Resources

Killer Mike said, “I hope we find a way out of it, because I don’t have the answers. But I do know: we must plot, we must plan, we must strategize, we must organize, and mobilize.” In this moment of triple-pandemic, the story of the Wabash Center aligns with Killer Mike’s message for agency, imagination, and cunning, as we support faculty and administrators in religion and theology. I read the many, many statements, treaties, and proclamations written by school administrators, corporate chiefs, government officials, and preachers.  Each statement, in its own way, condemned the deplorable activities of racial injustice.  I suppose making a statement declaring one’s values in a moment of social strife is better than leaving us to guess about institutional commitments concerning racism. But, most statements, from my vantage, while noble, did not provide a clarion commitment to the work and sacrifice needed for sustainable change.  Killer Mike’s statement, simple and elegant, was a call to gather together and design the America which is dreamed about, but which goes unrealized. Michael Santiago Render, better known by his stage name Killer Mike, is an American rap artist, songwriter, actor and activist. He is also the son of an Atlanta police officer. Killer Mike was called to speak on camera the day after the social uprisings began in response to the public torture and execution of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police. The tape of the police torturing and murdering George Floyd has gone viral and has ignited, again, the outrage of those of us who are against police brutality.  Police terrorism is one of the many forms of white supremacy which infest and infect the U.S. democracy and keep racism an integral part of capitalism.  Now, months after the day George Floyd was killed while calling upon the ancestors, the marches, protests and rebellions continue.  Additional police executions caught on camera since the murder of George Floyd has served to increase the anguish, fear, anger and terror which grips the USA people.  White America is coming to terms with what Black Americans have known and survived for 400 years, i.e. African American citizens, and other racially marginalized communities, are systemically terrorized by police forces in towns and cities all over the country as an accepted means of white supremacy and structural oppression. Ending this scourge will take all of us plotting, planning, strategizing, organizing and mobilizing for meaningful change to the infrastructures of America. We, all of us, are in the throes of reckoning with the exposed fissures of racism made vivid by the flagrant police terrorism caught on cameras. We are depending upon good-hearted white people to shed the flimsy veneer of “I did not know,” and work to redesign the social systems broken by white supremacy. Complicating this work, is the national economic upheaval for which we have no map and no solution. Beyond white supremacy and impending economic disaster, we, all of us, are grappling with a global pandemic caused by the novel corona virus for which we have no vaccine, no medicine cocktail, and little federal leadership.  The triple pandemic heightens the need for our best minds to collaborate, partner, and find new solutions for these mammoth problems. If we are to survive, we must plot, plan, strategize, organize, and mobilize. While there has been emancipation in the USA, there is not yet freedom for all. It’s almost difficult to remember my job as director before the pandemic, before the rebellions, before the skyrocketing U.S. unemployment rate. I started my new job as director on January 1. Then, along with the faculty, administration, and students of Wabash College, the Wabash Center staff began working remotely on March 17. Orientation to my new responsibilities and role, new house, new town, and new staff colleagues quickly shifted to a kind of triage where we asked ourselves, in every way we knew how - What can the Wabash Center do to support faculty of religion and theology in this moment of confusion, remote learning, and economic uncertainty? The Wabash Center’s nimbleness, willingness to be flexible and tireless work ethic, girded-up in March when our work went remote. My blue-ribbon staff and I immediately made the following pivots to the Wabash Center programming: • all late spring and early summer activities went online or were rescheduled • produced topical podcasts and webinars – to date we have more than 4000 downloads • created Digital Salons for fall 2020 (See: https://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/programs/digital-salons/) • spoke with more than four hundred workshop and colloquy participants for care and check-in • spoke with grant holders to extend deadlines of reports • created new resources for website on topics of remote teaching and racial justice • created the Teacher’s Art Corner for expressions in this moment We are currently in conversation with the colleagues of Lilly Endowment, Inc. to develop new programming for 2021 which will focus on issues directly related to the triple- pandemic. In this proposal, we would build partnerships with the Fund for Theological Exploration, In-Trust, Collegeville Institute and several Historically Black Colleges and Universities plus African American seminaries. A grace of this moment for the Wabash Center is that our story, since its inception, has been a story of justice, activism, and teaching toward equity. Twenty-five years ago, Raymond Williams proposed a center for teaching and learning to strengthen teaching by teachers of religion and theology in colleges, universities, and theological schools in the United States and Canada. Raymond, to this day, is on the frontlines fighting for issues of racial justice and equality.  Under the leadership of Lucinda Huffaker, the Wabash Center offered its first workshop in 2002 exclusively for African American faculty.  I was a participant of that workshop.  It is not an overstatement to say that that experience saved my career.  Colleagues in that workshop have served as Deans, Department Chairs, and Presidents for theological schools and universities.  Our contribution has been significant and I would like to think that Wabash Center had a part of our strivings. Dena Pence deepened and expanded the offering of support for racial/ethnic particularity. Dena expanded the grants for racial justice, created the Peer Mentoring Program, expanded the Consultants Program which, among many issues, sends colleagues to schools to discuss issues of diversity and inclusion. The programmatic archive of the Wabash Center speaks for our commitments to resisting racial oppression and the challenge of redesigning the higher education enterprise as a place of racial equity: Racial/Ethnic Diversity - Teaching Workshops and Colloquies 2019-2020 Colloquy on Race Critical Consciousness for Transformative Theological Education 2018-19 Teaching Against Islamophobia  2017-18 Asian/Pacific Islander Faculty 2015-16 Faculty of African Descent 2012-13 Workshop for Latino/a Faculty 2011-12 Asian/Asian North American Faculty 2009-10 Faculty of African Descent 2008-09 Colloquy for Latino/a Faculty 2006-07 Asian/Asian North American Faculty 2006-07 Fostering Effective Teaching and Learning in Racial/Cultural Diverse Classrooms 2004-05 Teaching in Racial/Cultural Diverse Classrooms 2002-03 African American Faculty 2019 Asian Theological Summer Institute Workshop on Teaching 2018 Hispanic Theological Initiative Workshop on Teaching 2017 Asian Theological Summer Institute Workshop on Teaching 2016 Hispanic Theological Initiative Workshop on Teaching 2015 Fund for Theological Exploration Workshop on Teaching Fund for Theological Exploration Workshop on Teaching 2014 Asian Theological Summer Institute Workshop on Teaching 2013 Hispanic Theological Initiative Workshop on Teaching 2012 Fund for Theological Exploration Workshop on Teaching Fund for Theological Exploration Workshop on Teaching 2011 Hispanic Theological Initiative Workshop on Teaching Beyond our programming, the Wabash Center has funded several hundred grants and fellowships supporting the work of racial ethnic scholars, as well as supporting projects which boost the scholarship of teaching for diversity, inclusion, and equity. The Wabash Center is uniquely positioned to respond in this peculiar and unprecedented time.  We, staying true to our own DNA, are working hard to assist with issues of remote teaching, stand with those who teach against white supremacy, and support schools who are in the throes of the economic downturn. This work is our mission, our legacy and will be our future.  Our greatest asset is our constituency. We are uniquely positioned to nurture sustained social change because of those scholars who have participated in our workshops, colloquies, conferences, podcast and webinars; those scholars who have received grants and fellowships; those who have written for the Journal on Teaching and received support and mentoring through a consultant’s visit - have created a vital network. 

Teaching and learning become rich and exciting when any classroom makes room for and taps into the resources of diverse backgrounds, contexts, and identities. Also, it’s the right thing to do. When I began teaching online, I knew classroom diversities might increase due to broadening access, but I suspected student diversities could also be less visible due to the individuating and sometimes alienating aspects of technology. Yet in online contexts, foregrounding and integrating room for diversities into teaching and learning is surprisingly easier than you might imagine. Online students have more ways to participate in conversation, experience greater equity from the outset, and often exhibit deeper transparency. How can an online educator make more of diversities in a virtual classroom and tap into their teaching and learning potential? Increased access to classroom diversities was an important draw for me into online education because I teach at a theological school in the far eastern corner of Tennessee. During a 2014 sabbatical, I traveled throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, and Mexico. In many places, vital and thriving ministry was happening without good access to theological education. Many of the people I encountered would not be able to relocate to my school. I began imagining a classroom where a male, Kenyan micro-lender in the Mathare slum district of Nairobi and a Chicago-based, African American woman in urban church planting could have access to theological education and both be in the same room learning together and from one another. The kind of diversities I imagined while traveling now exist in my online contexts, and I aim to embrace them as an asset in theological education. How can online teaching and learning make room for greater diversities? Begin by welcoming student engagement that makes connections to students’ own contexts and backgrounds. Then, incentivize, encourage, and reward these connections across your course design: in opening introductions; discussion posting; student selection of readings, assignments, and projects; and integrative exercises like papers or exams. In all learning tasks and rubrics, objectives should include making resourceful connections to one’s own history, identity, or current contexts. Keep students engaged and invested while simultaneously making learning moments more tangible by emphasizing the contribution of student diversities to learning. Doing so makes diversities a more visible and constructive part of teaching and learning. Students are invited to witness connections happening in the work of their peers and are drawn to do the same. They begin to hear, learn, and feel challenged by their own and others’ diverse perspectives and orientations. Yet, I’ve learned along the way that the contours of online classroom diversities are unpredictable and can unfold in unexpected ways. For example, a white, male American student in an online course entered imagining he had no resources from his own context for theological learning. He named his rural and poor upbringing, and his ministry experience in both conservative and progressive West Virginia congregations as limitations. In response, other students helped him recognize the displacements and pressures that were indeed shaping his theological convictions. Identity in online contexts includes complex and shifting aspects of race, sexuality, trauma, geography, economics, citizenship, displacements, and more. Often, students’ own self-awareness around this multi-layered complexity is shifting in the midst of a course and in response to readings, peer-to-peer engagement, and/or assignments. Hosting spaces where students are invited to name what they are learning from their own contexts and backgrounds and from those of their peers becomes vital. Online learning tends to feel more “democratic” because it allows all learners to enter discussions under similar parameters. But online educators must be aware of persisting inequities. Safety can be heightened by using netiquette guidelines and checking in personally with students when they shift into overly aggressive or suddenly silent postures. Yet, if “democratic” means majority opinions rule, minoritized students will be susceptible to overt and subtle forms of silencing by their peers, while being more exposed and vulnerable in the process. In my experience, subtle forms of deflecting peer voices happens when students champion what they already (think they) know, rather than sharing what they are actively learning. I prioritize and reward only the latter. Surfacing diversities that already exist, and making room for more diversities, enhances learning in the online classroom. It’s risky and needs adaptive and adapting postures, a self-aware and engaged teacher, and rethinking of all elements of course design. I remind students regularly that part of our learning together is about how theological engagement and conversation becomes welcoming and constructive. In that engagement and conversation, every person is a vital and valued contributor in the process of teaching and learning. Making more of diversities enhances every potential for learning, empathy, and relevance.

It has now been over a full year since the 2016 presidential election. Yet, I still remember vividly the dark and raw thoughts I had the morning of November 9, 2016. When I woke up and learned of the election results, I was horrified that so many people had made a conscious decision to elect a person who embodied and condoned the evils of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia, to be the world’s most powerful leader. Most of the discussions I had that day with my family, friends, and colleagues centered around our inability to understand the political stances and ideologies that were reflected in so much (but not the majority!) of the popular vote. In that grim day after the election, I remember thinking that educators, like myself, must have completely missed the mark. As a professor of theology, I was particularly troubled. The election had touched one of my core beliefs deeply—that is, the purpose of theological education is to form persons to think and act responsibly in the church and society. I remember thinking that my field had failed, and that we needed to rethink everything we had been doing in the classroom up to then. As I read the analyses that were pouring in that day, one particular headline caught my eye: “Trump won because college-educated Americans are out of touch. Higher education is isolated, insular and liberal. Average voters aren't.” The article was written by Charles Camosy, a professor at Fordham University, who was proposing that the election reflected a divide in our country between those who have a college degree and those who do not. “The reality is that six in 10 Americans do not have a college degree, and they elected Donald Trump,” he declared. I had been thinking more about age-old racism and the divide between whites and non-whites as the reason for the election results. But, Professor Camosy presented a different analysis, one that has been troubling me and my role as a theological educator ever since I read it that day. He said: “College-educated people didn’t just fail to see this coming — they have struggled to display even a rudimentary understanding of the worldviews of those who voted for Trump.” What really stopped me in my tracks was his remark about how college-educated persons, “have especially paltry knowledge about the foundational role that different philosophical or theological claims play in public thought compared with what is common to college campuses . . . . [M]any professors and college students don’t even realize that their views on political issues rely on a particular philosophical or theological stance.”[1] This statement made me pause, because it resonated deeply with my own experience, and, therefore, called me to task. I began thinking: Are the ideologies expressed in my assigned readings and classroom assignments monolithic? In my efforts to form persons to think and act responsibly, have I promoted an insular way of thinking? As educators, we have a great opportunity (and perhaps even a responsibility) to present certain sets of values persuasively. I even state some of these values explicitly in my course syllabi. For example, I want my students to know that I value the theological voices of those on the margins, both in history and contemporary society. I am edified when students come to adopt this value of mine as their own. In addition, if certain values, like racism, ignorance, and bigotry, are displayed in my classroom, I clearly denounce them and explain why. But, in my effort to rethink everything I have been doing in the classroom, Professor Camosy’s article has led me to consider a different approach: that I should be giving some attention to racism, ignorance, and bigotry, before simply denouncing it. In the classroom, this would entail assigning readings from the alt-right, for example. The goal would be to better understand the political and theological stances that undergird these values, which are often underrepresented in higher education, so that we and our students would understand them better. If I want my students to think and act in the world responsibly, shouldn’t they be able to understand the values they will be encountering and engaging outside of the classroom? In the required texts and readings assignments on my course syllabi, I strive to include diverse authors. I understand “diversity” in this sense to mean the inclusion of writings by people traditionally marginalized because of their race/ethnicity, gender, class, etc. But, lately I have been thinking that I might do better to reconsider my definition of “diversity.” Perhaps it should include those marginalized by educational levels, age groups, geographic regions, values, and political standpoints? To be honest, what has held me back thus far in assigning texts from certain political standpoints, such as those that are entangled with white supremacy, is my own aversion to them. I also do not want to be misunderstood as promoting the values espoused by such writings--or worse yet, risk students being convinced by their rhetoric. So, I’m curious: What do you educators, who might be reading this, think is at risk in extending this definition of “diversity” or not extending it? On the most practical level, have any of you begun to include diverse political standpoints in your reading assignments? If so, how do you present the material to your students? Do you follow any rules or guidelines? Perhaps most importantly: Is your working definition of “diversity” effective, do you think, in preparing students to intellectually and socially engage with the world outside of the classroom more effectively?  [1] Carles Camosy, “Trump won because college-educated Americans are out of touch,” Washington Post, November 9, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/09/trump-won-because-college-educated-americans-are-out-of-touch/?utm_term=.3634cedb1e19 (accessed December 13, 2017).

Remember the composition of religion departments back during the 1960s? They predominately and unapologetically consisted of white males – especially the so-called Ivies. Now imagine if one of these schools, realizing the need for different perspectives, decided that they wanted to have a feminist viewpoint taught in their department. A search committee would be formed, advertisements placed, interviews conducted, and after an academic year of deliberation, the most qualified candidate would be hired – probably a white man whose Ph.D. dissertation somewhat dealt with a few aspects concerning women’s issues. Even though several women steeped in feminist thought applied for the position, it would not be too surprising if a man would have been hired. So, allow me to rephrase my question: Can a man teach Women’s Studies?             If identity does not matter as to who teaches racial/ethnic-based courses, then does gender matter? Maybe the question is not can but should. If we ask can, then the answer is obviously yes. Just like men can become proficient in feminist studies, so can whites become proficient in Latinx studies. And frankly, I cannot imagine any professor, regardless of ethnicity, race, or gender who can be considered scholastically rigorous if they fail to include these voices on a regular basis in every course they teach. For the record, in every one of my classes - except one (Formative White Male Ethicists) - I can and I do teach perspectives which focus on feminism, womanism, Black, Asian-American, Indigenous, and LGBTIQ religious thought. So if the question is can, then the answer is not only yes – but failure to do so indicates a lowering of academic standards.             And yet, we face a situation where white people shamelessly apply to teach Latinx Studies simply because they can – or think they can. And like in the 60s, they are the ones who make ideal candidates in schools lacking the presence of Latinx. Latinx remains the largest ethnic/racial group in this country most underrepresented on Religion faculties. Ethnic discrimination against Latinxs is so prevalent that when a search is announced, the department hopes to find the brownest face with the whitest voice – or better yet, another white face who can appropriate our contributions to the discourse. While there are institutions who see the value of hiring a Latinx who will challenge their worldviews, and those of their predominately white students, to the core, most hope to find a Latinx who is not so damned angry. Of course, what they fail to realize is that if the teaching and views of Latinx scholars do not anger, do not challenge, do not disrupt, then they have indeed found the most assimilated brown face, which is of no use to nuestra comunidad. Such a hire is like pouring hot sauce onto a sloppy joe and calling it chili con carne.              Should whites teach Latinx studies? The can question is answered in the affirmative because all scholars are responsible to include marginalized voices in their courses. But the should question is quite different. While the can question is about inclusion, the should question is about exclusion – excluding Latinx voices and bodies from white classrooms and institutions. During the 1960s, male-only teaching faculty needed the voices of women (and still do); but just as importantly, they also needed their presence as professors. Such institutions were as academically deficient then as those today lacking professors who are Latinxs (and by Latinx I mean those teaching teaching and focusing their works on the scholars from nuestra América – not the assimilated ones who teach white theology with a “spicy pepper” thrown on top).             So, should whites teach Latinx Studies? No. Better yet – Hell no. There is a major difference between including the voices of Latinx scholars within everything you teach, and applying and being hired to teach exclusively in their place (regardless of whether you can or cannot). And shame on those institutions who continue to play games by making sure our radical and revolutionary voices do not, and potentially never will, sully their lily white halls by instead choosing whites, or Latinx in name only, to continue white theological hegemony in our classrooms.