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I stopped dead in my tracks. I had been enjoying an early-Autumn walk, crunching my way through fallen leaves, while listening to a Wabash Center podcast in which Dr. Nancy Lynne Westfield and Rev. Dr. Steed Davidson were discussing how to “Future Proof Your Career.” I stopped walking when I heard Dr. Westfield declare: “I guarantee you, you will not have the career your mentor had. That career is over.” Later she remarked, “We need to adapt.” I didn’t stop walking because I was angry about having to change my pedagogy. To be honest, I enjoy that sort of thing. Neither did I stop walking because I was shocked. I know that small private liberal arts institutions and seminaries are facing enrollment challenges now, perhaps more than ever. And, for this reason, new adaptions and academic-adjacent careers are a reality for those of us teaching theology and religion, especially those of us who are in the beginning or middle stages of our career trajectories. I stopped walking because I was stunned by the clear and honest way Dr. Westfield had articulated something I had been thinking about a lot—and to be honest, wrestling with—in a couple of different ways in my current institution. I teach in the Theology department at a fairly small, private Catholic institution. Most of the students we teach register for our courses to fulfill a General Education requirement in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. This context is quite different from one in which I formerly taught, comprised of students pursuing a theology degree for professional ministry. My current colleagues and I have been reflecting on the purpose of our department and its course offerings within our institution; in doing so, we have discussed how we primarily serve the General Education curriculum, rather than a curriculum designed for theology majors. While we have several majors graduate from our program every year, we need to make sure we are serving not only them, but also the bulk of the students in our classes who are not theology majors. Of course, a curriculum designed for majors needs to cover a range of diverse areas of study within its discipline, equipping students with the knowledge and skills necessary to pursue a career or further studies in its area. Content is critical. Certain topics in the discipline must be covered. However, in a curriculum designed for students taking a couple of courses in theology as a general education requirement, specific areas of content are less critical. Instead, courses are meant to introduce students to a discipline—not by covering all of its topics in a preliminary way—but by teaching students how to use the approach of the discipline, or to think with its lens. For example, in a content approach, I construct a course around the question: “What do students need to know about Christianity?” I then choose a textbook that covers these areas of knowledge that I have deemed necessary. The methodological approach, instead, asks: “How will I teach students to think theologically?” Often, when the course is a requirement for their graduation, I have to ask the additional question: “How will I get students to understand that learning to think this way is relevant to their lives?” One way our department has done this is to revise the introductory theology courses we teach. Rather than asking our students to fulfill their first theology course in an introduction to Scripture or Systematics, we designed a course that introduces students to Christian scriptures and theological disciplines through the lens of justice. This change in focus made us adapt the way we teach. Rather than simply teaching only about our content areas of expertise, we are teaching in ways that engage the contemporary questions our students (most of whom may be categorized as Gen Z) find relevant. This change, in my experience, has increased student engagement. For example, not many of my students—especially those who are not majors or care much about Christianity—find a unit on creation in systematics very interesting, at least on a personal level. Their lives aren’t invested in the doctrine of creation ex-nihilo and learning about pantheism and panentheism. However, if I introduce them to Christian scriptures and theology on creation with a primary focus on global warming, they are engaged almost instantaneously. This focus addresses something the world needs right now. More than increased levels of engagement, though, this new approach introduces students to a practice of applying theology to contemporary concerns. My hope is that by the time they leave my class, when religious ideas and concerns show up in contemporary events, they know how to evaluate and analyze them. How is scripture being used at an anti-immigration protest, for example? What we have done in our department resonates with a point Dr. Davidson made in the podcast. He mentioned someone who wanted to research gazelles in antiquity. This person eventually became interested in contemporary animal rights movements and wanted to bring that into their work, but the individual’s dissertation committee advised against it. (Most likely because the committee didn’t know how to direct it in that way). The point is that the questions in which the dissertation committee members are interested are not the same questions that those with future careers will need be to ready to answer, in order to thrive. The other way I (and some of my departmental colleagues) have been thinking about this question is in our upper-level courses. I’ll be honest, I’m attached to mine. I have a 300-level course on “Medieval Women Mystics” that I love because I get to introduce students to my favorite area of research and expertise. I’m beginning to understand, however, that it’s probably time to contemporize this course as well. It’s time to reframe this course around important questions of our time. Stay tuned.

I have been learning over the last several months that transition is not the same thing as change. Change is something I live with every day as I battle the side effects of diabetes—not ever knowing if my feet will betray me or my hands remain cold all day. Change is a part of my life and living as I see new things from the folks I work with everyday, but then there is a quirk of phrase, the sidelong look, the slight roll of the eye that I had not seen before. Change is something I am trying to make my peace with as I age and get closer to the ages that my parents died, and worry, what this will mean for my spouse and my only sibling, my sister, who is managing mental illness in magnificent ways. Who will be their confidante? Who will be their big sister? As I prepare to leave the deanship at Vanderbilt Divinity School, I am very aware that this transition thing is a whole ‘nother thing altogether. Because it means that I can’t just react to my disease and try to stay on top of it. I can’t just acknowledge that there are some physical acts that I used to do with ease and now, if I can do them at all, they do not come easily or look slightly askew. Transition means that I am leaving something I’ve done and loved but realize that it is time to move on. It is bitter and it is sweet. And there are large parts of the future that I do not know about but have a dim awareness that they are out there. There is only so much I can know about what the full textures of this transition will be. So, I make to-do lists in my head, in print, and then talk about them with the folks in my life and I say over and over again that I am looking forward to what this transition will mean. But I suspect that a part of me is really only doing this as a profound exercise in hope. Because I do like control and order and there is simply the unknown until I walk into this transition each day, hoping that it will be alright and that I do lead well until I no longer carry the marvelous responsibility of my school in ways that only the dean can. And what little I am sure of is that I am looking forward to full-time classroom teaching after a long sabbatical but it will be like learning to ride that bike again. Only this time it’s electric.