Resources

2021 AAR & SBL Annual Meetings Wabash Center VIRTUAL Events Wabash Center Virtual Session #1 - Thursday, November 18th, 11:00 AM-12:00 PM (Central Standard Time) Conversation with Authors: Becoming a White Antiracist Boldly, these authors call for the deconstruction of white supremist structures designed to maintain and reward the truncated imaginations of white professors concerning the systemic hatreds and racist activities baked-into our world of scholarly pedagogy and beyond. This conversation with Stephen D. Brookfield and Mary E. Hess, authors of Becoming a White Antiracist, will delve into their struggle to develop this counter-cultural motif. The work of becoming a white antiracist is routinely met with institutional obstacles, collegial nay-sayers, or out-and-out rejection. We will dialogue about the author's well-crafted approaches, strategies, and methods for creating an antiracist ecology in your school, workplace, community, and home. We will discuss ways to use this book as a resource to improve the formation of students, to correct the deformation of faculty, and to explore the needed identities to become a white antiracist. Presider: Nancy Lynne Westfield, The Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion Panelists: Stephen Brookfield,University of St. Thomas Mary E. Hess, Luther Seminary Wabash Center Virtual Session #2 - Thursday, November 18th, 2:00 PM-3:00 PM (Central Standard Time) Faculty Matters: Generative Formation of Early Career Colleagues Destabilizing forces in higher education and theological education increase the pressure on early career colleagues. Kindling and rekindling the genuine voice of an early career scholar requires intention planning and a supportive environment. Many colleagues report that they experience isolation and feelings of being overwhelmed with little recompense or community structures to help them adapt and thrive. What is the price of belonging in a faculty? What kind of formation is necessary to assist early career faculty with living into their creativity imagination and courage? This is a conversation with seasoned mentors of early career faculty who will discuss what they wish early career faculty colleagues know and would be about to nurture their own generativity survival and persistence. Panelists: Nancy Lynne Westfield, Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion Willie J. Jennings, Yale University Roger Nam, Emory University Jennifer Harvey, Drake University Wabash Center Virtual Session #3 - Friday, November 19th 11:00 AM-12:00 PM (Central Standard Time) Life-Giving Teaching: When Classrooms Are Not Cloistered Away from The World What if rather than teaching about the world as if it is a distant land to be grappled with after graduation we teach as if the world was our classroom? In order to create courses which are relevant meaningful and life-giving what would it mean to decenter the tried-and-true disciplinary tactics and instead place the joys sufferings perspectives and cultural meaning making apparatuses of students as the keystone of the course? Too much of our teaching is siloed away from the worlds and the realities from which our students leave and to which our students must return. This session is a discussion with colleagues who have a proven track record of seamlessly keeping the classroom connected to the world and vice versa i.e. praxis education. With intention and creativity these colleagues design courses which extend the classroom learning into connect with and operate in the world. Panelists: Nancy Lynne Westfield, Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion Almeda Wright, Yale University Kenneth Ngwa,Drew Theological School Annie Lockhart-Gilroy, Phillips Theological Seminary Registration for these programs is through the AAR & SBL Meetings Registration Website. Non-Member Registration. Member Cost: $210 Non-Member Cost: $395 AAR Virtual Meetings Website SBL Virtual Meetings Website

Wabash Center Virtual Events at the 2020 Virtual AAR & SBL Annual Meetings Wabash Center Virtual Session #1 - Monday, November 30, 4:00 PM- 5:30 PM “After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging” A 90 minute online conversation with Dr. Willie James Jennings, moderated by Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield, with Dr. Craig Barnes, Dr. Daisy L. Machado, Dr. Kwok Pui Lan, and Dr. Shawn Copeland. The conversation will consider the implications of Dr. Jennings' bookAfter Whiteness: An Education in Belongingfor teaching and learning in North American college, university, and theological school contexts. The session will begin and end with comments by the author, Dr. Jennings, about his book and its implications for pedagogy in the 21st century. The bulk of the session will involve a conversation among peers, moderated by Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield, about how the book raises specific questions about contemporary higher education practice and the implications of these questions for the future of higher education, particularly as it relates to theological education. In the book, Dr. Jennings asserts, “Theological education has always been about formation: first of people, then of communities, then of the world. If we continue to promote whiteness and its related ideas of masculinity and individualism in our educational work, it will remain diseased and thwart our efforts to heal the church and the world. But if theological education aims to form people who can gather others together through border-crossing pluralism and God-drenched communion, we can begin to cultivate the radical belonging that is at the heart of God’s transformative work.” (Eerdmans.com) Wabash Center Virtual Session #2 - Monday, December 7, 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM “Pedagogies of Justice and Care in Liminal Times” A 90-minute session for early career faculty teaching in a range of higher educational contexts. Early career faculty courses are often expected to adhere stringently to disciplinary canons and institutional ethos norms regardless of world events, national happenings, or social movements. At the same time, early career faculty are often expected to be the nimblest, most adept, most technologically savvy, and most able to adjust to complicated teaching tasks, yet they rarely have more than a little experience with teaching in higher education. In addition, they often find an abundance of expectations related to peer responsibilities like advising, mentoring, teaching, service to the institution through committees, and scholarship.Teaching during uncertain times can make teaching more difficult, even overwhelming. Justice and care for students and faculty in liminal times is often in short supply and finding practices and strategies of incorporating real time goings-on can be daunting. This session will attend to a range of topics and questions related to pedagogies of justice and care for the early career colleague. Presider: Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield, The Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion Panelists: Dr. Shehnaz Haqqani, Mercer University - Macon Dr. Christine Hong, Columbia Theological Seminary Dr. Sara Ronis, St. Mary’s University, Texas Dr. Ben Sanders, Eden Theological Seminary Dr. Lisa Thompson, Vanderbilt University Divinity School Panelists will respond to such questions and topics as: What’s the alternative in social upheaval to pretending all is the same? What pedagogies of care might be employed in contested spaces and liminal times? How does one attend to student resistance and fear when engaging justice concerns and topics? What strategies of listening can support teaching during upheaval within or beyond the institutional context? How does one prepare one’s self to teach while the world is shifting? What does it mean for an early career scholar to read the institutional politics when the institution is, itself, in crisis? What is the role of educational imagination and design when creating syllabi in uncertain times? Registration for these programs is through the AAR & SBL Meetings Registration Website. Non-Member Registration. Member Cost: $200 Non-Member Cost: $385 AAR Virtual Meetings Website SBL Virtual Meetings Website