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If you ask faculty members across various institutions of higher education what common topics of discussion with other faculty are, one recurring response will inevitably pertain to difficult students. These students regularly display behaviors that resist classroom teaching and learning strategies. Tolman and Kremling argue that the recurrence of this particular topic points to the critical need for institutions to understand and grapple with the complexity and interaction of factors that cause such behaviors. These behaviors, which they identify as student resistance, can be reduced when institutions develop strategies that benefit both students and instructors through defining and addressing the underlying causes. To this end, they propose an integrated model of student resistance (IMSR). IMSR utilizes Dewey’s three modes of inquiry (self-action, interaction, and transaction) as a framework and synthesizes research from diverse disciplines to comprehensively analyze the factors for student resistance. Five interactive elements are present in IMSR - namely environmental forces, institutional culture, negative classroom experiences, cognitive development, and metacognition. While these elements can be grouped into external and internal forces, Tolman and Kremling assert that they are transactional and work together as a system to either increase or reduce student resistance. Between Chapters 2 and 9, Tolman and Kremling unpack these elements – analyzing the salient characteristics, highlighting the impact of student resistance (such as personal, social, and national costs), and providing suggestions to reduce resistance. These chapters also incorporate the personal experiences of students. Tolman and Kremling’s inclusion of these experiences provides a glimpse into the daily realities experienced by students and hopefully generates compassion and understanding among faculty. In the concluding sections, they recommend specific strategies and provide a variety of instruments institutions can use to implement the IMSR. This text can serve as an invaluable tool to identify and overcome student resistance in the following ways. First, it encourages institutions to review their strategies to reduce student resistance in totality – for example, going beyond “single-field explanations” (211). Everyone matters – leadership, faculty, staff, and students – and must collaborate such that the decisions on institutional learning systems and practices meet students’ needs and address their challenges. Second, it is replete with engaging examples (drawn from research and student voices), approaches, and instruments that give institutions fresh perspectives and practical resources to move forward in strengthening motivation and reducing resistance. Furthermore, by welcoming institutions to field-test IMSR, Tolman and Kremling provide an impetus for institutions to improve their current practices in addressing student resistance. Its limitation is the absence of examples and voices drawn from institutions that may have been successful in reducing student resistance. What strategies did they employ? How do these strategies corroborate with and shed further insights into IMSR? While the voices of the students who learnt from their resistance are important, the learning of institutions that have reduced student resistance needs to be incorporated into this evolving model. Nevertheless, IMSR is of value for institutions that desire to address the myriad factors contributing to student resistance. It can serve as the focus of institutional and faculty conversations, such that these revolve around possibilities of transformation instead of endless complaints.

Journal Issue.

Journal Issue.

Click Here for Book Review If only we could do a better job of helping students at "connecting the dots," theological educators commonly lament. Integration, often proposed as a solution to the woes of professional education for ministry, would help students integrate knowledge, skills, spirituality, and integrity. When these remain disconnected, incompetence ensues, and the cost runs high for churches, denominations, and ministers themselves. However, we fail in thinking that integrating work is for students alone. It is a multifaceted, constructive process of learning that is contextual, reflective, and dialogical. It aims toward important ends--competent leaders who can guide Christian communities today. It entails rhythms, not stages, and dynamic movement, including disintegration. Integrating work is learning in motion, across domains, and among and between persons. It is social and communal, born of a life of learning together for faculty, staff, administrators and students. It is work that bridges the long-standing gaps between school, ministry practice, and life. It's a verb, not a noun. Here a diverse group of theological educators, through descriptive case studies, theological reflection, and theory building, offer a distinctive contribution to understanding integrating work and how best to achieve it across three domains: in community, curriculums, and courses. (From the Publisher)

On election night last year when Donald Trump won the presidential election, I was traveling in Greece visiting the historical and religious sites. Several days before the election, I visited the Acropolis and climbed up Mars Hill where Paul delivered his sermon to the Athenians (Acts 17:22-31). The fact that I was in Athens, the cradle of Western democracy, prompted me to think about the development of democratic institutions and their relationships to an empire. The word “democracy” in Greek combines the elements dêmos and krátos, and means literally, “people power.” However, only adult male citizens who owned land could participate in Athenian democracy. Women, slaves, children, and lower-class people were excluded. Athens once had the strongest military power among the Greek city-states and harbored imperialistic impulses. The Delian League, created by the Athenians in the 5th century BCE, captured cities, colonized and enslaved peoples. Athens suppressed revolts among the League’s members and collected dues from them in exchange for protection. In our modern day, democracy has not prevented countries from turning into imperialistic powers. The British once ruled an empire so vast that the sun never set on the empire. While British subjects enjoyed democracy at home, colonized subjects did not have self-autonomy and had to obey British rule and laws. In the US, Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” appealed to deep-seated American imperialistic desire, especially among non-college educated white men. I began teaching a class on liberation theology shortly after Trump’s inauguration. My reflection on the relationship between democracy and empire prompted me to find ways to heighten my students’ consciousness about the image of the US and the impact of American policies abroad. During our first class, we discussed the changing political and social contexts in which we studied liberation theology. There were a significant number of international students from Asia and Africa in the class. I invited them to share reactions to Trump’s election from news reports from their countries. I also asked them to share their thoughts on the slogan “Make America Great Again.” A number of them said that the US is already the most powerful country and has a major effect in their own countries. They were concerned about how Trump’s presidency would affect global stability and foreign policies. After Hillary Clinton lost the election, some commentators discussed what Clinton’s loss would mean for the future of feminism. Others wondered why her coalition of women, racial and ethnic minorities and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people could not pull off a win. I discussed with students Columbia University professor Mark Lilla’s widely read essay “The End of Identity Liberalism.”[1] He warns that American liberalism has focused too much on identity politics and diversity issues, such as race, gender, and sexuality. This focus is disastrous for democratic politics for it fails to provide a unifying principle. Instead, he argues that we have to engage more in conversations about class, war, political economy, and the common good. Lilla’s essay has created a lot of debates, and some said that “identity politics” addresses real problems of discrimination. In our class discussion, I helped students to see two important points. First, we have to take an intersectional approach and see the various forms of oppression as mutually constitutive. Second, we have to avoid the tendency of focusing too narrowly on identity issues in the US, without paying attention to larger social, economic, and political forces shaping the world at the macro-level. Commentators outside of the US have taken the election of Donald Trump and raised it up as an example of how democracy can become dysfunctional. Some of my students were shocked when Trump was elected, and his first 100 days in office have created chaos and presented us with “alternative truths.” When my students felt depressed by the current political situation, I reminded them that democracy is a project and it requires vigilance in protecting it. We should not think that American democracy is the best institution, for it has been polluted by big money and big donors. Trump said during his campaign that he was free from Wall Street’s influences. But his cabinet and close advisors include many billionaires and people from Goldman Sachs. His currently proposed health care policy and tax reforms will benefit the rich and take away from the elderly, the sick, and the poor. I reminded students that democracy has been used as an ideology to further the cause of empire. In the 19th century, the spread of Christianity was part and parcel of the “civilizing mission” of the West. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the protection of democracy has been given as a reason for military intervention and regime change. In the name of democracy, the U.S. has supported military coups, toppled governments, and created regional animosity and instability. Democracy has taken several centuries to develop in Western countries, and cannot be superimposed by power and might from without. Within the course of one week, Trump ordered a military strike in Syria and the U.S. dropped a 22,000-pound bomb on ISIS forces in Afghanistan. It is vitally important to educate students to become global citizens who understand the consequences of US actions in the wider context of the world. A good beginning is to understand how democracy and populism can be used to serve imperial interests. [1] Mark Lilla, “The End of Identity Liberalism,” New York Times, November 18, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-identity-liberalism.html.

Lack of awareness about what Islam is and how its followers are religiously motivated to act, coupled with heightened tensions during the 2016 presidential campaign about the patriotism of American Muslims, led me to offer “Arabs and Muslims in the Media” as a first-time offering this semester. The twenty-one students who registered for the seminar include seven who have yet to declare a major, nine who registered for credit through the Critical Identities Studies (CRIS) Program, first-year Beloiters, graduating seniors, an exchange student from Ireland, and four born into Muslim households. Both of my teaching assistants had taken a minimum of one course with me that featured at least one section on the teachings or rituals of the world’s fastest growing religion. “Arabs and Muslims in the Media” was the first exposure to Islam, or to any of the daily realities of Muslims, for the majority of the class. We opened the seminar by engaging with Linda Martin Alcoff’s “The Problem of Speaking For Others,” an essay that challenged students to reflect upon their own positionality and privilege as they approached the two major assignments: a 200-word entry for this blog and a PSA about Islam and/or Muslims. Later in the first week, the class raised questions about the essay and their own insecurity about appearing to “speak” for followers of Islam.  The sentiments of one student sums up the concerns of the rest: “I never thought about the impact of my own words on this level before, or how wrong we can be about what we think we know. I’m worried that I am not qualified to complete the final assignment.” To address such concerns, students received a brief survey of Islamic history and the emergence of Muslim communities in the U.S., along with an introduction to beliefs and practices, and the role of gender and sexuality, in Islam. Throughout the seminar, we critiqued a variety of visual and written representations. Guiding our journey were two primary texts: Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, and Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to be a Problem: Being Young and Arab in America.  Students reflected on the readings in various ways. Ryan, for one, noted, “By reading [Bayoumi’s work], I was opened up to the realities of young Arabs in America. I was able to read the real struggles they face from these negative stereotypes.” We watched a number of films, Youtube videos, and documentaries including “Frontline: Muslims,” “Persepolis,” “Jihad for Love,” and “The Kingdom of Heaven.” Students were also directed to analyze and review a film, selected from a list of more than 100, whose plots/characters featured Muslims and/or Islam. Interestingly, nearly half the class zeroed in on four: “Malcolm X,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “The Battle of Algiers,” and “Dirty Pretty Things.” Our TAs, Grace Gerloff, and Joshua Randolph, also created a demo PSA that unpacked the concept of jihad. Their efforts helped students visualize what they could accomplish. While I focused on potential content for both the blog entry and PSA, Grace and Joshua mentored students on technical aspects and how to focus on a single idea. Students will present their PSAs during a public forum on May 5. Here’s a selection of student blog entries. Some students focused on the content of what they learned: Nikki: “Many Americans seem to view the hijab as a plea for help by its wearer, as though it were a sign of oppression rather than religious expression.” Constance: “The Qur’an states that both men and women should dress modestly, but what modesty means is up to interpretation.” Sasha: “Many people think that hijab refers to a specific style of garment worn by Muslim women but in reality, the concept of hijab is present in both Christianity and Judaism as well as other religions and cultures, just under different names.” Alberto: “In the Qur’an, Muslims are reminded that they are not the only people of God.” Diego: “The term “Allahu Akbar” is an Islamic phrase that translates to ‘God is Great.’ This is a phrase that is used in celebration, prayer, happiness, and many other occasions to thank God. However, the phrase is commonly tied only to terrorists.” Charlie: “The Angel Gabriel made me reevaluate the way that I was looking at Islam. Though the connection of Islam to Christianity and Judaism was something I had talked about before, this was the first explicit example I had seen that explicitly linked the three Abrahamic religions.” Chris: “The religion we have been told is the ‘enemy’ of the West, is in actuality more similar to our Christianity than we would currently like to believe.” Joe: “In high school, I enjoyed a series of action novels where the protagonist was an American special forces operative fighting to protect American interests from his Muslim enemies.These books contained blatant generalizations about the violent nature of Islam. I didn’t necessarily believe these statements, but I never questioned them.” Ryan: “By taking this class, I have been given great resources about the Muslim religion and the Quran which have allowed me to be able to pick apart what I have been taught and relearn the truth about Muslims and their beliefs.” Seamus: “This course taught me that no matter how many statistics you may know, they are not nearly as valuable as discourse, and the various identities involved, and the perspectives that they bring.” Jessica: “I personally knew nothing about Islam or any of its teachings before this class and the one thing I was very interested in was the hijab. In papers and stories, it is almost portrayed as a sign of oppression, which is not the case at all. I learned from this class the power of personal identity.” Other students reflected upon their own socialization: Kirsten: “There has been a call in the West to ‘save the oppressed Muslim women’ because of the belief that Islam is an oppressive religion. When I was younger, I fell for this ploy and believed that Islam required women to dress in a specific way.” Katlyn: “I grew up in a conservative household, I heard considerable stereotypes of Muslims. It narrowed my idea of women in Islam.” Diane: “I took this course because I thought it would be a great way to reflect and dive into how I might be able to navigate stereotypes and deep-rooted, false narratives as an aspiring journalist.” Hana: “I’ve learned that being Muslim and Anti-Zionist should not automatically qualify me as being anti-Semitic.” Still, others reflected upon the impact of technology on their new knowledge: Hoodish: “This class taught me that censored media is indeed very destructive. I intend to confront these people by making them acknowledge their biases towards Islam.” Ashley: “Video, specifically, has allowed me to learn about the different struggles that Muslims face depending upon their class, nationality, sect, immigration status, gender, sexuality, age, race, and family status.”