snake is calm—it is easy to tell whether any individual is overly stressed or not—I allow everyone a chance to touch or handle it.[iii] Such encounters have a transformative effect. As one of my students put it, “there is something so peaceful about holding a calm wild snake.” Far from increasing our fear, or even terror, such experiences of risk and vulnerability help to further ground us in this place, and in our vulnerable selves. Coming to know “the peace of the[se] wild things,” allows us, in Wendell Berry’s words, “to rest in the grace of the world, and [be] free.”[iv]             Notes & Bibliography: [i] For powerful and moving reflections on the relevance of scatological reflection for Christian faith and religious practice, I recommend Ragan Sutterfield’s excellent book, The Art of Being a Creature: Meditations on Humus and Humility (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024). For more basic, introductory texts see Taro Gomi’s classic Everyone Poops, trans. Amanda Mayer Sinchecum (Brooklyn: Kane/Miller, 1993) and Steve Kemp and Robert Rath, Who Pooped in the Park? Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Scat and Tracks for Kids (Helena, MT: Farcountry Press, 2005).    [ii] I am very confident that neither of east Tennessee’s native venomous serpents, Copperheads (Agkistrodon contortrix) nor Timber Rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) live on Johnson University’s campus; I know that is profound comfort to most of my colleagues and students, but I have to admit that I find it at least a little disappointing! Even if we found one, though, here or on a field trip—I have seen both in the smokies where we have our retreat—we would admire such a neighbor respectfully from a distance. I am not the kind of Appalachian Christian minister who handles venomous snakes (except with proper tools and for good reason).[iii] Certain species like Racers (Coluber constrictor) and Watersnakes (Nerodia sipedon) are more pugnacious by disposition and are unreluctant to bite in defense. What they don’t tell you about harmless snakes, though, is that the bitey end is not the only end, or even the worst end, you have to worry about! Most snakes excrete a foul musk and feces or urates on their captors as a defense mechanism. [iv] Wendell Berry, The Peace of the Wild Things and Other Poems (New York: Penguin, 2018), 25. 

Teaching always begins inside time, never outside of it. Our metric of time is typically semesters. Our own learning as teachers, as well as our students’ learning of the subject matter, unfolds unevenly throughout those semesters. Classrooms reveal what cannot be rushed: trust, the formation of community, courage, compassion. In our impatience, we might try to hurry. We rush our own teaching. We attempt to hasten our students’ learning and they bear the cost of this hurry. Our students deserve teaching shaped by who we are becoming, not just by what we know.Knowledge does not rush toward us; she waits to be welcomed and courted. She is fickle, demanding, and unpredictable. Deep learning—engagement with new knowledge—asks that we sit with confusion, love the question, and linger with one another, sometimes for a long time. That which matters most resists efficiency, cannot be downloaded, and belongs as much to our hearts and imaginations as to our minds. Knowing emerges through struggle, care, and communal accountability. Insights arise from misunderstanding, silence, discomfort, and a willingness to think new thoughts about old things. Insights are sparse. It takes time to learn to teach in ways that allow students to still themselves while their questions mature and their insights settle. Teaching as relational, improvisational, and unfinished is the more difficult pedagogy.Good teaching is not a skill we acquire, but a self we grow into—and that takes time. Sometimes it takes a lifetime.In the early years of teaching, we arrive eager, hopeful, afraid, novices in the enterprise. If we stay attentive, by mid-career we discover that teaching requires missteps, revisions, and reckonings. We learn to reject myths of mastery and instant competence. If we are lucky, the certainty of our early years gives way to humility and compassion. We come to understand that mistakes—even the big ones—are not detours but essential curriculum for improved teaching. If we are brave, and if we stay present to our craft, we allow ourselves to be reshaped, reformed, and profoundly changed, even as we are tasked with shaping others. By late career, we might become decent teachers. Teaching is a long becoming.Deep learning refuses hurry. Here lies the distraction of teaching by semesters: learning never appears on schedule. Transformation often arrives after evaluation periods close, after grades are recorded, after the final exam. Good teaching—slow teaching—requires faith in delayed understanding. We must reckon with the truth that good pedagogy attends to trajectories, not prescribed outcomes.Better teachers know that teaching is an act of collective endurance.In learning to teach slowly, perhaps we must refuse the lie that we are behind or late. The illusion of urgency keeps us absorbed and agitated. Slow is not late. Remember that survival itself is a long lesson. Just as important, refuse despair when progress is not visible. We must cultivate within ourselves a slow hope. Most of all, stay with the work long enough to be changed.ReflectionWhat would it mean to reduce the habits and practices that rush your teaching and your students’ learning? For example, what role does impatience play in your preparation and classroom demeanor?What habits or practices might you need to unlearn—or relearn—to grow your awareness of becoming a teacher over time?How might you take account of and celebrate the growth and maturity you have already accomplished as a teacher?

Perhaps, selfishly, my journey away from authoritarian teaching came from confronting bad teaching evaluations in my first two years of teaching. While my early education was decidedly not authoritarian – I was homeschooled by a mother inspired by unschooling, Waldorf, and Montessori – I often fell into the trap of confusing being rigorous with being an authoritarian. My first few years of teaching, I threw my hands up in frustration, wondering why my students didn’t take pleasure in learning. My thinking remained unproductive until I began to reflect on a difficult question: what energy was I bringing to the classroom? The conclusions weren’t pleasant: I thought that to earn respect, I had to be tough. Being tough meant being inflexible with deadlines (what am I, a pushover?), having an intense, aloof demeanor in the classroom (how else would they take things seriously?), and having rigorous, high standards for grading that were given in an unfeeling manner (no A for effort, kids). As a young woman, I felt like I had a lot to prove and it showed. My teaching evaluations were abysmal. And while yes, there is a lot to be said for gender (and, though it does not negatively impact my evaluations personally, racial) biases in evaluations, I do think that students were picking up on my general insecurity and responding to their own feelings of powerlessness. Put more simply, it is hard to be invested in a class in which you feel you have no control over, and it is easy to assume that everything you don’t like is the fault of your professor. At first, my move into more student involvement was rooted almost solely in improving my evaluations. But after major shifts in teaching practice, I’ve noticed that the more I’ve levelled my authority and engaged in more collaborative teaching with my students, not only do my students enjoy my classes more, but they also learn a lot more too. They also seem to feel much more invested in the material and take ownership of their work and role in shaping the classroom environment. As a professor in a required first-year seminar program, I teach St. Augustine’s Confessionsoften. I am always struck by Augustine’s reflections on the distinct experiences of learning from authoritarian teachers at school. Discussing learning Greek, he writes that “the threat of savage, terrifying punishments was used to make me learn.” He contrasts this to the ease with which he learned Latin, under the gentle tutelage of his childhood caretakers, “without any fear or pain at all.” Augustine concludes that “It is evident that the free play of curiosity is a more powerful spur to learning these things than is fear-ridden coercion.”[i] Inspired by Augustine (along with feminist thinkers such as bell hooks and anti-carceral pedagogy inspired by Mariame Kaba and others), I have sought to create an environment of genuine freedom and joy to explore ideas and improve my students’ critical abilities.In the next entries in this blog series, I will share some of the specific practices I use to create a more collaborative learning environment (such as students creating discussion expectations, collaborating on course policies, changes in how I offer grading feedback, and more). I will also discuss how I maintain rigor in such a classroom. For now, I invite readers to consider a series of questions: am I unwilling to be more collaborative out of fear that I won’t be taken seriously? How can my vulnerability inspire the same in students? How can this shared learning space enrich all who enter it? Notes & Bibliography[i] Augustine, Confessions, translated by Maria Boulding (New York: Vintage Spiritual Classics, 1997), I.14,23.

What they don’t tell you about learned, trauma-induced suspicion is that it is a force. It acts all-powerful, is dynamic. It cannot be shut off. It has no valve. It feels quite eternal, quite useful, deeply harmful, and is the most intriguing companion you will ever have. It helps; it harms. It is a tool of wisdom and an ingredient of destruction.And it lives with you—or dare I say, comes from you. It is not sibling or lover; it is child—part of you yet distinct from you, something for which you are responsible to show love, to teach care, to help guide it into its maturity. But you cannot control it or rid yourself of it; it is always a part of you.So, you learn it.And have patience. And decide that since you both are connected on levels and planes you may not see, you have to build relationship with it—create sites of health and progress and adaptation. This is not resignation or lack of strength; this is clarity and vision—and perhaps a glimpse into genealogical secrets.You are likely not the first of your people to wrestle with suspicion’s place (I, at least, don’t think of them as tricksters in any way).But you can be the first to craft a new relation, an honest partnership.What can suspicion teach you—what has it been trying to instill in your heart? How has it sharpened your spirit? Have you even realized it has granted you more eyes?The impulse is to call suspicion an enemy. It is age-old to lean into fear. But suspicion absorbs what you place on it. Fear is not helpful here. Attention is.What is it showing you about yourself? And are you ready to understand?You are a galaxy of unknowns—are you ready to know something buried in your atoms, to become a scientist of yourself?

Coming back from a semester of AI-generated slop assignment submissions isn’t easy. I left last term feeling more disheartened than I usually do, despite some wonderful final projects and great learning, in part because the world I teach in is changing and I can’t predict where it will go next.With that in mind, it’s been helpful for me to focus on the best and most exciting parts of a new semester, in hopes that these joys carry me into the first weeks of class with interest and ambition—and maybe those things will rub off on students as well!I’m about to meet some of my new favorite peopleEvery semester I see new names on my rosters (and usually plenty of familiar ones—I teach at a small college). Part of me is intimidated by knowing I’m going to have to memorize another round of who is a Hayley and who is a Kaylee, but I’m also so curious about who, of these new-to-me students, are going to be just the BEST people. There are always a few! Sometimes I can pick them out on the first day of class, but usually I don’t. I have 15 weeks to get to know these learners, and some of them—honestly, most of them—are going to have incredible “spark” moments when we read or discuss a topic that they connect to deeply. I’m always on the hunt for new Theology minors, but I’ve also had students for just one semester that I tremendously admire and keep track of after graduation. The possibilities are endless, but for sure I’m about to say hello for the first time to several strangers who will blow my mind and make me proud mere months after meeting.I have a captive audience, and I get to help them love the field I loveI never cease to be floored by the idea that I am getting paid to geek out about topics that I found so interesting that I needed multiple advanced degrees to enjoy them thoroughly. My students are literally paying for the privilege of hearing me go on and on about what I enjoy the most. It is, truly, a dream come true.But better than me getting to yammer about theology for hours each day, I have the chance to see if my enthusiasm is contagious. I have students who, mostly, would never have taken a Theology course if it weren’t required. What that means for me is that on day one I get to start breaking expectations and turning their anxiety and trepidation into interest. (For the many students who are fearful that academic Theology is just Sunday School Guilt Redux, it turns out that having purple hair and using the occasional swear word goes a long way.) I get to tell them that I want this class to be useful, and a break from the rote memorization that characterizes so much of their introductory courses in other disciplines. A nervous audience is very willing to be convinced that things won’t be so bad, and I get to come in with a big smile and a reassurance that this is going to be great. It always is.Everything old is new againLike many professors, I mostly teach a rotation of a few courses. While occasionally I’ll do a big overhaul to integrate new information or adapt to new assessments, mostly my courses feel like old songs—I know the rhythm and the lyrics by heart, and stepping back into the music feels a little like coming home. What keeps it fresh is that the students in my classroom have never heard this little ditty before, and I get to hear their first, halting attempts to join in.I love seeing the fascination on unfamiliar faces while I go through my usual spiel about how our program prioritizes the voices of women and people of color. I still get chills when explaining the idea of human dignity—the idea that people are fundamentally valuable and deeply loved—to learners who have spent so much of their lives scrabbling to be useful and relevant. I even get to tell the same terrible jokes and hear the obligatory pity laughs! The beat goes on, and I get to keep singing, but everything feels fresher with these new harmonies.What are your favorite parts of a new term?

When I was a pastor in New York, I worked with many people who were immigrants. In fact, New York City is a city of immigrants. For many, the drastic changes in the neighborhoods and in the metropolitan area are disorienting. The sources vary, but as many as 800 languages are spoken in Queens alone.[i] The whole world is in New York, and this is one reason New York is described as the “Capital of the World.” The most cosmopolitan urban jungle attracts business from all over the world. Many others come looking for work.I met a Caucasian man from Alabama there. He said he moved to New York because of an ad in the paper about doing roof work, and the next day he had twenty phone calls asking him to do roofing jobs. In an instant, he was already earning a living.For many who have been poor and lived in poverty, New York is a place of opportunity. I lived on the North Shore of Staten Island. The North Shore has a beautiful view of New York Harbor, with the Statue of Liberty at the center and Manhattan’s skyscrapers as the backdrop. The area had neighborhoods for the wealthy as well as many poor enclaves. But this is typical of New York: the rich and poor live next to one another. It reflects the immigrant nature of the city.Emma Lazarus wrote a poem about the Statue of Liberty. In this poem she states:“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries sheWith silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”In many ways, this is a microcosm of the history of the United States. The people who came to the United States came to work. The people who founded the first colonies were looking for opportunities to flourish. The United States makes every naturalized citizen renounce any royal titles when they take the oath of allegiance to the country. This is the very reason anyone can prosper here: it is a land of opportunity for everyone. Everyone is created equal.But in the Latin@ experience, those who most seek to come to the U.S. are not the wealthy and privileged. They are the tired, poor masses, and the “wretched refuse.” I remember visiting Ellis Island, where millions of immigrants passed through in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many could barely read or write. Some anti-immigrant posters in the museum called them “the dregs of Europe,” in other words, the bottom of the barrel. These are the people who were attracted to the United States: those thrown about by wars and conflict in Europe, and the poor.The main targets of the anti-immigrant posters were the Irish and Italians. They were European, but not European enough for many. Many of them were Roman Catholic entering a land of Protestants. They spoke English with a different accent. They had customs that contrasted with the traditional White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant ethic. But they worked. They had children. Their children learned English. Their families prospered. When I lived in Staten Island, people of Italian, Irish, and Jewish descent were among the largest ethnic groups on the island.My faith community rented a historic Black church that had been there for more than 30 years. They had bought their property on the North Shore from a synagogue. The building had been modified to accommodate Christian worship, but many of the characteristics of the synagogue remained. Upon entering, one could see the hekhal, or Torah Ark, a great cupboard opposite the main entrance, with a large bimah, or raised platform where the Torah was read. The building was designed with a separate women’s gallery on the second floor.The Black church that bought the synagogue prospered to the point that they purchased surrounding buildings, and the historic synagogue became rental property for other worship groups, or space they could use when their Sunday worship overflowed, or for their youth and children’s ministry. It was impressive. At some point, our church, composed mostly of immigrants from Latin America and Puerto Rico, decided to approach the Black church to rent their building that had once been a synagogue for worship.This was a pattern continually evident in New York. People migrated to the city. Usually, immigrants settled in a neighborhood together. They established a community and brought in all the elements important to that community. In the past, it had been mostly Europeans who brought Christianity, or, in this case, Judaism. Then, as the communities prospered, they no longer needed to live in the area. Their homes turned to rentals. In New York, it is common to split one house into a two- or three-family home. Each section is rented out. This results in tight urban spaces with multi-family housing.However, in the area around the church, there was a Mexican store, a Honduran restaurant, a Trinidadian restaurant, an Italian store, a church of African immigrants pastored by a Liberian woman, Mexican barber shops, Black barber shops, a Honduran barber shop, a Black church, our church, Sri Lankan restaurants, Bangladeshi restaurants, a large mosque that housed the Albanian Islamic Cultural Center, Indian restaurants, an Albanian-owned pizzeria, a Roman Catholic church, and a Jewish community center, among many others.Changes like these are not welcomed by some. It can be disorienting. In New York, it is common to see neighborhoods shift—quickly and dramatically. Communities come, establish themselves, prosper, and move to suburbia, leaving rental properties or selling properties to new communities. This pattern repeats itself time and again. Some communities find meaningful space, like Bangladeshi immigrants finding the Albanian Islamic community, or Latin Americans finding the Italian/Irish Roman Catholic church. As turbulent as it may be, it is also a great opportunity.It points to a new reality where we must live together, work together, learn from one another, be a community, and explore liminal spaces and interstitial identities. My wife of English descent and I (Honduran-American) enjoyed eating at the Bangladeshi restaurant and having our taste buds explode with flavor, dining at the Albanian pizzeria, and enjoying real Italian food cooked by our Mexican parishioners. For the American experiment to work, it will require patience, compassion, and empathy. Notes & Bibliography[i] Lubin, Gus. “Welcome to the Language Capital of the World: Queens, New York.” World Economic Forum, 22 Feb. 2017,https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/02/queens-in-new-york-has-more-languages-than-anywhere-in-the-world/. Accessed 12 June 2025.

On rotation, I teach a graduate-level course entitled “Introduction to Early Christian Thought.” And every year — in the week of course evaluations — I have a conversation with my students that has become an important feature of their education: a conversation about how teaching evaluations are gendered.Once you’ve seen the pattern, you can’t unsee it. Men are routinely described as “brilliant,” “authoritative,” or “the best lecturer I’ve ever had.” Women, by contrast, are “kind,” “caring,” “approachable,” “compassionate,” or “pastoral.” Men “really know their stuff.” Women “really care about students.” Expertise attaches to men; emotional labour attaches to women.The same holds for grading. Students often expect women to be gentler, more flexible, more indulgent. A male lecturer who grades firmly is “rigorous” or “serious.” A woman who does the same may quickly become “harsh” or “unfair.”Having taught in three different academic institutions over the past decade, I have several examples which have made this very clear. I’ll mention just one here: a student received a B from me and a B from a male colleague. The student challenged my grade — not his. Same work, same outcome, different reaction. Nearly every woman in academia has a version of this story.I speak openly with my students, then, about gender bias before they write evaluations. Not because I want to avoid critique — I value thoughtful critique — but because evaluations stick. Many evaluations I receive are positive and thoughtful. Some are wonderfully memorable. My personal favourite is “Professor Thomas is a badass.” But, it is hard to forget that I “grade like a man.”ResearchRecent work in higher-education research confirms what many women have long observed:A large-scale experimental study found that female instructors receive significantly lower evaluations than male instructors for identical teaching, even when students never interact with the instructor in person (MacNell, Driscoll & Hunt, Innovative Higher Education, 2015).A 2025 analysis using natural-language processing on tens of thousands of comments showed that men are more frequently praised for “competence” and “authority,” while women receive comments about warmth and personality, regardless of teaching quality (Zamora & Ayllón, 2025).A comprehensive review argues that student evaluations often reflect biases — including gender — more than they reflect actual learning or teaching effectiveness (Uttl, White & Gonzalez, Studies in Educational Evaluation, 2017).These are not small effects; they are systemic patterns. What I Ask of My StudentsSo I ask students to pause before they complete an evaluation and consider a few questions:Am I using different language for a woman than I would for a man?Am I expecting more emotional labour — more nurturing, more availability — from this instructor?Am I reacting to discomfort about standards or grades by labelling them “unfair”?Am I evaluating teaching, or evaluating whether this lecturer fits my image of what authority looks like?Honest evaluations are essential. Students should say what worked, what didn’t, what could be clearer or more engaging. But fairness requires noticing our assumptions. It asks us to evaluate teaching rather than gender stereotypes.If we care about justice and equity in higher education, one simple starting point is here: noticing the words we use, the labels we reach for, and the people we instinctively challenge first. Notes & BibliographyMacNell, L., Driscoll, A., & Hunt, A. N. (2015). “What’s in a Name: Exposing Gender Bias in Student Ratings of Teaching.” Innovative Higher Education, 40, 291–303.Uttl, B., White, C. A., & Gonzalez, D. (2017). “Meta-analysis of faculty gender and teaching evaluations.” Studies in Educational Evaluation, 54, 22–42.Zamora, C., & Ayllón, S. (2025). “Gender Bias in Qualitative Course Evaluations: Evidence from NLP Methods.” (Open-access working paper).