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Fear is the anxiety that you are about to lose something you love, need, have rightfully earned or deserve. Fear will make you hurt yourself, silence yourself, edit yourself in ways that contradict or disavow your own best pursuits. Since we teach who we are, showing up afraid will only serve to distort your teaching, raise the apprehension in your classroom and model a sense of distrust. While I understand the impulse to be afraid, we must choose to live unafraid, especially in our own classrooms.Uncertainty has been weaponized. Random acts of callousness have been normalized. Scarcity is being orchestrated. Universities are being pressured in strange and unpredictable ways. The enterprises of education are being guillotined. If there was ever a time that provoked fear, anger, and confusion for those of us employed in higher education — now is that moment. Even so, my hunch is that it is shortsighted to expect that preemptive acts will rescue anyone from the strategies of demolition and anarchy. It is not likely that the fight can be avoided—particularly for those trying to skirt it. While cowering from the fight is an option, we would be foolish to think that cowering from the attack will lessen the challenge. Fear will drive you to attempt ineffective strategies.The other day a colleague emailed the Wabash Center asking that we remove their syllabi from our online collection. They were afraid the contents of their courses would be read as diversity, equity and inclusion materials and did not, given the political climate, want to risk being castigated. I can understand their desire to avoid worry, but removing syllabi from the internet, at best, is misguided. The fact-of-the matter is that nothing is ever actually removed. Why would the colleague think that hiding materials would make them safe? In this climate, compliance has not been met with a cease fire. I recognize that the fearful colleague is following suit with many prestigious universities who have performed an audit of their own websites, purged language of welcome and belonging, then re-languaged their program descriptions for public consumption.  I suspect our safety will depend upon the capacities of our intellectual leaders to decide not to be intimidated. Harvard is leading the way.Today, a colleague teaching at a state university reported that their department chair announced that she had recommended to the provost a 60% cut in the department’s budget. The department chair stated that she hoped that by volunteering the massive budget cut that she would avoid the impending budget fights. Once colleagues were clear that this recommendation was made to preempt the department head from having to fight for their department’s budget, the startle of colleagues shifted to rage. They felt betrayed. When the faculty pressed the department head for a rationale, the department chair explained that because they were close to retirement they were entitled to choose “peace” and avoid the impending university wide budgetary conflicts. Now, the department is waiting in fear. They are afraid that the department head’s wanton actions communicated to the university the lack of importance of the entire department. Wittingly or unwittingly, the timid department head chose to conspire in her own demise. She had not considered the welfare of the community over her own fear-driven impulse to preemptively concede—or maybe she had. Evil takes advantage of self-absorption and is intensified.We do not have the luxury of being afraid if it allows avoidance, silence, or being untrue to our central aims. Values which are easily discarded to avoid a fight might need to be reassessed, but now that crisis is upon us, conceding seems reckless. Safety is not ensured. We must know where we stand before the fight comes.If we are doing our jobs of good teaching, teaching religion and theology inherently cultivates voiced students who critically and imaginatively critique the status quo.  We know there are no dangerous thoughts; to those who would squelch wonder, imagination and freedom, thinking itself is dangerous. If in this moment we waffle on this rudimentary aim of teaching — why did we choose teaching in the first place? And why do we remain in higher education classrooms? Certainly, the individual and collective answers to these questions will matter as we decide our engagement in the vitriolic challenges of this moment. May our fear not become our hallmark. The worst thing we can do is panic and allow our fears to be the guiding force. This morning, I emailed my Associate Directors a copy of Audre Lorde’s The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action. Lorde's speech sheds light on the factors that may cause, in times of trouble, some people to remain silent while enabling others to speak an act. At our next director’s discussion, I am going to begin the dialogue with this Lorde quote:“For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for the final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us."Together, we will discuss the ways Wabash Center will stand firm in our commitments, and the ways we will steadfastly emphasize our mission of improving teaching, knowing that the aim of good teaching is to provide radical hospitality, to create space for open dialogue and to encourage creativity and imagination for future building. Reflection Questions for Leaders in EducationWhat do you do when you do not know what to do and you are afraid to do anything?What habits and practices (sacred or otherwise) will calm you during extended crisis?Who is your wise counsel in the season of doubt and distrust?How do you work through experiences of unprovoked or unforeseen change?What if the challenge is bigger than your capacity to lead, to teach, to serve?

In addition to the general tips on teaching mysticism presented in the previous blog posts (part 1 & part 2), I would like to share some in-class and writing assignments I have used when teaching ʻAṭṭār’s The Conference of the Birds. One of the most successful in-class activities I have developed is a discussion of the birds’ excuses. I created a slideshow of the various birds discussed, both in flight and at rest, and we begin by looking at these images. I then ask my students write informally on the following questions: Which bird’s objections would match your own most closely, and why? Why do you think ʻAṭṭār selected this specific bird to represent this issue? (Look back to the hoopoe’s original description [if applicable] and look at the slideshow for images of each bird). What is the hoopoe’s response? Does it make you think more deeply about your own objection, or would you still decide not to go? After writing their responses, we discuss as many birds as time allows. This assignment allows for deep reflection as it asks students to consider their relationship to the poem as well as the success (or lack thereof) of the metaphor of birds. Students are able to reflect on how to represent human characteristics in animals. It also prompts consideration of whether the hoopoe is persuasive or not, and which types of rhetoric invite change versus types which cause people to double down on bad habits. The discussion of the hoopoe (as an allegory for a Sufi master) also allows for a conversation about whether or not a spiritual guide can have nefarious objectives, the potential danger of trusting someone else as much as the poem urges one to do, and why handing over control of one’s life is appealing to some people. The in-class activity of reflection on specific birds and their concerns can be extended to a formal paper assignment. I have asked students to argue which bird needs to go on the journey the most – which prompts them to consider what flaw they believe to be the worst and which personality types would most need the mystical path. My colleague Nancy Kelly asks her students to write a paper on this simple prompt: What excuse is missing? I have used this discussion question and find that it encourages students to think about the issues ʻAṭṭār may not have been able to foresee (such as distractions of technology) or that he simply overlooked or chose not to include (such as childcare, as Nora Jacobsen Ben Hammed observed in a 2021 AAR panel). Because students have found the valleys to be confusing, I developed a group activity to help them understand this difficult part of the text. I put students in small groups and assign each group a single valley. I then give them a worksheet with the following questions: What images does ʻAṭṭār use to describe this valley? Does this imagery fit intuitively with the valley? Why or why not? Why do you think ʻAṭṭār places this valley at this specific point of the journey? Do you think it would make more sense earlier or later in the trip? Based on his language, the images, and so forth, what do you think it would feel like to experience this valley? In other words, what emotions does it bring out for you, and why? Once the groups have finished working, we come together as a class and go through each valley one-by-one. This allows each group to feel more confident as they present a small section of the text, and when students hear the reports from other groups, they gain a new understanding of each valley. I mentioned emotions earlier, but I have found that students generally would feel anxious, scared, or unhappy. This activity prompts reflection on their anxieties around difficult situations and loss of control. In the past, I have turned this into a formal writing assignment by asking students what valley would be the most difficult for the bird they most related to. Their responses show engagement with the questions “Why are certain types of challenges harder for me? How can I prepare, or is it better to learn how to avoid these situations entirely?” Conclusion Mystical texts offer an excellent resource for encouraging deep self-reflection. It is my hope that readers of this series of blog posts (part 1 & part 2) will be inspired to incorporate The Conference of the Birds or another mystical text into a future course to facilitate such reflection with their students. Undoubtably, each reader will adapt these suggestions to the demands of their course, their teaching style, and institutional context. Though there are many other potential avenues for self-reflection through The Conference of the Birds, my experience and examples highlight how a mystical text can provoke insight on identity, whether taught by specialists or non-specialists. In the absence of an exhaustive account of how to teach a mystical text, I simply hope I have provided a glimpse of what the mystical makes possible in the classroom. Yet as ʻAṭṭār says at the end of his poem, “And I too cease: I have described the Way – Now, you must act – there is no more to say” (1984, 245). Notes & Bibliography ʻAṭṭār, Farīd al-Dīn, Dick Davis, and Afkham Darbandi. The Conference of the Birds. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1984.

While teaching a mystical text is deeply enriching to the classroom, I find colleagues have two primary trepidations about teaching The Conference of the Birds: (1) presenting mysticism – a subject undergraduates and nonexperts alike often find impenetrable – in a coherent, lucid manner, and (2) accurately and responsibly discussing its specific Islamic context and dimensions (ʻAṭṭār 1984). Indeed, teaching undergraduates a mystical text requires a strong mastery of dense material and the ability to communicate ideas simply to so students understand their value for exploring identity. Thus, I have developed a set of strategies for elucidating mysticism to my students that I share with my colleagues who are not trained in mysticism. Along with my tips for teaching mysticism, I give recommendations for reliable sources for further reading on the Islamic context. Though readers of these blog posts may be experts in Sufism themselves or feel comfortable teaching mystical texts, I will address the concerns of complete beginners to both mystical texts and Sufi texts more specifically. When introducing The Conference of the Birds, I first ask students to reflect on the fact that ʻAṭṭār seems to struggle to express himself. Students typically admit frustration with the text, calling it “confusing,” noting that ʻAṭṭār frequently contradicts himself or says that something is impossible to write about (followed by a lengthy attempt to write about it). I affirm this observation, noting that mystical texts are full of paradox and confusing language. I then ask students why ʻAṭṭār might have so much trouble expressing himself. This question generally leads to several theories: he is unsure of what he is talking about and working through the idea, he is a bad writer, and the subject matter (God) is particularly hard to describe. Each idea opens a great avenue for discussing the self – is it helpful to write when thinking through challenging ideas? What does this writing look like? What does “good” writing look like? Must it be neat and tidy? Is good writing interesting or productive writing? And finally, I ask students, “Can you think of anything that you know how to do, but would find hard to describe?” or “What is important to you that you would struggle to explain to someone else?” Inevitably, this question leads students to reflect on matters of faith, emotion, and embodied knowledge. We discuss ideas of mystical “unsaying” (as described by Michael Sells [1994]), and Kevin Corrigan’s argument that paradoxical language is “the only thinkable and reasonable language” one can use to describe ultimate reality (2005, 169). By framing “confusing language” in these terms, I help students to understand how the ineffable – which permeates The Conference of the Birds and most mystical texts – is not only relevant to their lives, but essential. The conversation reveals that some of their most profound knowledge of self (i.e., emotional, embodied) is ineffable. With this conversation in place, we discuss the notion of elite or intense spiritual practices and what type of person pursues such practices. To help students understand this concept, I give a silly metaphor. I tell my students that mystics are the marathon runners of religion. Just as nobody has to run a marathon, nobody has to be a mystic. Though one can be a casual runner and still find value in the practice, some people feel compelled to do more, and some feel the drive to do something extreme. We discuss what motivates people to run marathons, what value they find in training for and ultimately completing such an arduous task. This metaphor, though vastly oversimplified, helps first-year students to reflect on the nature of an intense journey and whether or not they are the kind of person who pursues such tasks. It also helps the poem feel more present. Before using the marathon metaphor, students would comment on how “unrealistic” the mystical path was and how it might have been okay “back then,” but that nobody would do such a thing now (even after being told that the poem is still read in devotional contexts and that Sufi practice is very much alive and well). When I frame the mystical path with the marathon example, students are more likely to consider why they are not the type of person who would pursue the path advocated by ʻAṭṭār rather than dismiss those who are. Moreover, the marathon comparison is useful for reflecting on the elite nature of mystical journeys throughout our reading of The Conference of the Birds. For example, students are often struck by how few birds survive at the end of the poem, a metaphor for reaching divine union. ʻAṭṭār claims that of the hundreds of thousands that set out, only thirty reach the Simorgh (1984, 235). At this point in the poem, many students are incredulous; why, they ask, would anyone endure such a difficult journey with the odds of success being so low? Here, we return to metaphor; I ask students to brainstorm about careers and goals that have a very low success rate. Over the years, students have thought up many things including: being a professional athlete, winning an Olympic gold medal, earning a spot in the New York City Ballet, and becoming the president. Such a conversation again gives space for reflection: do I have any ambitions that are this elite? Why or why not? Am I too afraid to fail and cutting myself short? Is there a level of satisfaction that people who achieve something with long odds feel that I cannot? Conversely, we challenge the reverence for such paths. Recently, we discussed Simone Biles’s decision not to compete at an elite level due to the strain it placed on her mental health, and how pursuing such goals might damage one’s relationships and sense of wellbeing. Connected with the reflection on difficult journeys, the rhetoric of The Conference of the Birds offers a rich opportunity to help students consider their fears of letting go of the self. When discussing the valleys (which represent the stages of the Sufi path), I ask students to reflect on their emotional reactions. This has two functions. First, students seem more willing to engage in difficult reading when asked to reflect on their emotional reaction rather than more traditional analysis (Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, and Perry 2002). Second, it generally surfaces that students feel anxious and fearful when reading about the loss of self. Yet when we engage in close reading, they observe that ʻAṭṭār uses tranquil language to describe loss of identity. This leads to reflection on why they feel so anxious about this idea when it is being presented beneficially. I ask: What if losing the self is a good thing? What changes about your perception of your identity if ʻAṭṭār is right? Connected to this question, our discussion of the valleys includes debating whether or not hardship and trial are necessary or destructive to identity. With the pervasive notion that hardship makes a person stronger, we talk about how to respond to difficulty in a way that builds strength. Inversely, I invite students to reflect on the notion that trauma, hardship, and “tough love” may ultimately damage self-development and identity. While the mystical path and the type of person who pursues it can be presented with metaphor and well understood by undergraduates, I typically allow the discussion of divine union to remain more opaque. The final section of the poem describes the birds meeting the Simorgh as a metaphor for the notion of loss of self within God. This section is vivid and fascinating, but ultimately quite difficult for students to feel they fully understand. Here, it is helpful that we have already discussed how paradox may be the only appropriate language for such a concept, and that sometimes the most important knowledge is hard to explain to others. It is also a fruitful moment to discuss the question of embodied knowledge. I frequently ask my students: Are there any experiences that you do not fully understand if you have not had them? Examples that have come up have included childbirth, sexual experiences, seeing certain landscapes, and similar intense, embodied states. This conversation allows for reflection on what having such an experience means to one’s sense of self and relationship with others. The discussion of divine union also allows us to consider the possibility of universal human experience and transcending social, cultural, linguistic, and other barriers to reach a collective understanding of identity. When discussing the notion of a shared experience in my Augustine and Culture seminar (ACS), I simply ask students: Do you think all the birds experience the same thing when they meet the Simorgh? Why or why not? While at first many seem to believe in a different experience, when we discuss the concept of a universal experience, students often realize that their focus on the fixedness of social constraints makes them reluctant to believe such an experience is possible. Moreover, we discuss how the mediating factors that currently come to mind – typically race, gender, sexuality, and so forth – are likely not the social constraints that ʻAṭṭār imagined overcoming. The ideas discussed above would work well with a number of mystical texts, but since these blog posts focus on The Conference of the Birds, I would like to offer a few remarks on some of the challenges a person may face teaching poems that are specific to the Islamic context. Because ACS is not focused on Islam, I typically offer the minimum context necessary to understand the text, but my colleagues have noted anxiety about properly situating it within its Islamic Sufi context. In his article on teaching Sufism, David Cook affirms such an anxiety, noting that Sufism is “a vast and complicated subject” that “requires a thorough knowledge and appreciation of Islamic culture” (2011, 96). Cook further comments on how the shortcomings of many popular introductions to Sufism present another obstacle to teaching Sufi texts well. The difficulty of the subject matter may leave a nonexpert feeling ill-equipped to discuss The Conference of the Birds with students. However, my colleagues have become more comfortable by combining the approaches of introductory texts on Sufism. Since ACS is centered on primary-sources, my colleagues typically read this material for background and bring it into conversation in the classroom. In a religious studies or theology course where one assigns secondary literature, one could assign excerpts from the following texts either in advance of or alongside The Conference of the Birds. For background on Sufi theology and practice, and a discussion of the history of the academic study of Sufism, I point colleagues to Carl Ernst’s Shambhala Guide to Sufism. For historical overviews, I suggest Ahmet Karamustafa’s Sufism in the Formative Period and Nile Green’s Sufism: A Global Introduction. Each book is reasonably short, easily accessible to nonspecialists, and works well in classroom discussion. I typically caution colleagues against using William Chittick’s Sufism: A Beginner’s Guide and Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s The Garden of Truth because their commitments to a theoretical approach known as Traditionalism make them misleading for a nonexpert. The historian Mark Sedgwick has argued that Traditionalist scholars present their worldview as facts about Islam rather than as a theoretical framework or mode of interpretation. Sedgwick believes that the primary harm of this approach is done to nonspecialists, for whom “neither the origin nor the questionable nature of [Traditionalist] interpretations is evident” (2004, 169). Even with a greater familiarity with Sufism in place, the nonexpert may feel reticent to teach a Sufi text out of worry about its reception among contemporary Muslim students. In his classic work The Shambhala Guide to Sufism, Carl Ernst notes that when he tells his students that he studies Sufism, he is generally met with one of two reactions: either an assertion that Sufism is not “real” Islam, or delight and family stories about a Sufi grandfather (1997, xi). This comment is affirmed by Cook, who discusses responding to students who have asserted that Sufism is “not Islam” (2011, 98). Another possible reception is a Muslim student who is completely unfamiliar with Sufism, and thus does not recognize it as a part of their own tradition. I have also encountered Muslim students who challenged the legitimacy of Sufism in the classroom, and when I have shared this fact with colleagues, they often express trepidation about how to handle such a moment. I let them know that while many Muslim students will love the opportunity to read a Sufi text, it is important to be prepared for the possibility of Muslim students questioning the authenticity of Sufism. Many colleagues find it reassuring to know some historical background and potential discussion questions that can turn “gotcha” moments into opportunities to reflect on religious identity. First, it is helpful to know that though Sufism emerges early in Islamic history at the center of theological orthodoxy, its legitimacy has been challenged from its inception. Anti-Sufi attitudes were revived following the colonial period in Muslim-majority countries, and early academic literature on the subject cast Sufism as a liberal sect contrary to “rigid” orthodox Islam (Schimmel 1975, 10-11). Criticisms have been both that Sufism is not Islamic enough (as seen in early critiques and the influence of contemporary Wahhabi Islam), but also that it is not modern enough (from Muhammad ‘Abduh and others). Given this history, it is often surprising for Muslim students to learn that in certain times and places in the medieval period, Sufism was considered fully orthodox Islam, and major theologians such as al-Ghazālī were practicing Sufis. Discussing the historical roots of modern critiques of Sufism is a powerful way to invite Muslim students who hold anti-Sufi biases to consider the source of such biases. The historical context described above is covered by Ernst (1997), but for a more thorough overview, I recommend Elizabeth Sirriyeh’s Sufis and Anti-Sufis: The Defense, Rethinking and Rejection of Sufism in the Modern World. Because our goal is to reflect on identity rather than imparting a historical knowledge of Islam and Sufism, we typically only bring in this background if directly challenged in class. However, rather than simply telling a student that Sufism is “real” Islam, I find moments like this to be a great opportunity for all students to reflect on what they consider “real” iterations of whatever religion they practice. Connected to this question, I ask: Who has the authority to make this designation? Who benefits from their faith being affirmed, and what are the consequences if your approach to religion is deemed inauthentic? Thus, if a student challenges the Islamic bone fides of The Conference of the Birds, I remind students of the historical background of the poem described above, briefly mention the history of anti-Sufi critiques in the twentieth century, and then open a discussion about how we categorize religious practice as legitimate or illegitimate. If a student persists, that is another opportunity for reflection on identity, and how identity extends to the collective – to consider one’s personal understanding of religion versus the lived experience of other members of one’s faith who practice differently.   Notes & Bibliography ʻAṭṭār, Farīd al-Dīn, Dick Davis, and Afkham Darbandi. The Conference of the Birds. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1984. Cook, David. 2011. “Teaching Islam, Teaching Islamic Mysticism. Teaching Mysticism. Edited by William B. Parsons. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 88-102. Corrigan, Kevin. 2005. Reading Plotinus: A Practical Introduction to Neoplatonism. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. Ernst, Carl. 1997. Shambhala Guide to Sufism. Boston: Shambhala. Green, Nile. 2012. Sufism: A Global History. Oxford: Wiley and Sons. Karamustafa, Ahmet T. 2007. Sufism: The Formative Period. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pekrun, Reinhard, Thomas Goetz, Wolfram Titz & Raymond P. Perry. 2002. “Academic Emotions in Students' Self-Regulated Learning and Achievement: A Program of Qualitative and Quantitative Research.” Educational Psychologist. 37:2, 91-105. Schimmel, Annemarie. 1975. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Sedgwick, Mark. 2004. Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sells, Michael. 1994. Mystical Languages of Unsaying. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sirriyeh, Elizabeth. 1999. Sufis and Anti-Sufis: The Defense, Rethinking and Rejection of Sufism in the Modern World. London: Curzon Press.

In a first-year seminar guided by the question “Who am I?” my students are often a little shocked that their first reading suggests that they annihilate their sense of self. Though the inner lives of a medieval mystic and a contemporary student at an American university may seem worlds apart, I have found that mystical texts offer a profound space for students to critically reflect on their identity, position in the world, and relationship to others – including the divine. With research expertise in medieval Islamic mysticism, it is perhaps unsurprising that I gravitate towards mystical texts. Other scholars of mysticism will likely concur that the mystical offers a fruitful avenue for reflection on the question of identity; as William B. Parsons notes in his introduction to the edited volume Teaching Mysticism, the study of mysticism is “rich and complex, mysterious and compelling, dense and troubling but, above all, of immense cultural relevance” (2011, 5). However, it has been unexpected and gratifying to see The Conference of the Birds – a medieval Sufi poem – become a popular text among my colleagues who teach Villanova University’s interdisciplinary humanities first-year seminar, Augustine and Culture (ACS). The fact that only a handful of my colleagues are fellow scholars of religion, and none are experts in Islam or mysticism attests to the relevance of mystical texts for exploring questions of identity. Scholars of religion who do not specialize in mysticism may ask: What is it about the mystical that allows our students to reflect so deeply on their selves? I suggest four primary reasons why mystical texts are helpful for exploring the self. First, the notion that the self must be overcome or even annihilated (to use the technical term from Islamic mysticism) is a fascinating way to ask “What is the self?” What is central to identity and what is peripheral? Second, mystical worldviews offer some of the most expansive views of human cognition, allowing students to consider the constraints they put on themselves and how to remove unhealthy barriers. Third, with some theories of mysticism positing a universal human experience, students can reflect on the possibility (or lack thereof) of transcending boundaries of gender, sexuality, religion, culture, and so forth. Fourth, with many faculty members lamenting that students are becoming increasingly prone to black-and-white thinking or polarized factions, the mystical helps students to become more comfortable with paradox and uncertainty. Moreover, it allows them to consider how uncertainty might be conducive to critical thinking and deeper self-reflection. The following series of blog posts [Part 2: available 12/6/23] provide an overview of how the mystical invites profound reflection on identity. Although I will focus on the medieval Persian Sufi epic The Conference of the Birds, I believe that numerous other mystical texts from across religious traditions can invite similar insights on the self. In this post, I give a summary of The Conference of the Birds and the themes that are particularly suited to examining questions of identity. The next post provides practical tips for introducing key concepts of mysticism in order to help students understand the relevance of mysticism in a world that is preoccupied with material success, relationships, and tangible sources of happiness (in other words, a world that is often directly hostile to the aims of mystics). The final post contains assignment ideas and a concluding reflection. While these tips are mostly intended for scholars new to mystical texts, they may be of use to specialists looking to revise their teaching techniques or introduce the mystical in general survey courses.   “My Self Frustrates Me”: An Overview of The Conference of the Birds and the Value of Mysticism for Self-Reflection Written by Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār (d. 1221 CE), The Conference of the Birds (Pr. Manṭiq al-ṭayr) is an allegorical poem that imagines the Sufi mystical path as a group of birds and their perilous journey to find their king – the mythical Simorgh. The poem richly describes several species of birds and the individual flaws that prevent them from achieving spiritual excellence, as well as the tireless work of their guide – represented by a hoopoe – to help them understand that their worldly concerns are insufficient to achieving true happiness and convince them to pursue the divine instead. The poem includes short, allegorical avian excuses and the hoopoe’s responses, along with rich descriptions of the path itself (represented by seven arduous valleys), and a final discussion of divine union. Though the poem is specifically concerned with the Sufi path, teachers may find use for the poem in any class concerned with identity and self-reflection. Mystical writings present students with a provocative challenge to what many of them consider central to their identities. The Conference of the Birds suggests the things that people usually focus on – family, love, career, and so forth – are ultimately meaningless. Thus, it provides an excellent way for students to reflect on what is fundamental to their identities and what is peripheral. Furthermore, it prompts them to examine if they should leave the peripheral and temporal behind in pursuit of the eternal, or if such a path is too extreme. At Villanova, each student begins their first year by writing an essay responding to the question “what is a life well lived?” Many write about the importance of family, friends, and material comfort. This provides an outstanding foil for introducing the radical rejection of these ideas as presented in The Conference of the Birds. Though I have yet to encounter a student who takes up the mystical path after reading the poem, I have taught hundreds of students who can better articulate why having a family is essential to their identity after reading a text that encourages them to leave behind all worldly and temporary connections. In keeping with the theme of profoundly challenging students’ assumptions, Sufism advocates for a radical annihilation of the self to reach unity with God. The notion that one’s identity is essentially meaningless in the face of ultimate reality is daunting, yet my students are frequently intrigued by this. When discussing the idea of annihilation of self, some students react with fear, others with comfort. Those who are fearful note that it reminds them of their own mortality, but that it also brings up more immediate concerns: why bother with college if nothing but God matters? Conversely, those who are comforted by it say that being reminded of their own cosmic insignificance makes them feel freer. After all, who cares about a B on a test if nothing but God matters? Either reaction brings out reflection on identity and what is considered essential to the self. While the concept of annihilation of self can be intimidating, I remind students that the mystical is also one of the most open views of human capacity. I first encountered this approach to mysticism when taking a graduate seminar on contemplative theology with Wendy Farley. She noted that contemplatives hold some of the most expansive views of the mind and its potential, which is one of the most self-affirming views of the mystical I have ever heard. Thus, while ʻAṭṭār frequently uses negative language about the self, I encourage students to consider just how bold a claim he is making: a person can unite with God. Or more specifically, given the imagery of the polished mirror at the end of the poem, a person can reveal that which is divine within themselves (ʻAṭṭār 1984, 235). Considering this view of humanity and its potential brings out a fascinating counterpoint to the negative view of the self-described above. This encourages students to consider readings of the text that are not readily apparent or intuitive. Moreover, the realization that “losing the self” means becoming or revealing the divine within oneself can empower students to think more positively about themselves and their abilities. When one considers the theory of mysticism alongside the text, the expansiveness of the mystical worldview extends beyond individuals to the possibility of a collective, universal human experience. Neoperennialist scholars of mysticism such as Robert Forman suggest that mystical experience is completely unmediated by language, culture, and religion, and thus represents a shared core of humanity (1999). While this position is hardly uncontroversial (I have argued against it myself), I find that students are deeply intrigued by the possibility of a shared core of human experience. Given that Forman and others argue that the mystical represents a unique opportunity to access this singular human experience, this theory demonstrates the relevance of mysticism particularly well. While many students remain skeptical of the possibility of universal experience, this conversation is a pathway to consider how one might overcome social, religious, ethnic, linguistic, gendered, and other constraints. It also invites reflection on whether or not these so-called constraints or social factors – say, gender – is an essential aspect of identity. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the mystical provides space to become more comfortable with paradox, ineffability, and uncertainty. In a recent New York Times op-ed, Jonathan Malesic argued that the biggest predictor of college success was intellectual curiosity and openness to new ideas. He noted well-intentioned undergraduates who seemed terrified of taking difficult subjects for fear of not already knowing the subject matter of the class, often seeing knowledge in simple “right/wrong” terms (2023). I have noticed this tendency more and more with my own students. My undergraduates are remarkably bright, but are often reticent if they do not feel certain of the answer. I have observed a marked improvement in students’ intellectual confidence and overall academic development in courses when I begin with a mystical text. I believe this is because they immediately encounter an author using paradoxical language intentionally. The revelation (explored in the next blog post *available 12/6/23*) that the inability to express oneself rationally does not mean that one is stupid, inarticulate, or talking about something unimportant is an essential step to developing the intellectual openness and confidence to succeed. Though many mystical texts invite reflection on the above questions of identity, this series of blogs will focus on The Conference of the Birds in the hopes that other faculty will feel confident to add it to their syllabi. It works especially well in a first-year seminar, an introduction to Islam course, a general mysticism survey, or classes on literature and religion. Though it is a profound text that deserves close attention and expertise, I find that nonexperts can become comfortable teaching it with the practical tips I outline below. In my own department, I have led faculty development workshops to help scholars from across humanities disciplines prepare to teach the text and am happy to share that all have reported back that it was a student favorite (and a favorite to teach). The text is lengthy, but can easily be excerpted to be taught in approximately two weeks of class time. I typically assign the introduction to the poem (which allows me to outline the Sufi path, ideas of ineffability, and loss of self), the bird’s excuses (which provides an opportunity for student self-reflection about what holds them back from pursuing difficult tasks), the sections of the poem in which ʻAṭṭār describes the seven “valleys” of the journey (which invites contemplation of how one responds to difficult circumstances, whether or not trials are necessary, and how gradual loss of identity feels emotionally), and the final section of the poem (which prompts conversation on the notions of loss of self-identity, divine union, and the possibility of a universal experience). Depending on the nature of the class, one also could focus on a range of other themes and elements of the text including: the format of the allegorical stories, the form of the poetry itself, and nature imagery.   Notes & Bibliography ʻAṭṭār, Farīd al-Dīn, Dick Davis, and Afkham Darbandi. The Conference of the Birds. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1984

In a previous post on this blog, I reflected on a common misperception among students preparing for ordained ministry and other leadership roles in Christian community: that studying theology in a formal sense is not of obvious utility in pursuing and exercising one’s larger vocation. I offered several reasons why that might be the case. And I described an assignment I had developed and used for the first time as a result of participating in the Wabash Center’s Teaching with Digital Media workshop. This project entailed making and sharing memes on theological themes and then reflecting on what was learned through that exercise. The goal was to give them a concrete experience of selecting specific theological concepts to communicate to a specific audience in order to elicit specific formational outcomes. The assignment required students to do small-scale, but active, public theologizing and employ techniques of metacognition to help them perceive more clearly the need for solid theological grounding as part of their formation and, by extension, for the formation they will be responsible for in others. For this semester, I created an assignment that amplified that intention by requiring them to offer a bit of formal theological instruction in a more direct and standard mode, but still in a digital form. The prompt for the assignment was this: Imagine that you are the rector of a program-sized parish. In substantive conversation with at least five readings assigned [in the previous unit], create a 5–7 minute presentation to teach your clergy staff about how one’s eschatological imagination can be a resource when engaging those of other faiths or of no faith. Create a TED-style talk, a narrated PowerPoint, a VoiceThread, or a video of another kind that your staff can view on their own time. It must include video, sound other than just your voice, and still images. Think carefully about what it is you want them to know and tailor the use of the technology to ensure that it is communicated to them clearly. Focus on the theology at the heart of your teaching. Ground your theology in the sources and be sure you let your hearers know when ideas are not your own, especially if you quote anyone’s writing. Students were given a deadline by which these presentations needed to be complete. I then posted them as separate threads in a Moodle forum open to the class. There was then a second deadline by which each student was “required to have watched all of the presentations and to have made substantive comments of a theological and/or pedagogical nature on at least three of them.” Finally, there was a third and final deadline by which students were “required to have replied thoughtfully to all comments made” on their work. I then viewed all the presentations and read through the discussions, and I assessed the projects based on a previously provided rubric of seven criteria, each with four levels: above standards, meets standards, near standards, and below standards. The seven criteria (with the maximum number of points earnable for each indicated in parentheses) were: use of sources (30), original and critical thinking (15), structure of presentation (15), pedagogy, meaning the clarity and achievement of the presenter’s learning outcomes (10), required elements (10), comments on peers’ presentations (10), and responses to peers’ comments (10). Interestingly, students were less intimidated by this assignment than by the meme assignment. Presumably, this has to do with the medium: all students have experienced an instructional presentation online, but not all are familiar with the syntax and culture of meme-making. During the Wabash workshop, we were encouraged to assign multimedia projects of this kind with very short time durations. Nearly universally, however, students bemoaned not having enough time to communicate all they wanted to say, wishing they had been able to provide more nuance in their presentations. I was surprised, but gratified, by this. Next year, I will increase the time limit, but I will also warn them that more time means a greater temptation to wander too far from the central idea the presentation is meant to communicate and that they must diligently maintain that focus throughout. The extent to which most students readily grasped the importance of providing ongoing theological formation for their clergy staff was highly gratifying. They attended to that task with rich creativity, substantive theology, and an inviting personal presence. As teachers-to-be, I think it was useful for them to see themselves and their colleagues in this role. Students were eager to discuss pedagogy in the forum, but a little less forthcoming about their specific theological choices. As the one evaluating and providing feedback on their approaches to the theological formation of others, I would like to know more about that and I will ask for more detail about that in the future. Overall, the use of digital media in connection with this assignment appears to have ignited the imaginations of the students to think about doing theological formation in the milieu they are most likely to do this in their careers: the parish. Education in formal theology in the seminary is meant to equip students for bringing the riches of the theological heritage and discipline to bear in the work of ministry. This assignment seems to have contributed well to that outcome.

One of the major advantages of the online learning environment is the capacity to help students develop critical thinking in more effective and efficient ways than the classroom environment allows. Emphasizing student engagement through online discussion forums is a powerful way to cultivate critical thinking. By having students engage more intentionally with texts and media, and respond to well-crafted prompts and questions, instructors can immediately assess the level of a student's understanding and concepts acquisition. Reading student responses to well-crafted prompts and questions is akin to a form of mind reading. The instructor gains immediate feedback on what the student thinks, how a student is thinking, the level of understanding achieved, and can identify misunderstandings. Assessing online student responses allows the teacher to provide correctives, follow up with clarifying questions, challenge fuzzy thinking, and push for specificity. In this way the teacher can cultivate critical thinking and assess evidence about how well students achieve it throughout the course. Critical thinking is one of the universally desired goals in teaching. The current ATS M.Div. program goals includes “. . . development of capacities—intellectual and affective . . . ” as one of its ministerial formation outcomes (Degree Program Standards A.3.1.3.). The online discussion experience is one of the most useful methods for developing and assessing critical thinking. What is Critical Thinking? Critical thinking is a particular cognitive activity evidenced by specific components. Attached is a handout, "Assessing and Cultivating Critical Thinking Online" with nine of those components. Other components of critical thinking not included are credibility, sufficiency, reliability, and practicality. You can use the handout to assess student responses for critical thinking. Sharing the chart with your students, or, converting it into an assessment rubric for online academic discussion can help your students cultivate critical thinking and help you assess how well they achieve it.

My course began with an iconic book by bell hooks and ended, after several other readings, with a beloved text by Parker Palmer. On the last day of class, a white woman student came up to me to tell me how much she enjoyed the course (she had earned an A in the course), and to give me feedback, saying, “Next time, start with the white guy and not bell hooks; it will be easier for us white people to stay in the conversation.” So much teaching is complicit with dominant race ideologies and patriarchy, yet we yearn for different ways to teach. White normative approaches to disciplinary-subject matter, reading lists which strain to add even one non-white author, grading standards which insist upon majority culture assessment categories are only a few of the ways that the ideals which normalize whiteness permeate our daily living and teaching. Disrupting these patterns of evil and shifting these detrimental values takes mixing things up, muddling stuff, creating newness and difference. Increasing our knowledge of new resources and redefining our criteria of what might constitute acceptable academic resource for our classrooms, might be a way forward. Look for narratives which resist and repudiate the story of whiteness. Stories that champion and reinforce whiteness and patriarchy, stories that allow for a token few minoritized people to triumph, but refuse to portray a change in the oppression for all or stories which never question the absence of powerless people in significant roles permeate our airwaves and imaginations. We are persons immersed in the narrative which supports and promotes white supremacy, white nationalism, and patriarchy. We have to find ways to resist. A critical challenge for all teachers who want to teach as a disruption to whiteness and patriarchy is that, regardless of personal social location, each of us must expand our knowledge of freedom narratives. We, all of us, given the ethos of the United States in the 21st century, must with great intent, seek out and immerse ourselves in the counter-narratives to the lie of whiteness. We must internalize a narrative of freedom, love, creativity, and forgiveness. We must believe in the sacredness and worth of all human beings and teach this story in unflinching and believable ways. As a spiritual discipline, take time to fill your consciousness and imagination with freedom narratives as a way to fortify yourself for teaching against the status quo. We must re-teach ourselves in order to teach toward freedom.   Read stories that depict and portray people of color as intelligent, generative, and caring human beings – as normal. This is why the movie Black Panther was so popular and so refreshing. It did not start and end with chattel slavery. It made use of fresh portrayals of people of the African diaspora which told a story of community, kinship and the complexity of freedom.  Avoid the motifs of the individual superhero like the ways Martin Luther King’s or Harriet Tubman’s legacies have been distorted. Look past the stories of inferiority and degradation often told in the daily news cycle. Find stories where the women are not one-dimensional wooden beings and the people of color are not gratuitously violent, oversexualized, or stupid. Teach yourself to identify the narratives of freedom and bring them into your classroom. In immersing yourself in freedom narratives, look for a multiplicity of mediums: film clips, music, screenplays, artwork, photography (all means of storytelling), and then consider making use of the best ones in your classes. Narratives that are sophisticated about race/gender politics are seeping into the U.S. culture. Look for new stories like “Dear White People” on Netflix. Binge watching both seasons of “Dear White People” took focus and stamina. I managed to do it in 48 hours – taking occasional breaks to walk my dog, get a snack and sleep. The well-written Netflix series is based upon an acclaimed film of the same name. The plot is set in a 21st-century fictitious college called Winchester University. The story depicts the lives of African American college students at this Ivy League, predominantly white university. The Black students are bright, articulate, culturally and politically conscious, and conscientious. In other words, the black folks are woke. The title “Dear White People” is a clue that the white folks of the community are not woke. The lead character and protagonist has a campus radio show. She often, to inform white peers, professors, and university administrators formats her radio soliloquies in the form of a letter which begins, “Dear White People.” Then in great poetic rant, she informs and reprimands the offending, or simply ignorant, white people about their white supremacy, privilege, and the ways their behaviors and the racist, sexist systems which privilege them, to which they seem to be oblivious, continually affect her and her friends. The poignant stories disclose and interrogate cultural bias, social injustice, misguided activism, and the zeal that comes with college-aged persons. The stories are also about the relationships of young people and the ways they struggle to negotiate their social, cultural, and intellectual growth. Creator and executive producer Justin Simien is a storyteller who understands the ever-present irony, bitter humor and too often anger for persons attempting to live life while being a target of white supremacy and patriarchy. “Dear White People” is an expanding of freedom narratives. This is the kind of material you want to explore for possible classroom use. Material which unapologetically tells the story from the perspective of the oppressed and the ways we navigate the dehumanizing terrain.  Consider radical ideas as you find new resources. What if you taught your introductory course with no white or male authors? Develop a course which is soundly disciplinary, but has no majority culture readings. This might mean using all articles and no textbooks, per se, but why not? Teaching to transform might not mean including a few voices of the marginalized --- it might mean excluding the voices of the oppressor so we can learn the perspectives, voices, and stories of the oppressed. And/or consider introducing each text to be read by providing, or having your students research, the social locations of each author. If an author is white and male, identify the person in this way. Resist only identifying the gender and race of authors who are female and people of color because it signals they are “exceptions” to the routinely read normal readings authored by white men.  Creating educational spaces for which the voices of the oppressed and marginalized is taken seriously, respected, even prioritized is a paradigm-shifting act – an act of freedom in which you can participate by the stories you bring into your classroom.

My most recent post for “Teaching Islam” deals with some of the stakes in teaching and studying religion at a Catholic college. My colleagues Shabana Mir and Sherali Tareen have also provocatively and sharply addressed related topics of “confessional” and “secular” curricular methodologies, so I’d like to continue the thread by focusing on student experience in the great debate on distinctions between religious studies and theology. I touch on the fluid boundaries of allegedly dispassionate approaches to the study of religion in my article “Normative Readings of the Qur’an,” in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion as part of a roundtable, “Normativity in Islamic Studies.” This roundtable focuses on scholarship; I would like to focus on teaching in this essay. Distinctions Aren’t Always Clear Notably, my own Department of Religious Studies at my Jesuit Catholic institution, Le Moyne College, offers courses in religious studies as well as theology. According to institutional parameters, theology courses differ from religious studies courses insofar as the former must give significant attention to Catholicism, either on its own or in relation to other traditions. Among the professors who teach theology courses at Le Moyne, some are Catholic and some aren’t. So what does it mean to engage (in) Catholic theology when it’s not limited to Catholics? I think this is at once a relevant field-wide query and also departmentally specific. However one answers the question, though, if a Catholic school is paying non-Catholics to teach Catholic theology—and my Catholic institution isn’t the only one doing this—in a religious studies department, then at the very least the distinctions between religious studies and theology aren’t black and white. As for student engagement with such matters, I find that students aren’t so interested in abstract theoretical distinctions between religious studies and theology, but are quite interested in making sense of such contours on the ground. In my first couple of years of full-time teaching, I attempted to formally introduce students to distinctions between religious studies and theology in the first days of class, but as the years go by, I find a better approach is to largely leave the debate in the background and to teach through examples instead, e.g., encouraging reflection on field trips to mosques or on challenges of teaching religion at a public high school full of disgruntled parents who think Islam is a devil religion. Teaching Students New Vocabulary As an undergraduate religious studies major myself, I was excited to learn about epoché (suspension, bracketing), both as a concept and as a disciplinary key term. Thanks to my colleague Darryl Caterine’s suggestion, I have begun making sure that students know the word epoché in the first week of classes, and without doubt, students find this helpful. What’s more, introducing students to the term gives them implicit permission to decide which approaches to studying religion ignite their interests most. To this extent, in a student-centered classroom—which in my case involves a lot of in-class discussion, often led by students themselves—it’s counterproductive to police the boundaries of conversation too much. If students want to talk about what a “true Christian” is, for example—based on their subjective, even myopic view of Christianity—that’s fine. Although the students shouldn’t expect me to chime in with my own partisan position, or corroborate theirs for that matter. Experimenting with Theological Inquiry One of my favorite writing assignments in recent years was in my course “Islamic Mysticism.” I posed in a prompt: Are Islam and mysticism inherently connected or could one reasonably separate the two? This prompt takes place in a context where we read, for example, William James’ categories of mysticism, while also giving attention to Muhammad’s role as a medium for divine Revelation, in addition to a variety of films, texts, and art that point toward the significance of first-hand numinous experiences. The prompt invites synthesis and reflection on course material, but is it an academic question or a theological question? I think it’s both. It’s academic because it requires students to synthesize evidence based on a careful examination of course material. But it’s theological, too, I think, because there is no single correct answer to the question and the stakes are significant in terms of how one’s answer might provide commentary on course material. How might student responses to the question incite them to go beyond epoché and perform their own creative process, or poeisis, with course material? In many ways students answer the question depending on personal sensibilities toward categories they understand as “Islam” and “mysticism.” The essay prompt, moreover, produced some really thoughtful essays, many of which included disclosures on how the students struggled with the question and changed their minds as they wrote; some students even referenced the question weeks later in the course. My sense is that giving students formal opportunities to personalize course material, while engaging in relatively free reflection, helps them perform better on a variety of levels. Conclusions: How Much Should Students Care? When speaking with colleagues across the country—with a particular Facebook thread in mind, I will admit—I sometimes get the impression that some of us don’t always want students to indulge their deepest interests in religion, at least not in our religious studies courses. This is understandable to the extent that many of us, including me, don’t want to put ourselves in positions of evaluating the veracity of a theological claim or spiritual experience. But I think one can largely assuage this concern by relying on low stakes assignments (e.g., short writing assignments, journal entries, in-class activities) that allow students to mine their own theological, spiritual, or metaphysical curiosities. Without this freedom, I think we risk signaling to students that they can’t learn as holistic beings. Ironically, many institutions require religious studies courses precisely so that students learn about the world beyond their classes in engineering, biology, business, or what have you. Perhaps as instructors we would do well to more carefully bracket our own disciplinary dogmas when they might impede the creativity, imagination, and even effort from our students. How do you navigate the boundaries between religious studies and theology in your pedagogical practices?

The University of Chicago made news recently because of a letter sent by its Dean of Students to inform its incoming class of freshmen that the University, given its commitment to “freedom of inquiry and expression,” does not support “trigger warnings,” cancel controversial speakers, or condone creation of “safe spaces.”  Responses to this letter run the whole gamut from celebratory cheers to condemnatory curses.  Some see this as the University’s honorable refusal to shut down difficult discussions of sensitive subjects; others see it as the University’s hypocritical and covert attempt to forestall student activism on campus to challenge conservative speakers or oppressive rhetoric. I have no way of knowing the “real” motivations or intentions of this letter.  I do notice, however, that subsequent conversations, whether in support or in protest of the University of Chicago’s letter, tend to assume that “free speech” will necessarily trump or preclude “safe space” or “trigger warnings” without clarifying what those terms may mean or how they may be put into practice. As an educator who likes to encourage and enable students as well as myself to think again and think differently, I am all for free speech; free speech is, in fact, indispensable to classroom discussion and learning.  We do not learn well if we feel like our thoughts and ideas are being suppressed; we also cannot learn if we are not allowed to make mistakes.  Nobody’s commitment to Black Lives Matter, neither mine or any of my student’s, should keep white students in my class from articulating their disagreements with or dislike of James Cone’s Black Theology and Black Power.  Similarly, advocates for LGBTQ rights, including myself, cannot silence students who want to push back against Marcella Althaus-Reid’s Indecent Theology.  Every student in my classroom should have the space and time to express their thoughts and views, even if I think they are dead wrong; to deprive students of such is to take away from them an opportunity to hear and learn through feedbacks and responses.  We must also not forget that persons from traditionally marginalized groups do make mistakes and can also be misguided in their thinking.  Whether this commitment to free speech and the idea of the classroom being a safe space can coexist depends on what one means by the latter.  I cannot guarantee that no one will feel uncomfortable, unsafe, or threatened in my classroom since I cannot control how one feels or deny what someone is feeling.  Hearing new ideas that you have not considered before, especially if it contradicts or challenges what you have held dear deep down and for very long, can indeed be very alarming.  I have also heard faculty of color and female professors saying that they themselves did not feel safe at times with their students.  When students are even allowed to carry guns legally on some campuses, how can I feign the power or ability to keep everybody safe in my class? I can, however, promise that students in my courses will have a safe space to speak freely, meaning only that they will be able to say what is on their mind and in their heart, including saying, “I am feeling rather threatened!” or “I feel under attack and unsafe right now.”  This kind of safe space is not one that shields students from being challenged, feeling offended, or experiencing wound or harm; it is, however, one that does not frame “free speech” and “safe space” as mutually exclusive by definition. Having a safe space to speak freely also does not, in my view and practice, necessarily cancel out the desire or the need for trigger warnings.  A person does not have to run over other people verbally just because she or he has something important to say that others may find difficult to hear.  I am not able to verify if it is true that persons of color, because of all the discrimination and marginalization, have developed thicker skins than average Whites, I will only say that some experiences, including oppressive and unjust ones, may also make someone more sensitive to other people’s feelings and she may hence become more thoughtful and more gracious about giving trigger warnings.  Trigger warnings, when given clearly and concisely by a teacher on her own initiative in the classroom, do not function to shield students from but prepare students for difficult topics or challenging ideas.  After giving a trigger warning, I have never once asked my students, “Is it okay to talk about this now?” or said to them, “You may leave the class if you do not want to hear or think any more about this.”  More importantly, those of us who are teachers should remember that we have the responsibility to guide and guard the tone and the emotion of a classroom even or especially when we push for honest and genuine exchange of views and opinions.  Let’s remember also that what we do may become models for our students to emulate.  They, like us, need to learn how to disagree, debate, and argue passionately, thoughtfully, and respectfully. Instead of following or (even in dispute) allowing the University of Chicago’s letter to set the terms of the conversation, I see the possibility for “free speech,” “safe space,” and “trigger warnings” to exist alongside each other in my classroom and in my universe. Oh, one more thing: While a school can—and should—refuse to cancel an invited speaker with controversial viewpoints (whether the speaker is Ann Coulter or Jeremiah Wright), students and teachers can also continue their activism to speak freely against what they understand to be unjust or unacceptable.  The point of activism is not to shut people up or shut people down, but to push for rethinking, reexamination, and further conversation.  After all, is this not what teaching and learning is about?      

Tat-siong Benny Liew Class of 1956 Professor in New Testament Studies College of the Holy Cross At the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature last year, the Student Advisory Board organized an interesting session titled, “What I’m Telling My Students.” I find this a wonderful question for every