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Walking along the long stretch of beach, the cross-section of the dunes revealed the stringy roots of the foliage penetrating and crisscrossing below the surface. This suggests that despite the shifting of the sands comprising the dunes, the roots help anchor the plants and enable them to continue thriving. Similarly, deans can draw upon their knowledge of the school’s history and roots to maintain a certain stability despite significant changes taking place around the institution.

The 2017-18 Deans’ Colloquy was constituted by a diverse group of deans representing 11 schools in the USA and Canada. Drs. Deborah Krause (Eden Theological Seminary), Luis R. Rivera (Garrett-Evangelical Theological School), and Paul Myhre (Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion) were the facilitators. The group met in Mustang Island for the second half of the colloquy. One of the topics for reflection was: “the Dean’s leadership role in times of deep changes in theological education.” The Deans were given an assignment to spend 45 minutes walking around the beach to identify aspects of the physical environment that may evoke thoughts or visions on the topic. They returned and shared their findings in small groups and then in plenary. It was a rich conversation. The group decided to share some of their reflections in the Wabash Center’s blog series for Theological School Deans. Instead of presenting thoughts in one particular way, they decided to do it freely . . . like the wind . . . like the waves . . . . The next 10 posts in this blog series represent some of those reflections.

I don’t recall ever meeting anyone who sought out their own trauma. Those most prepared for the causal event were still caught unawares. As I’ve said before, trauma insists on passivity. That’s why I am a bit weary of valorizing people who did the so-called right thing in the face of trauma. Should we honor the person’s resilient responses? Absolutely. Can we do so without reducing their story to a marketable remedy or idol for veneration? If we don’t, then we may end up down a slippery slope of objectification. We would do well to learn from people without making them an object lesson or essentializing an ability. It takes commitment to refrain from tokenizing those dealing with trauma. I see the struggle play out around the water cooler. Faculty are shooting the breeze in between classes. Small talk turns to a hot-button issue ripped from the headlines or the grapevine. Someone presses the point that the weighty issue should be brought up in the classroom. “But how?” another asks; the quickest solution, leave it to the most affected colleague to lead the way or do it all. They’re a natural fit, right? Crisis averted. Here’s the thing—no one’s a natural fit for dealing with trauma. The experience of trauma isn’t a virtue. It’s a burden. And when we add to it, we not only bring insult to injury but also a stumbling block to those committed to addressing it. I know. I know. In my last post, I emphasized how dealing with trauma isn’t always your problem. But struggling to face it isn’t a sign that it’s not your problem. Dealing with trauma in your classroom is hard. And no taught subject is a natural fit for addressing trauma because it stymies the active participation that learning requires. I think honoring this is worth a moment of reflection. Once you embrace that dealing with trauma isn’t a natural fit, what might you do when trauma finds its way into your class? I’ve found comparison to be a useful too. Comparison thrives in the reality that classification is where humans dwell. When you realize that nothing you do is going to ever solve the thing, you can begin to acknowledge the freedom at your disposal. Put differently, you can talk about the thing without talking about the thing. Here’s what I mean. First, name the trauma in a way appropriate to your learning setting. “Do no harm” is a good tact here. Surface the trauma to acknowledge the situation but do so without violating the trust, privacy, or boundaries that bind your learning community. For example, when a “bias-related incident” or climate-changing event happens on your campus, actually acknowledge that it happened. Second, name your desire for the teaching moment. Given the difficulty of this teaching task, I like to lower the bar . . . and then lower it again. I teach on religion and the politics of social difference. I’m not out here trying to bring world peace or end racism. I’m upfront with students that I intend to facilitate a substantive 15-week conversation without a body count. The same expectation holds true for even a single class session. Other than that, if students leave the session asking better questions, seeking sharper answers, or are more skillful in pursuing either given the topic, that is well. Maybe this philosophy won’t win you “Teacher of the Year,” but I do find that it helps me be present in the moment. Third, present something besides the trauma to discuss. This can be something you find relatively pertinent. It can be a historical example from your domain of expertise. It can be a piece of art or news story that keeps popping into your head. I don’t want to put limitations on this because nothing naturally fits. Just make sure that it meets the criteria of steps one and two. For me, I find it least helpful to compare similar type of incidents (e.g. blatant discrimination, sudden death of a community member, a major institutional change). Comparisons that are similar limit the potential of the activity because the similarities immediately standout as co-incidents. Instead, I might set up a comparison based upon what I see as similar power relationships (e.g. feeling of a lack of agency), eerily similar diction across vastly different contexts (e.g, Where else have people expressed an inability to breathe?), or in the case of images, artistic motifs. On this last, I used Romance paintings to help students process the arrest of artist-activist Bree Newsome after she pulled down a Confederate Flag from the South Carolina State House. Fourth, invite your students to reflect on the thing on paper. You can be so blunt as to ask, “Why am I showing you this?” I like to have students freely associate and hypothesize the comparison for themselves. I think this extends a grace in which students can relish in the messiness of the learning process without pretense or fear of reprisal. Fifth, share the grounds upon which you found your “something” comparable to the named trauma. Why is it that your selection is worth discussing? How do you see its relevance? Is it because of the subject matter or a social dynamic you recognize? Is there a historical connection? Retrace how you connected the dots. One connection will give you plenty to discuss. Sixth, give students an opportunity to reflect about the trauma on paper. You can see that we are now going through the steps backward. Seventh, ask what needs further reflection given the lessons learned from the comparison. Encourage these to be described openly—perhaps with one word. These can be shared aloud and recorded on the board. To maintain the “do no harm” ethos, remind them of your desire for this moment. Lastly, let the students go free to name the trauma (or not) as they choose. Also, give a sense of what comes next in the course schedule. This helps to situate the day’s class session within the rhythm of the course, inviting them to make further connections on their own. For all the steps listed here, this exercise appears more complicated than it is in execution. Take it as an attempt to strip down teaching-learning to the basics so that those involved can recall that there can be possibilities, connections, and community in the face of trauma.

Recently, my burden, challenge, and task was to write my father’s obituary. Obituaries typically allow 800 to 1,200 words to depict and describe a person’s entire life. As a writer, this was a daunting task. As a daughter, it was impossible. How to proceed?  After reading the obituaries of other family and friends - noting their style and form - I decided my challenge was to cover my father’s 90 years on planet Earth by giving facts and data. I wrote and then checked the accuracy of dates and spelling. The draft read like a file for a candidate for the witness protection program. I scrapped that version and launched into version 2. I soon stopped myself. My flowery prose and long sentences sounded like a rejected Hallmark card. Finally, I sat and considered my father and those mourning him. In this time of homegoing and celebration of life, what did I want to assure my family and community about my father? I decided, with resolute conviction, that I would write Lloyd R. Westfield was a noble man – because he was. The final obituary emphasized his courage, strength, and fortitude of care and concern – all traits of nobility. I told people about his life-long journey as a musician, special education teacher, school psychologist, and churchman. Mostly, I wrote about his passion for his family and for our African American community, and the many ways this love was steadfast. I wrote a good obituary – one that described my daddy as a man who was earnest, dignified, generous, and loving. I knew I was writing a narrative that rarely appears in racist America about Black fathers, yet it is a story that was my every-day, family experience.  I wrote his obituary as a gesture of resistance against the distorted portrayals which slot all Black men into a few, flimsy, stereotypic categories assigned to them. Writing Daddy Lloyd’s obituary was an act of compassion for the un-named African American men whose stories of unwavering commitment to their families is un-appreciated, overlooked, or ignored. Writing dad’s obituary has made me consider how I write lectures. I do not often lecture in my courses, but when I do, how do I write what I write? Do I give the data and basic concepts, and then expect students to resonate with cold facts? Do I tell them “my version/my answer” to the question at hand without considering their perspectives, contexts, and situations? Do I spend time choosing vernacular which will invite them into deeper thought and heightened resonance, or simply rely upon the stilted, obsequious vocabulary of the religious academy? Do I lecture to my students the same way I would lecture to colleagues, and then wonder why students are lacking understanding when, in fact, it is my communication skills that are sub-par? Relying upon facts and data as lecture material is thwarted by the adage “Content is cheap.” In the digital age, students have as much or more access to data than the person who is lecturing. It is commonplace for Siri and Google to know more facts with greater accuracy than the person lecturing and for students to consult Siri and several search engines during the lecture. Learning to write lectures which resist multiple un-contextualized definitions, lists of statistics, and block quotes is a challenge worth attempting. The challenge is to design a lecture whose argument is not based upon a contrived or universalist understanding. We must lecture to demonstrate and expose our own modes of epistemological creativity and scholarly meanderings. In other words, lectures are more valuable to students if they are works of art rather than mundane spreadsheets set to words. Writing a good lecture takes time, as it is as much engineering and architecture as it is poetry and prose – a complex enterprise, indeed. My best lectures are those that have been given several times and have the benefit of re-consideration and rewriting after questions, answers, conversation with my students. Like my father’s obituary, any topic warranting the writing of a lecture will be much too large and expansive to be satisfied by one lecture. It behooves the writer to contemplate the needs of the students who will hear, witness, and glean from the lecture. Clarity about the viewpoint of the lecture is as important, or more important, than writing the thesis statement for the lecture. Students do not want the delusion of neutrality; they want to hear your opinion, consider your “take,” and then have the opportunity to resonate and align or disagree, question and debate.  Good lectures are evocative, provocative, and able to bring complexity to the learning journey without befuddling the learners. When I consider the better/best lectures I have heard, the lecturer has exposed, claimed, and shared their own thinking rather than hiding behind a mask of non-committal to the material at hand. The lecturer made their own social location clear in the stance they took, rather than claiming some kind of generic essentialism to the work. And the lecturer worked at the craft of words, which helped me know what they were saying while they were saying it. Dense materials can be lectured, but the words to convey the density must be carefully chosen so the listeners, the students, can hear and access the materials. This is not a dumbing-down of material. This is the craft of writing in such a way that there is flow, synergy, and wide thresholds of encounter and discovery. Listeners must be able to see the pieces as well as the whole of a lecture.  I suppose it is possible to elevate a poorly written lecture into a good lecture by the way it is performed; however, most of us cannot rely on our performance. Drawing the listener in, locating them in new worlds, challenging them to new perspectives, providing a previously unconsidered rationale – this is the “work” of a well-written lecture. We must not doubt that students are seeking disruption of, and a counter-narrative to, the hegemonic imagination that has been reveled as moral bankrupt at this moment in history. As I have learned from my beloved teacher, Katie Geneva Cannon, the best lectures seek to debunk, unmask, and disentangle so students might have the where-with-all to change the world toward justice.  Writing an obituary is not easy. Writing a lecture is not easy. Each, in its own way, asks that we not ignore the tender fragility of our souls, but speak our souls into the room. Each written piece is the work of healing – us and them. The writing is simultaneously truth-telling, soul-speaking, and hegemony-challenging. I exhort you not to write lectures or obituaries if your goals are any less. 

I’ve been in higher education just long enough to warrant a sense of déjà vu. My lips and tongue stretch in a pattern too familiar for comfort. My ears know the buzz of silence that follows the words now oft spoken. Despite the lack of novelty, every time I’m shook; the surprise never fails—the call, the response-- they stir every time. It goes down like this. I’m sitting with a colleague or a student. Sometimes I’m on a panel or giving a workshop. Maybe I’m standing before a mirror. Whoever is across from me begins to tell me about some crisis happening at their institution and how much it is weighing on them and those they care about and how they’re trying to find the solution. And then I say the thing that catches them off guard. It’s the same thing that catches me off guard, even though it shouldn’t. “Maybe it’s not your job.” Then there’s the silence, the loud, unmistakable silence when thought gives way to understanding. In my contributions to this series on “Teaching and Traumatic Events,” I’ve tried to offer preparatory resources for those educators seeking to rise to the occasion. What needs to be said though is that it’s not always your job to do anything. You don’t have to unfurl a rapid response protocol, roll out a diversity initiative, lead the revolution, or assert what no one else has confessed. I don’t know your situation. But, teacher-to-teacher, I’m pretty sure that “fixing” isn’t in your job description. I’ve tried to speak pretty generally about trauma in terms of its various meanings. But to clarify, I will call out the stressors that can precede the compulsion to fix. Why must you be the one to lead the charge? Sometimes the reasons simply aren’t good, but the voices peddling them are insistent. Here are few reasons for you to remember why “maybe it’s not your job.” “It directly effects ‘people like you.’” This line of thinking betrays a Horatio Alger/bootstraps myth to hardship. Because an event or circumstance impacts you, your efforts to rectify the situation can lead to glory. What doesn’t get mentioned is that those efforts can make you more vulnerable to the pain and suffering that will keep you from doing your actual job. In my opinion, you’ve just been given an opportunity to inquire what the institution is going to do to equip you to do your job effectively given the trauma’s impact on employees. This isn’t selfish. This is contractual. “Your expertise is a natural fit.” I think this line, perhaps more than any other, is a disenfranchising play, especially for those in religious studies and theological education. It assumes that some subject domains, by nature, lend themselves to relevance. Were this the case, then why not send a link or bibliography to those in need and check on them in the morning? Our expertise is in the connections we make between critical observations, creative analysis, and methodical application. None of that work is natural. No one comes to that without practice, training, and focus. And even if you find that you have the first two, your job description likely doesn’t afford the third one—especially if you’re teaching. If anything, your expert opinion may lead you to recommend that the concerned locate someone who can do the requested task better than you. Reluctance on their part to do so speaks volumes about their take on you and the trauma at hand. “People look to you for . . . “ This may be true, but take some time to ask why. Early in my teaching career, a friend shared some great advice. She said that you can’t develop a good teaching strategy without understanding how your students see you. Often students fall back on socialized models to inform their interaction with professors (for better, and too frequently, for worse). Even when encountering the same instructional situation, we each might choose different teaching tactics because she, as a petite, African American woman, would be read differently than I would as a large, African American man. Amado Padilla put such readings in institutional terms when discussing the “cultural taxation” carried by faculty of color paid in undue burdens of service—especially on issues of diversity and inclusion. Some people benignly and naively will use any resemblance you bear to a stamp-worthy activist to make the devastating assumption that you should take up a similar mantle. That choice is on you. The institutional responsibility for that burden is not. “You’re effective.” Just because you are good at a task doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t be, nor does it mean you should do the task. You have a job to do and if that task is not part of it, that task can keep you from it. We never occupy one role or responsibility, but when I come across students inclined to activism, I remind them that ultimately their job in higher education is to graduate. As faculty, I wonder whether we remind each other about what we are here to do. I’m not going to presume to know what that is for each of you, but I don’t think your effectiveness at a task should be an excuse for others’ lack thereof. People love to opine about the shortcomings of teachers. Press them on their rationale and you quickly realize they think we’re here to be tutors, social workers, counselors, and campus security. To paraphrase Michael Jordan’s words to a rising generation of basketball players, maybe we make this education thing look easy. Or maybe too many are using us as an excuse. Let’s not let them use trauma to do so.

Persons new to the office of the Dean may soon discover the need to acquire a new set of skills to effectively carry out the job. Those skills range from supervision, pastoral care (yes, more than you imagined!), educational administrative planning, curriculum design and planning, political acumen, budgeting and financial management, and assessment. Of these, none seems to puzzle novice deans more than educational assessment. While it can seem daunting, as I sometimes tell deans asking for help in this practice, "It's not rocket science, but it helps if you know what you're doing." There are six types of assessment practices, which, used together, will provide the dean a multifaceted and holistic view of student learning outcomes. These will provide deans, and Faculty, the data needed to evaluate the effectiveness of the curricula and to make wise and appropriate adjustments. Good data, rigorously derived, make for better decision-making than hunches, good-sounding ideas, predilections, or fads. As well, these assessments will provide the information needed to demonstrate rigorous academic practices to accrediting bodies. The Six Types of Assessments DIAGNOSTIC Diagnostic assessment measures a student's, or a class of students', strengths, weaknesses, knowledge, and skills prior to an instructional set (a course), or prior to starting a program of study. Examples of diagnostic assessments used in theological schools include the TOEFL language proficiency exam given to international applicants, and the GRE. Some schools may administer writing assessments to evaluate the need for remedial work in preparation for academic writing in a degree program. Some DMin programs use the MAT as part of their admissions requirements. Some schools administered the MMPI personality inventory as part of their application process (which, upon taking, the seminary intake counselor suggested I should not go into ministry; advice I ignored and went on to have a successful ministry career. So there.). FORMATIVE Formative assessment practices give evidence of a student's performance during instruction, during a learning experience, or in the midst of a course of study. Formative assessments are applied regularly at intervals throughout the instruction process. An example is a multi-faceted "mid-course" assessment with a faculty adviser to review academic performance and progress through a degree program course of study. This can include a student's self-assessment about their progress in formation goals. For students, formative assessments is an opportunity to receive feedback on academic performance and other goals. SUMMATIVE Summative evaluations measure a student's achievement at the conclusion of an instructional set or course of study. The most obvious course level summative assessment are final exams and the final grade a student receives in a course. At the program level, summative assessments can include a grade distribution analysis, program retention and completion rates, graduating class profiles, and, a grade point analysis of graduating students (highest, lowest, median, average). NORM-REFERENCED This assessment practice compares a student's performance against a national or other "norm" group. Some denominations require candidacy and ordination exams that demonstrate competencies in areas such as biblical exegesis, theology, polity, and worship and sacraments. These denominations can provide comparative data to show your students' placement in norm-referenced evaluations and exams. Due to the loose and broad interpretation of accreditation standards, the wide variety of theological school cultures and contexts, and the range and amorphous nature of what constitutes effective ministry practice or pastoral competencies, norm-referenced assessments are a challenge in theological schools. CRITERION-REFERENCED This assessment practice measures a student's performance against a published goal, specific objectives, or standards. In theological schools the most common criteria are interpretations of accreditation standards in program goals and the derivative student learning outcomes embedded in courses and program components. The application of well-designed assessment rubrics aid in the assessment of criterion-referenced evaluations. BENCHMARK Benchmark evaluations are similar to some of the above. These practices are used to evaluate student performance at periodic intervals, or at the end of a grading period. They can be used to predict student performance on end-of-course summative tests, or, end-of-program competencies evaluations. Benchmark evaluations can also be used to predict student performance post-graduation. The use of alumni surveys evaluated with alignment with degree program goals can help in benchmark assessment. Again, the range ministry contexts in which alumni serve, and the amorphous nature of what constitutes ministry competencies, provide a challenge for theological schools to establish benchmarks. The increasing attention to competency-based programs will likely require schools to identify "benchmarks" as indicators of levels of competencies. How many of these six assessments do you apply in your evaluation practices in your school? Which might you need to implement to provide a richer and more balanced assessment profile for your school? How, for whom, and where will you publish the results of your assessments? For information? For accountability? For reporting?

Perception is among the first points of impact in a traumatic event. How we see ourselves, the world, and our options can radically change. Sometimes our perception alters our reality. Sometimes our new reality necessitates a change in our perception. Either way, the world doesn’t seem the same when trauma happens. Reckoning with that is a lot to ask of anyone. And it often feels like you are just “one” in the struggle. Usually, this is the moment in professional development discussions when a workshop facilitator says something like, “But you’re not alone. You have a community right there beside you fighting the good fight. You have allies.” There are a lot of different kinds of trauma, but I am not familiar with any that does a roll call to double check that all allies are present and accounted for. Trauma takes names, and it asks questions later. I think this is why I’ve grown weary of the ally metaphor. Allyship too often (1) emphasizes the election of the ally at the expense of the subject’s involuntary trauma and (2) accommodates conditions in which would-be supporters can exit when that is not a universal luxury. Speaking from the context of American foreign policy, it’s really quite easy to see the fickle potential of the ally metaphor. Allyship can be good. But when you’re in the struggle, the last thing you need is for your chorus to become a soliloquy or, maybe worse, a teachable moment. I think it’s good for teachers to ask the conditions upon which they build allegiances. Maybe it’s the introvert in me, but if I’m going to have a squad, I want mine to be filled with accomplices—people beside me committed to dealing with a situation despite the good, bad, and ugly consequences of doing so. As I write this, I’m in a place of transition. I’m about to embark on an exciting new chapter in my career, leaving behind a wonderful institution where I’ve spent four years teaching, advising, mentoring, problem-solving, and enduring. Over the past few days I’ve been reflecting on how I did it. I remember learning from social media how a college-bound Michael Brown was murdered a few days before the school year that I started. I was wrestling with the ramifications of teaching from my own body in a sundown town. At the same time, I was reconsidering my scheduled curricular offerings to better help a predominantly white institution be part of the solution rather than the problem. Some described these efforts as troublemaking and agitating. Let’s be real—some described me as troublemaking and agitating. When you become a problem you sometimes get a clearer picture of who’s with you. For me, it was a loose network of chaplains, librarians, department assistants, fellow professors, and administrators. These were the few upon whom I could count on for collegial care and collaboration. Through their diversity I’ve been able to tease out some common threads that made them squad-worthy. Maybe you’ll find these criteria helpful as you find your own squad. (1) They assume the rewards and risks in your common initiatives. Suffering doesn’t pay, but it does sell. The former can keep many from supporting you while the latter will bring them flocking. Squad-worthy colleagues understand this but value your work by a different metric. They acknowledge your humanity, your initiative, and your circumstances, and they ante up accordingly.  This investment can come at a loss to them, but it’s worth it because they value you and your work. (2) You complement and supplement each other’s gifts. Successful networks have a solid understanding of what the different nodes offer to the work of the whole. My college makes great use of inventories like the Clifton StrengthsFinder to help units understand how individuals work and how they can work together. In my experience, trauma doesn’t wait for you to have a good day or for you to be at your best. This is why having people who understand how to synergize with you is worth its weight in gold. (3) We acknowledge the power dynamics and respect our limitations. If you go back to those listed in my squad, you will probably recognize that they span the higher educational social hierarchy. For this to work, members should recognize the stratification at play. Rewards and reprimands are diffused unevenly, so how does one mitigate that reality? What do you do to bring equity to the exchange? And are they willing to act likewise? (4) Privacy is honored and expected. Your individual agency is sacrosanct. The squad doesn’t need to know everything. Boundaries are encouraged. Having clear expectations is essential in fruitful relationships. Once, some colleagues and I were kicking around these ideas, and we determined that some of our allies weren’t really accomplices. One trauma or another had tested their resolve too much. That doesn’t mean relationships need to be jettisoned. It’s a reminder that squads must be built. These are just a few of the ways you can be proactive about building a squad that lasts.

Church history, may, at first glance, appear rather uninteresting to some seminary students. After all, hot-button issues in theology, ethics, bible, and pastoral care stimulate gospel-oriented revolutionary thinking, particularly in regard to contemporary needs in church and society. Individuals take graduate-level courses in ministry to make a difference. They seek biblical and theological knowledge, ministerial tools, and critical skills to engage a world burdened with injustice and suffering. Although a cursory acknowledgment of historical occurrences is surely helpful in constructing a general appreciation of our religious pasts, such material is ultimately not, quite frankly, exciting. However, there are times when course content, even in church history studies, may smash deeply held theological or biblical assumptions. In other words, some course material can threaten students. Acquiring knowledge can be iconoclastic. One’s understanding of the Christian faith reflects a psychological investment buried deeply within the context of familial beliefs, cultural identity, and social teachings. Such views may be supported by ecclesiastical or denominational institutions. Historical-critical methods and pedagogy designed to problematize traditionally established narratives in this setting may not only rupture foundational belief systems, but also elicit emotional reactions. Students may actually experience feelings of traumatic loss. Of course, this phenomenon is applicable to any field of study. Yet, as a church history professor, I have routinely witnessed first-year and other students grapple with the shocking prospect of a structurally non-linear, chaotically diverse, and relatively inclusive early Christianity. In fact, recently, I taught a number of students who were theologically invested in beliefs that the early church was doctrinally monolithic; moreover, these students held specifically that women’s subordination in church leadership throughout history was a natural occurrence. This religious view is quite standard, in fact, in many religious traditions. Hence, the emergence of women’s voices calling for church ordination and equality in recent centuries is interpreted as novel. But in my class, students were required to critically engage literary and physical evidence that squarely challenges these assumptions. I did not predict the reactions some students had one day. To put it mildly, class discussion became heated. Individuals expressed shock and dismay over information in primary historical sources. They became defensive and emotional with regard to the implications for contemporary ministry. Some began talking at each other.  For me, James Baldwin’s words from The Fire Next Time suddenly came to mind, “our entire frame of reference will have to change, and you will be forced to surrender many things.” In that moment, it was immediately necessary for me as instructor to quell the rising tide of emotion in that space. I talked about the controversial nature of claims on all sides, noting even the historical dissension those precise questions had caused. I reiterated the goal of critical examination in that context: to substantiate one’s positions using critical research methods, not to establish historical fact. Weakly, I even tried (emphasis on tried!) to crack a joke or two. Miraculously, the students responded. They articulated their feelings of trauma at the thought of modifying cherished religious understandings. As they expressed it, part of the fear lay in the thought of sharing those ideas among their families and religious communities. They ministered to themselves and to each other right there in the classroom, even as they wondered how to appropriate this knowledge. Through ongoing analytical reflection as the class progressed, the students, with some guidance, were able to find their way. Indeed, pastoral and pedagogical methods proved effective—by admitting the sensitive nature of the subject matter, emotionally combative feelings were calmed. But when class was over, I needed self-care! What had I done wrong? How could I have prevented the outbursts from occurring? Why did the critical engagement of material become so emotional? By sharing the day’s events with a colleague, processing the steps taken, and outlining improved techniques for broaching challenging course content, I embraced the experience as a learning opportunity for better teaching. In subsequent class gatherings with the students, we continued the process of critical, scholarly engagement with sources, while reflecting on the social-cultural, theological, and religious implications of debatable historical conclusions. Hence, that initial emotionally ridden event was not isolated as a singular, unhealthy occurrence. Instead, it became part of praxis-driven ministerial development. What better way to learn navigation of potentially explosive religious-social environments than in theologically-charged history classroom debates? Just as in church history, icons have and will be broken in seminary classrooms. Just as in church history, these events will likely trigger emotional responses. However, unlike some notorious iconoclastic chapters, also in church history, this doesn’t have to be earth shattering. For students and teacher-learners striving to maintain cohesive, yet flexible, class settings, even broken pieces can be reassembled with newfound beauty in the cracks.

I ask students to laugh at death with me. Rather than treating death as off-limits or something that must be approached with absolute solemnity, I ask students to laugh. And when I make jokes about death and they stare at me with horror, I remind them that it’s ok to laugh about death. I like to think that they eventually get used to me. Discussions about trauma often coalesce around healing, but this orientation forecloses the (im)possibilities inherent in trauma. Quick movements from trauma to healing also assume the inherent value of life as opposed to death. Rather than treating life and death as opposites, the death positivity movement suggests that death is a part of life and the ongoing ecosystem. Death becomes something active, something that can be done (and done well), instead of avoided until it overtakes the agency of a body (or mind) that is actively attempting to remain alive. The death positively movement maintains that individual human lives may not continue forever, but life does. I teach about this movement in my course “Religion Outside of Religions,” a course that draws on theories and methods often used to study religious traditions to explore aspects of contemporary U.S. culture that aren’t considered overtly religious. The death positivity movement, therefore, serves as an example of an orientation to the so-called natural world that occurs outside of overt religious traditions. Students explore the myths, rituals, beliefs, and ethical systems that guide this movement, especially as they develop in contrast to broader medical and funerary practices in the U.S. Through this process, students often confront their own assumptions about death, especially as these assumptions tend to be informed by the medical and funerary practices opposed by the death-positivity movement. These confrontations push students beyond life-death binaries and some even learn to laugh at my jokes (I keep wondering if I should start listing that as a learning outcome). Might we, as teachers, adopt this posture to trauma? What would it look like to push ourselves past the binary of trauma and healing? What if we accept and adapt to the trauma that is always already in our midst? What if we refuse to tidy up traumatized psyches behind the closed doors of licensed counselors, much like the corpses made to look eerily lifelike in funeral homes?   Teaching about different approaches to death can reorient the assumption that trauma is bad and healing good. This is a particularly important reorientation within a context where trauma is often ongoing and not a one-time event. The death positivity movement recognizes that some people live in closer proximity to death than others and that the deaths that result from this proximity can and should be avoided. As Everything Dies: A Coloring Book About Life! says, “I know everything dies, but there seems to me to be a big difference between something dying to feed another living thing, and this strange knack we have for needless death. These are deaths that don’t feed life. These are deaths of entire species and peoples and places. Humans seem to do this a lot.” (58) Recognizing that all deaths (like all lives) are not equal given our current political systems, the movement argues for breaking the culture of silence around death, including the culture of silence around systems that locate some bodies closer to death as a result of race, sexuality, gender, disability, class, or location. By opening these questions, the death positivity movement pushes us to teach recognizing that trauma is often ongoing and systemic, rather than a one-time event. The death positivity movement encourages us to ask why life is necessarily better than death. It also begs the question of whether trauma must end with healing, suggesting that trauma, like death, is ever-present and not something to be avoided but, rather, to be engaged. These are ideas to bring to students and to let challenge our own assumptions about teaching, particularly around the place of trauma in the classroom.

When I was invited to participate in this blog series, I was preparing to teach, for the first time, a course on the Catholic sex abuse crisis. I had wanted to teach the course for quite some time but was held back both by my sense of not understanding adequately the massive amount of material that comprised the crisis and my anxieties about how this material might impact students. What about students who were survivors of sexual violence? What about students who understood themselves as faithful Catholics? Or who had left the Church angry and bitter? What about students—and this is particularly relevant to my geographical context—who were suspicious of Catholics as an exotic, mysterious, pseudo-Christian sect?  I taught the class. I had students who identified with each of these subject positions. Neither their written work nor their in-class participation nor our informal one-on-one conversations contained any evidence that they were unduly troubled by the materials or unable to grasp with the questions they raised. In fact, it was our collective sense of inadequacy as we grappled with the enormity and complexity of what we were trying to interpret that left us feeling overwhelmed. But, as those who go to the gym more than I do—which wouldn’t take a lot—would say, it was a good kind of pain. This semester, as I am writing my contributions to this blog series, I am teaching, for the sixth time, a course focused on Jesus films. This is one of my bread-and-butter courses. It is popular with students and it works like a well-oiled machine. The films require us to grapple with questions about gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity, and violence, but I have never paused to worry that the course might run the risk of traumatizing my students. (Although the level of brutality in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ comes awfully close.) Given my experience over the years of teaching this course, however, I should know better. A few weeks ago, I got an email from a student who self-identified as a fundamentalist Christian, as someone who had been taught that the Bible was inerrant, literally true, and harmonious. The comparative, rhetorical analysis of the gospels that comprises the first few weeks of this course were challenging him in profound and unsettling ways. He was having to grapple with the idea—and the evidence—that the Bible did not speak with a uniform voice and that it may, in fact, contain tensions that simply could not be reconciled. This student was seeking out a conversation. Since I grew up in a very similar religious context, I am able to talk about these types of concerns, without undermining the perspective of the course. As I tell all of my students, they can enter and leave my class thinking that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible word of God, but they will have to grapple with the fact that we only have access to that word in a complex, rhetorically sophisticated document with multiple perspectives on who Jesus is and why he matters. Every semester I’ve taught this course, I’ve had at least one student with these concerns. Sometimes several. Some have sought out conversation. Some have worked through their concerns in assignments. Some have probably dropped the course—or just kept their worries under wraps. Some have been more open; others have been more hostile. Some have clung to an apologetic task; some have offered to pray for me. Some have the greatest trouble when we talk about the Bible; others face their Waterloo as we start talking about the films. Still, others find the greatest challenge when we review the history of American Christianity. My experience with this class reminds me that what we, as scholars of religion and theology, take as our baseline—that religious ideas, texts, and practices have a history, that they have been subjected to a variety of interpretations, that they have ugly legacies, that they vary by time and place—is a profoundly disturbing perspective to some people. Just as we have come to realize that “objectivity” is never truly neutral and that “secularity” entails a normative vision, we also need to grapple with the fact that the foundational moves of the academic study of religion and theology might be the most traumatic dimension of our courses for some of our students.