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Like so many of us, I’ve spent the past two years in a paralyzed panic over artificial intelligence’s effects on my classroom. I teach undergraduates, mainly gen ed philosophy courses, and writing has been a key component of all my courses. When ChatGPT hit the mainstream, it became a constantly looming presence, threatening to devour every part of teaching that I care about. I didn’t “wrestle” with it. Nothing so active and dignified. I went on an emotional roller coaster of ignoring it, freaking out, wishing it away, catastrophizing, and then ignoring it again.It didn’t work. AI was still there. I tried writing about it, but that just made me feel worse. And my writing was awful, page upon page of “Oh my god, the sky is falling.” Depressing, unhelpful – and bad writing. I trashed every single page.Some of my colleagues argue that we must incorporate this wonderful new tool into our teaching. We should encourage students to use AI for “basic” tasks like summarizing texts and outlining arguments, freeing them up for more advanced work. Others point out that summarizing and outlining are advanced tasks for many of our students since they don’t know how to do either, and that students need to first acquire skills like summarizing in order to later acquire more advanced skills. To make that learning possible, they argue, we need to build protective walls to keep AI out of our classes. Several want our Writing Center to ban Grammarly and its ilk.I agree with the second group that our students usually don’t summarize or outline well. And I agree that allowing students to outsource tasks they haven’t yet mastered to AI will make it harder for them to learn to read, write and, most importantly, to think critically. I’d love to operate in a sheltered space behind protective walls. But I don’t think the walls will hold.Hence my freaking out. But after two years, I have finally managed a few moment of calm thought, aided by James Lang’s wonderful blog post. I’ve come to the following key conclusions:AI-assisted writing isn’t going away. Damn it.We aren’t reliable AI detectors and we don’t have reliable automated AI detectors (although we can catch blatant and unskilled uses).If we continue to assign take-home essays, some of our students will use AI to write them. We won’t know how many or how much they will use it, and we won’t catch many of them.Take-home essays are important pedagogical tools, and I don’t as yet have any promising substitutes.My immediate task is to figure out how to navigate my classroom spaces with all this and my own teaching goals in mind. What do I want to prioritize, and what am I willing to sacrifice?It is tempting to prioritize not being duped. And making not being duped the priority has the clear advantage of producing simple action steps: No more take-home essays. Switch to lockdown browsers or old-school blue book exams.Following James Lang, I am not switching, at least not yet. This is because I think there are more important things at stake than minimizing the risk of cheating.As I listen to colleagues who are switching to in-class exams, I am thinking about why I’ve been avoiding them for my entire teaching career: They do not test what I want to teach.Switching from essay-writing to in-class exams requires moving from messy and open-ended discussion towards lectures. I don’t want to make that move. My students have enough lecture classes. They don’t need another one from me. But they do need what I am good at teaching. My students need a class that focuses on discussion and self-reflection, inviting them to engage each other and the materials and think through their own lives, actions, and values. I want to teach those classes, and then I want my assessments to provide opportunities for students to chew over things we’ve talked about and the views they’ve encountered in class, developing arguments, reflecting on their experience, pursuing thoughts and objections, and seeing where it all takes them. Take home essays do that.But assigning those essays leaves me wide open to cheating. So what do I do in my classes to reduce the risk?I include more low-stakes writing.I make the papers worth less and include plenty of scaffolding and in-class work on them.I grade a little differently, rewarding bland, generic, but correct writing less and messy and creative writing more.I add some quizzes – and I am experimenting with using AI to draft multiple choice questions.I keep an eye out for obvious AI misuse and I use the built-in detection software. But I try not to obsess about it, and I try to be OK with knowing that some students will get away with things they shouldn’t (this part is definitely a work in progress).Most importantly, I try to connect with my students and I try to convince them that I want to hear what they think, and that their opinions matter to me and to the world. I encourage them to draw on class discussions and their own experiences when they write, and I encourage them to say what AI cannot say because AI is not them.I’m also looking around for guidance from others. Reading a Chronicle of Higher Education newsletter, I just came across Kimberly Kirner’s writing assessments. She sets out to help her students develop their own voices, and she grades based on the students’ progress towards goals that they develop together. I plan to learn from Kirner and others like her over the summer and experiment with her assignments next semester.AI is here to stay and our students have access to it. It’s not the situation I would have chosen but it is what is in front of us. It will be on us as educators to guide students so that they can still develop as critical thinkers and writers. That work has many parts, and thankfully we don’t all have to do all of it. Despite the peptalks from the AI-optimists on my campus, I don’t see myself working with students to help them write better AI prompts, and I don’t yet see a good role for AI in my courses. But reading Kirner and Lang reminds me that there is important work here that I am suited for and that I care about: I can help students see that they and their voice matters and I can help them develop their voices and become better informed so that they can speak and write more effectively. Notes & BibliographyKimberly Kirner is Professor of Anthropology at California State University at Northridge.James Lang is Professor of Practice at the Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Notre Dame.

Lurking on social media the other day, I listened to colleagues discussing how to respond to a student paper in a philosophy class. The assignment was about our responsibilities towards (nonhuman) animals. The student argued that we can do whatever we want with animals because God has given us dominion over them. Presumably, he had Genesis 1.26 in mind, but none of the course readings mentioned Genesis—or God.People in the social media group had lots of suggestions on how to respond:Tell him that religion has no place in the classroom.Tell him that there should be no theist or atheist premises in academic writing.Just write “Irrelevant” in the margin!That last comment got a lot of likes, hopefully because people found it funny and not because they considered it good advice.The consensus was clear: Tell the student that appeals to scripture are inappropriate in college papers.I don’t think that’s good advice.My colleagues were ignoring something crucial. In this sort of situation, we can do deep damage to our relationship with our student and to the student’s relationship with higher education if we don’t tread carefully. Presumably the student who wrote this paper believes in God and the Bible. His religion will be part of his ethical decision-making going forward, and the Bible will influence his thinking and his actions.Bearing this in mind, let’s not tell this student that his thinking about right and wrong in class must be utterly divorced from his thinking about it outside the classroom.My advice would be: Before writing any comments, identify your larger goals. Here are mine:I want our class discussions to help inform my students’ thinking and actions about ethical issues, and in particular about whether it’s OK to do “whatever you want” with animals.I want students to listen when I try to teach them more things after this and I want other professors to be able to teach them even more things. If I reinforce a student’s likely skepticism about professors and religion, I make that harder.I don’t want my actions to increase the chances that my students go out in the world thinking of higher education as an enemy to religion and God.These goals suggest a different approach. Start by taking the paper seriously:Do you think that’s what the Bible means by ‘dominion’? Some people think so, but I've always thought it meant something more like ‘stewardship.’ I mean, God is the Father, right? So, I think of it like if your parents go out and put you in charge of the family dogs. If they come home and discover that you haven’t fed them or given them water, they’ll be mad at you.What do you think someone who doesn’t believe in God and the Bible would make of your argument? How would you persuade them? For instance, imagine that you’re talking to the author of our second reading or to the other kids in the class.I would count this encounter as a success if the student feels like I’m treating him and his religion with respect and if he realizes two things:“Dominion” could mean “stewardship” instead of “freedom to treat them any way I want,” and I need to think more about which one the Bible meant.I need to talk about this differently or I won’t be able to persuade people who don’t believe in the Bible.That’s a start. Much more has to happen before this student writes at college level. Later, I and his other professors will teach him more.It’s a very small step. Growth and intellectual development takes time. I probably won’t see the result of the learning process that I was part of. But occasionally I do.My greatest success story in this context is a student who came into my Intro to Philosophy class as a freshman, determined to prove that Christ rose from the dead. It was rough going, but by the end of the semester, his sources weren’t cringeworthy anymore, and he was presenting an actual argument. And he still trusted me. He majored in math but took Philosophy of Religion with me as a senior, and he explained that he wanted to continue developing his proof.I braced myself. But during the semester, the class discussed faith and reason extensively, and I was able to ask him (privately): Given that you think about faith as being the important thing, what makes it so important to you to prove that Christ rose? He thought about it for a long time and finally decided that he didn’t need to prove that Christ rose. Instead, he wrote a strong final paper in which he reflected on the meaning of faith, discussing his own experience and the course readings.I rarely get wins that size. But taking my students’ religious views seriously makes them possible.

(An audio recording of this blog may be found here.) Classroom spaces are places of intimacy and influence. Teaching is a human-to-human encounter. Course planning typically focuses on the many ways the academic content shapes, forms, and informs students. In our planning, what we too often underestimate, and under plan for, is the personal encounter in the classroom. Students learn as much from the person who teaches the course as they do from the assigned readings, lectures, and rubrics. Often, they are paying as much attention to the teacher as a person as they are to the theories, concepts and approaches being presented. What if the most formational elements of our courses are the ways we, implicitly and explicitly, perform them? If we take a moment to consider the ways students learn more from the behaviors and attitudes of the professor than they do from the topic, we will realize that our classes are permeated by our beliefs and commitments. Your classroom behavior makes vivid your personal values.  Are you aware that your personal values are baked into and operative in your courses? Are the values which undergird your teaching aligned with the institutional values? Are you aware that your personal values are see-able, viewable, known by your students? If so, which of your behaviors are inconsistent with your personal values, and which personal values do you wish to make most evident in your teaching? A facilitator at a recent staff development session I attended said, “We judge ourselves based on our intentions; others judge us by our behaviors.” This resonated with me. In other words, it is not what you say, but what you do that tells your students your ethics. If you talk the talk without walking the walk, then you have formed students with confusion, misalignment, and uncertainty. Words, platitudes, and good intentions are shallow without observable actions. It is not enough to have the intent of compassion, hope, courage, dignity — if no one has the experience of these values in interactions with you or through the learning assignments you guide and offer. Colleagues will often say they value such attributes as: learner-centered teaching, but then lecture during most sessions, placing themselves as “the expert” in the center of the course and relegating the students to the margins of the conversation. community and partnership but assign only individualized assignments to be graded. collaboration but offer no group activities as approaches to learning. creativity but ask that students simply regurgitate information. reliability but rarely return graded assignments in a timely manner. persistence but provide no mechanism to award the student who begins the semester with low grades ways to improve the final grade. responsibility but provide for no major decisions for students to make concerning their own learning in the course. care and compassion for others but limit the scope of the course conversation without including neighborhood projects, adventures, or pilgrimages. diversity without including voices other than those deemed as typical, commonplace, and regular. Designing learning environments and experiences which are congruent with and exemplify your personal values will enhance the learning of your students. Creating this kind of integrity will foster learning experiences which nurture trust and instill confidence in your students. Sculpting congruence in the classroom can be challenging, even for the most seasoned teacher. Consider these activities to strengthen your teaching: Ask a colleague to audit your syllabus for the personal values it communicates. Have a dialogue with the colleague about what they see, sense, and suspect about your values. Discuss ways to align the values you want to be operative in the course with the design of the course. Make a list of your personal values. Reflect – ask yourself why you choose these specific values to be exemplified in your teaching. Describe behaviors, practices and habits that are consistent with these personal values. Then, design or redesign a course with the list, rational and behaviors in mind. Ask a colleague to observe your teaching for 3 weeks, 6 weeks, or an entire semester. Ask that they watch for your traits, behaviors, habits which demonstrate the values, beliefs, and philosophies you demonstrate in your classroom. At the beginning of the semester, tell your students the values you are pursuing in the course. Decide, with the students, the behaviors which should be promoted for these values. Reflect – with a trusted colleague – those behaviors that are inconsistent with your personal values that you portray in the classroom. Decide which one or two behaviors you will work-on in the coming semester for better alignment. Our behaviors tell a story about who we are, what we value, and what we are about. How we behave toward one another speaks volumes and teaches lessons likely to last a life time.

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

For the past seven months I have been immersed in storytelling. My small project grant, Black Women’s Storytelling as Healing Pedagogy, has taken me on a journey of wonder, insight, wisdom, knowledge, revelation, and so much more. I had conversations with eleven Black women storytellers who are living their vocational calling at the intersection of the church and academy. Their definitions of story and personal practices of storytelling inform their individual and collective approaches to healing pedagogy that inspires human flourishing. The culminating event of this project was a storytelling excursion to Washington DC, to visit the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. This experience propelled me to the mountaintop of storytelling centered on the African Diasporic experience. Let me share one of a multitude of stories that expanded my worldview. Jim Crow Laws and lynch mobs were a common part of the landscape of the United States prior to the civil war. They continue in a variety of ways beyond the strange fruit that hung from southern trees that Ancestor Billie Holiday sang about. Now unarmed and nonviolent Black men, women, and children serve as target practice for those commissioned to serve and protect. Remembering the 1920’s to 1930’s in Marshall, Texas, and at Wiley College in particular, Professor Melvin B. Tolson confronted racist attitudes and actions to establish a debate team which he knew would be equal to any white teams during that time. The students’ have been given the name “The Great Debaters” and competed in the first inter-racial debate ever held in the history of the south. The film, “The Great Debaters,” was introduced to the world in 2007. The story centered around the young students and their coach, Tolson, played by the film’s director, Denzel Washington. “The Great Debaters” is one of my favorite movies because of its historical significance and embodiment of Black Excellence. During my tour of the museum, I marveled as I thoughtfully and carefully viewed the exhibits and artifacts. One exhibit in particular caught my eye. It was a flier depicting the original Great Debaters from Wiley College. I found myself drawn to the photos of these young men and women, recalling the struggles and obstacles they had to overcome as they sought to establish themselves as just as good or better than their white counterparts in the field of forensics. As I stood there reflecting and paying homage to my Wiley College ancestors who faced the realities of domestic terror in the south, I heard the word “RESOLVED,” in my heart, mind, soul, body, and spirit. During a debate, a resolve is a specific statement or question up for debate. It is also a determination to do or refrain from doing something. Resolve is to come to a conclusion. I asked God, what is the RESOLVE, or what is to be determined, as I engage, explore, and experience the museum? I was led to Psalm 118: 17. BE IT RESOLVED: “We (Black people) will not die, but live and proclaim what the Lord has done.” This is the story of MY people throughout all generations. We will not die, but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done. Ancestor Maya Angelou with her soul’s conviction said it poignantly in her world-renowned poem, “And Still I Rise”: Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.   Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.   RESOLVED—We will not die, but live, and proclaim what the Lord has done.

It was a spectacular morning on Emory’s verdant quad. The early October air was just offering the hint of crispness that announced the imminent arrival of fall. The grass, roped off for re-seeding (a detail some students thought revealed loving care for the soil and others thought revealed a desire to control a manicured landscape), shimmered a dewy electric green. The oak trees’ leaves were beginning to flaunt their autumn gold, offset by an expanse of sky the color of a robin’s egg. But then, I noticed two students were standing off to the side of the rest of the class, whispering to each other, smiling, and almost giggling. All my self-preservation alarm bells hard-earned in junior high started going off. What are they laughing at? Is it me? Am I doing or saying something stupid? It was the “Religious Education and Our Ecological Context” class, and we’d come out to the quad on an October morning to discuss and try to practice Sallie McFague’s use (which she borrows from Marilyn Frye) of the concepts of the “loving eye” and the “arrogant eye” when encountering nature.[1] When beholding nature with an arrogant eye, we look upon it as an object, something separate from ourselves for our use and convenience. When beholding nature with a loving eye, we acknowledge its mystery and relationship to us, appreciating it on its own terms. The students were divided into two groups, each of which assumed the point of view of the arrogant eye or the loving eye and asked to make notes of what they saw or encountered in the quad from that point of view. Some students bounded off in pairs or trios, chatting and pointing out what they saw to their classmates, while others slowly wandered off quietly by themselves, pens and notebooks in hand. A couple of students lingered near me, asking a question about an upcoming assignment, perhaps not entirely comfortable with this task of just being in their bodies outdoors. I often incorporate such embodied and contemplative learning experiences, particularly in this class. In fact, the students also were asked to choose a location, near where they live, to observe for five minutes daily. They were invited to marshal all their senses to make note of all the changes in that place as the semester slid from late summer into fall, and then winter. A few weeks earlier, we visited an art installation by Charmaine Minniefield at Emory’s Carlos Museum, Indigo Prayers: A Creation Story. In that work, Minniefield powerfully uses pigments indigenous to Gambia, where her ancestral roots are found, to visually represent the “ring shout,” a dance of prayer and resistance. In these seven very large paintings, installed in such a way that they move slightly as one walks past, the artist’s own body is represented. The paintings tell an embodied story of the relationship between the self and place (and displacement), mirroring a theme for our class. All of this is to say that in this class, which considers the spiritual and moral relationship of the self (and the community) to particular places and to the “more-than-human world,”[2] I have intentionally built in embodied pedagogies to open up paths of knowing perhaps not available in more didactic or even discursive classroom activities. I made this decision on sure theoretical and pedagogical footing: Donna Haraway and Lorraine Code both argue for a more expanded epistemological framework, appreciating the role that embodied and emotional experience play in the production of knowledge.[3] And yet, as we were gathering back to talk about the experience, I was distracted by the two students standing very near me who seemed to be having a laugh at my expense. I immediately began to second guess my choice to bring the class outdoors. My inner voice began shouting at me: “This is graduate school for God’s sake! Get serious!” (I suspect that my inner voice comes from the same place as Stephanie Crumpton’s, also featured in this blog series: “Even worse, I hear my own voice telling me, ‘You’re dumbing it and yourself down. Folks [including yourself] need to step it up.’”) I didn’t want to put the students on the spot, but they made eye contact with me as I opened up the discussion. I paused, and one of them said, “We were just saying how much we like it that you take us on ‘field trips.’” They were happy. Now, I can’t say that knowing this fact erased my self-doubt. Indeed, there’s some small part of me that still believes seriousness and joy are somehow in tension with each other, and learning should be serious. As the conversation unfolded, however, a tapestry was woven that incorporated all the students had beheld on the quad, and the ways in which McFague’s categories accounted for (or didn’t) the ways in which we were relating to the more-than-human world in this moment. I revealed more of my pedagogical rationale for being out there, the principle of embodied learning as a pathway to ecological knowing, though we’d discussed that principle before in the ordinary classroom. As we walked back to the building, the students were animated, talking about the ways in which they might incorporate similar practices in their field sites or other settings. And we were happy.   [1] Sallie McFague, Super, Natural Christians: How We Should Love Nature (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1997). [2] Abram uses this phrase to appreciate the animacy of the natural world, and to avoid objectifying dualism. David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human-World (New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1996). [3] Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” Feminist Studies 14, no. 3 (1988): 575–599; Lorraine Code, Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006).

Your PowerPoint slides are not projecting on the screen as students trickle into the classroom. Normally you like to have everything prepared before their arrival, but ITS is not responding to your calls. Running on coffee and a few hours of sleep you begin the lecture only to be interrupted by late students. Pushing your hospitalized parent out of your mind, you continue with the lecture thinking that you never would have disrespected your professors this way. A student in the front row is nodding off to sleep. You made it to class early after dropping kids who were screaming for your attention, with runny noses, off at daycare. An “A” student catches your eye. They are diligently taking notes despite having pulled an all-nighter. It is a scene all too familiar to educators. We check our bodies and emotions at the door and wonder why students don’t also. Our advisors and mentors taught us to be disciplined. Prioritize your research and writing in order to succeed. The life of the mind is built upon outsourcing the mundane things like cooking and cleaning to someone else.  Students who prioritize learning information to the neglect of their health are rewarded within the status quo. When they compartmentalize their learning from the messiness of life, it is a relief to the educator. They focus on ideas rather than responsibilities to community. Conversely, students overcome by malnutrition, lack of resources, and abuse are punished. They face negative consequences for prioritizing caregiving over self-care. The message is clear: students who are overcome by contexts beyond their control or extenuating conditions are left to “figure it out” as an acceptable pedagogical tool of disciplined thinking. We as educators often assume that the process of learning is for the students, and our job is to deliver content. We use words like “rigor” and “grit” to put the onus on students to persevere through the stresses of learning. Those who don’t succeed presumably were not worthy.  But what if we as educators are the problem?  Unhealed trauma certainly inhibits student learning, but, perhaps more to the point, the unhealed trauma of educators perpetuates harm in the classroom. What might trauma-informed pedagogy look like? Stacy Williams explains that trauma is not defined by events, but by the lingering effects on our brains and bodies. People can experience the same event and some seem to emerge unscathed, while others may be left struggling to return to their daily routine. This explains the differing levels of impact upon communities with shared experiences and divergent effects. Rather than adjudicate whether the student’s distress is reasonable (the loss of a pet, end of a romance, hunger, discrimination, etc.), we would do better to model teaching and learning as embodied and contextual. We (the authors) suggest that as educators, one of the best things that we can do to improve pedagogy is to attend to our own bodies and emotions. With this baseline in mind. we can begin to unpack the experience of the professor described above. Perhaps the late student was also visiting a loved one in the hospital, the sleeping student might have also been up most of the night with a sick toddler, and many students have missed breakfast.  Paying attention to our own needs influences how we hold the learning space. Stress and trauma disrupt the students’ ability to learn, but they also disrupt educators’ ability to teach. The lingering effects of stress and trauma show up in the brain and body faster than logic and reason can process and remain in the body systems much longer than people realize. Which professors and mentors reminded you to attend to your wounds? If they didn’t, what are the lingering effects? In order to avoid retraumatizing others, initiate self-awareness and get curious about the behaviors of your students.  Here are a few questions we propose to get you started: When did I last eat a nutritious meal and drink a full glass of water?  Do I need to go outside for some movement?  Who have I deeply connected with this week? In short: what do you need today to be the best version of yourself to show up for others? Attentiveness to your bodily and emotional needs sets the tone for trauma-informed teaching and learning. 

Before the pandemic, one of the most pressing subjects for discussion and debate in my context, teaching at a freestanding seminary, was the transition to online education. I recall lively conversations engaging the merits and challenges of “moving online” in formal faculty meetings, and the sometimes more important informal tête-à-têtes with small groups of colleagues in hallways and offices. One line of thinking warned that the pedagogy employed in certain courses and disciplines would not be as effective online. Another approach suggested that the future of theological education would be online, especially for freestanding seminaries, because of the shifting patterns in enrollment. There were less “traditional” students seeking residential or in-person education and more “non-traditional” students pursuing fully or mostly online degrees. Both perspectives presented harbingers of ruin, identity loss, and irrelevancy. Then came the pandemic. We all became online instructors. Chapel services and committee meetings also migrated to virtual spaces in which everyone appeared in little rectangle boxes. For a while it was fun to experiment with different virtual backgrounds, such as picturesque beaches, majestic mountains, and Dunder Mifflin. Although the pandemic is not over, I believe the questions about capacities for online education have largely been resolved at my seminary and elsewhere. All our courses can be taught online. Each of our schools can offer fully online degrees. I suppose the question moving forward is how many more of our institutions will do so. Pastors experienced a similar phenomenon as the congregations they served also migrated online. At one level, the past two years have revealed new possibilities for ministry utilizing virtual tools, such as enabling closer remote contact with previously isolated parishioners with less access to physical gatherings. Yet at another level, it is also clear that a robust online ministry is not a panacea. The fact that everyone can participate in a worship service from their own homes does not make preaching any easier. Moving online does not sufficiently address the existing interpersonal conflicts, harmful theologies, and spiritual wounds within a congregation. Therefore, my pedagogy continues to connect the history of Christianity in the United States with the praxis of congregational ministry today. One promising topic I continue to cultivate with my students is the gap between seminaries and congregations regarding biblical interpretation. For many of us, it is daunting to apply what we learn about the Bible, such as historical-critical approaches to the authorship of various books and womanist reconstructions of problematic narratives, in local congregations accustomed to the hermeneutics of inerrancy and literalism. In these classroom dialogues with students, we stress the virtues of an authentically incremental approach in which new pastors seek to build trust, develop relationships, and more fully understand the histories, complexities, and strengths of the congregations they serve while remaining true to their personal convictions. Pastoral leadership is an exercise of one’s gifts with humility, openness, courage, and determination. I do not want to speak for all freestanding seminaries, but I will venture to propose that online education is likewise not a panacea. I believe the time that I have invested in developing and refining my pedagogical skills for online instruction is a worthy investment, but I also recognize that seminaries like mine need more than good online courses. What about our oppressive structures, longstanding hierarchies, painful ambiguities, and underexamined practices? My point is not to be a naysaying critic of either my institution or theological education writ large, but it is to ask an important question that defies easy or universal answers: Can we practice what we teach? Or put another way: Can theological faculty be agents of institutional change? One painful ambiguity in some contexts involves whether a seminary is a school or a church. Of course, a seminary is an academic institution and not a church. But it gets confusing when we pray before classes and meetings, worship together in chapel services that feel no different than being in a church on Sunday morning, and educate students for congregational ministry. Therefore, the notion of the seminary as model church is not an unfounded or unreasonable expectation. But the organizational systems of seminaries are unlike congregations. Professors are not the pastors of a seminary. In my denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a session comprising elected lay leaders (ruling elders) and installed pastors serve as the “council for the congregation,” which means a pastor works together with laypersons to exercise oversight and leadership of the church’s affairs. Seminaries are academic institutions in which the responsibilities of oversight and leadership belong to administrators and a board of trustees. A pastor is almost always “in the room where it happens.” A professor is in the classroom, not the boardroom. This does not imply a negative answer to my question concerning whether theological faculty can be agents of institutional change, but I am hoping to provoke further exploration of how faculty can practice what we teach.