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With the possible exception of Drew University Theological School where I was on faculty for twenty years, the Wabash Center has been the most influential institution to my vocational formation.  I participated in my first Wabash workshop in 2000 and received my first grant in 2001.  Since then, I have worked as a consultant, workshop/colloquy leader, blogger, and committee member.  For twenty years, I have been a stalwart fan of the Center’s important mission.  I have regularly traveled to and from Crawfordsville, Indiana – but never thinking, in my wildest dreams, that one day I would call C-ville home.  Peering out of the van windows as I was being comfortably driven to and from the Indianapolis airport, the sight of confederate flags made me uneasy.  I have noticed on many occasions the gun racks and guns in the pick-up trucks parked in the drug store parking lot.  Like many towns in America, racial/ethnic diversity is still a contested issue in Crawfordsville. The Wabash Center staff has learned to be conscious of the racist climate and prejudicial views of some members of the Crawfordsville community, and they make every effort to limit negative interactions and foster hospitable space for participants when we leave the campus and venture into the town.  The generous hospitality of the Wabash Center always seemed to over-shadow the backdrop of its location in small town middle America.  However, visiting, even regularly, is quite different from taking up residence.  I have become a resident of 47933! How did this happen?  The Tuesday before Thanksgiving 2018, my phone rang.  When I answered, my enthusiastic colleague informed me that the position of director for the Wabash Center had been posted.  The friend was calling to encourage me to apply for the position.  I asked smugly, “Is the Center going to still be in Crawfordsville, Indiana?”  With the response of yes, I changed the subject.  I had no interest in living in a small, rural town in Indiana.  The call ended with my friend asking me to consider applying and me saying, unequivocally – no!  Over the next weeks, my rigid response gave way to a full-blown process of vocational discernment.  During the weeks, I quickly learned, again, that vocational discernment is not for the weak hearted, cowardly, or those who give a hasty “no.” As I pondered the possibility of the move, the new job, the new responsibility, the new reality, many people, trying to assure me that I should consider the position, reminded me that the most stressful times in life are divorce, death of a loved one, and moving across country.  I cannot say I was grateful for the data.  My discernment churned deeply – unearthing unfamiliar, difficult, and at times exhausting, questions.  To lighten the burden of the challenging discernment process, I turned to read the masters.  In this instance, the masters I read for guidance, wisdom, and strength were Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison. When you put Maya Angelou in conversation with Toni Morrison – you get inspiration and more to the point – you get trouble.  In my case, tectonic plate shifting trouble!  Toni Morrison spoke first as I wrestled with whether or not to make application for the job of director of the Wabash Center.  Morrison spoke to me directly, personally, through her novel Home. In the novel, after the character Cee has gone through a long regimen of prescribed healing, Miss Ethel talks to her about freedom … Look to yourself.  You free.  Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you.  Seed your own land.  You young and a woman and there’s serious limitation in both, but you a person too.  Don’t let Lenore or some trifling boyfriend and certainly no devil doctor decide who you are.  That’s slavery.  Somewhere inside you is that free person I’m talking about.  Locate her and let her do some good in the world. As I reflected upon Morrison’s lesson, I was confident I had accomplished a modicum of the work of freedom in my 57 years on the planet and in my womanist approach to teaching.  Yet, in considering if I should make application to the post at Wabash, I was being asked to do it again, some more, but deeper and with more tenacity.  I was haunted in my discernment by the notion of re-locating and getting re-acquainted with my inside free person. I did the work of conversation, meditation, and prayer; she found me. This time she informed me that we were moving to Crawfordsville, Indiana.  I cannot say exactly when in this discernment and transition that Maya Angelou reached out to me and joined the conversation – but she did.  Through her poem entitled “On the Pulse of Morning,” Dr. Angelou spoke into me to… Give birth again To the dream…. Each new hour holds new chances For new beginnings. Do not be wedded to forever To fear, yoked eternally To brutishness. The horizon leans forward, Offering you space to place new steps of change. Here, on the pulse of this fine day You may have the courage To look up and out upon me, The rock, the river, the tree, your country…... In my big scary move toward freedom in, of all places, Crawfordsville, Indiana, I am placing new steps of change, giving birth again, and eager for the pulse of the fine day.  I have moved to Crawfordsville, and, so far – I like it very much. I am not suggesting that anyone else uproot their lives and move to unfamiliar spaces.  I am bearing witness to my experience from which I have learned  that the work we are about as teachers committed to being free people and committed to the work of freeing others has chasms, demands, and opportunities which, regardless of how long you have done this work – will surprise and disorient.  I am learning anew that the work of freedom requires new-fangled excavations, renewed explorations, and new ideas about old thoughts for the doing of good in the world.  I’m thinking about buying a pick-up truck. To say that I tumbled into Crawfordsville is an understatement. Like most cross-country moves, there was stress, distress, decision fatigue and moments of utter confusion. As well, there were experiences of family, friends, and strangers helping in my uprooting and successful replanting.  I am soundly in this new place, in this new job, in this new phase of freedom and free-ness, of being free and of teaching freedom in new ways.  I am especially grateful for new friends, and new fictive kin who are helping me get oriented, set-up and settled in. My big scary move was met by folks with large hearts and willing hands of compassion and care.  The Wabash Center will be celebrating twenty-five years of service in 2020 - at the same moment I am assuming the position of Director.  I am humbled and glad to be part of the staff in this celebration.  My blogging will continue under the moniker Teaching on the Pulse as homage to my wise-ones, Morrison and Angelou.  In my blogs, I will keep you updated on the work of the Wabash Center as well as provide my observations and testimony to the goings-on in the religion academy and world. I am pleased that the Lilly Endowment, Inc (our exclusive funder) will be conducting a year- long program assessment.  This program evaluation will allow us to dream about future directions and foci of the Wabash Center.  During the year of assessment, our programming will not be curtailed.  Also, the staff and I are adding a few items to the program planning for which I am focusing. I will be convening a group of senior African American women colleagues to write a second volume of the anthology Being Black/Teaching Black.  This second volume, written in creative non-fiction, will focus on the ways the cultural, intellectual, racial, and spiritual formation of African American women shaped their classroom teaching.  We are partnering with the Malcolm X Institute on the Wabash College campus to celebrate their fifty years of service.  This blog will keep you informed as we move forward with assessment, the typical programs, and these new initiatives. Loosing my free person from inside me has begun in Crawfordsville, Indiana and at the Wabash Center!

There’s a term for the anxiety many novice instructors feel about the online teaching-learning environment. It’s called “transactional distance.” This relates to the dissonance of feeling “distant” or disconnected from students when one is used to only the experience of the face-to-face classroom experience. Tisha Bender, in Discussion-Based Online Teaching To Enhance Student Learning (Stylus, 2013), identified the pedagogical components that can mitigate the discomfort of transactional distance (something that potentially affects both teacher and student online). Interestingly, but not surprising, they are the same things that are applicable in the classroom learning environment. Arguably there is as much, if not more, transactional distance in a traditional classroom experience as there is online. I've done classroom observations where I witnessed over half of the students spending most of their time on Facebook, Instagram, and shopping sites while an oblivious professor lectured on. Here are the things we know enhances student learning: For the student: Experiencing a sense of belonging Having a safe place where they can risk learning Having the opportunity to learn from others Feeling self-motivated to learn Receiving feedback from the instructor Understanding and feeling comfortable in the social environment of the learning context. For the instructor: Practicing hospitality in the learning environment Providing a place where respect and affirmation of others' opinion is affirmed Providing opportunities for collaborative learning Giving feedback Creating the conditions for learning (interest, curiosity, challenge, and meeting student needs) Understanding and managing the social environment of the learning context (classroom or online). All that to say, one way to overcome anxiety about transactional distance is to remember: • Learning is learning, in whatever context • Learning is a social phenomenon; pay attention to the important “non-instructional” dynamics of the learning environment and experience • It is the application of sound pedagogy that makes the difference in the effectiveness of learning (context and modes are secondary) • The context of learning matters, but no context is perfect and learners have great capacity for being resilient when it comes to contexts of learning • Pedagogically sound course design can mitigate the challenges of the online environment that create transactional distance • The role of the instructor is critical to effective learning. The two absolutely necessary components for successful online learning are: (1) teacher engagement, and (2) student participation. Whether you teach in the traditional classroom environment, design a hybrid course, or facilitate an online learning experience, how well are you paying attention to transactional factors for successful learning?

You may have heard the announcements that the Wabash Center has launched a new open-access, online journal, The Wabash Center Journal on Teaching. The entire contents of the inaugural issue of the journal is now available for free download online. For twenty-two years the Wabash Center has been publishing Teaching Theology & Religion (TTR), owned by Wiley-Blackwell. Now we’ve moved our whole editorial team from TTR to this new publishing venture in order to make our efforts available digitally without subscription. Although the Wabash Center will no longer be involved in the publication of TTR, Wiley-Blackwell intends to continue publishing it with a new editorial team beginning with volume 23 (January 2020). When we started TTR as a new and unknown center for teaching in the 1990s, we needed the prestige of a major publisher in the field of religion and theology to lend gravitas to the emerging field of the scholarship of teaching and learning. But for many years now we have regretted the paywall our articles have lived behind, limiting our ability to promote this scholarship, support authors, and inspire readers. The Wabash Center Journal on Teaching will continue publishing the high-quality, peer reviewed scholarship on teaching in the fields of theological and religious studies that has been the hallmark of TTR for over two decades. The new journal carries forward the same scope and focus of scholarship – but now our efforts will be freely available online. In the new journal you’ll find the popular Teaching Tactics. In addition to Forums (with contributions now listed individually) we will also highlight Special Topic sections. And the new journal reintroduces Book Reviews, which were removed from TTR in 2015 to allow more space for articles in the print journal. So while you’ll find The Wabash Center Journal on Teaching familiar, you will also begin to notice new developments. The open-access online platform allows us to provide convenient links to sources on the internet and links back to previously published articles. But more than that, the new platform provides the opportunity for The Wabash Center Journal on Teaching to become more than just a print journal available online. It’s easy to insert links to video clips, graphics, or sound files – although these links must be found on the web or created by authors. It takes a leap of imagination to conceive how teaching issues and contexts, arguments and evidence, could be represented graphically, in motion, visually. Until now, the written word would have seemed to be the distinctive home for sustained rigorous, reflection on teaching. But we’re moving into a new world in which the “text” that creates and makes legible academic thinking needn’t be limited to words on a page. So we issue this challenge to our readers and authors: send us sustained critical reflection on your teaching practice and context that explores the boundaries and possibilities of representational forms and genres available on an open-access online platform. 4 Highlights of the Inaugural Journal Issue 1. “State of the Field” essays by: Frank M. Yamada Eugene V. Gallagher and Joanne Maquire A Conversation with Maryellen Weimer (longtime editor of The Teaching Professor, and leading authority on disciplinary based scholarship on teaching) 2. Reflections on the teaching legacy of Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon by several of her former students: Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas Karen K. Seat Miguel A. De La Torre Angela D. Sims Edwin David Aponte 3. Special Topic:  Threshold Concepts in Biblical Studies (with contributions from John Van Maaren, Tat-siong Benny Liew, Richard A. Ascough, and Jocelyn McWhirter) 4. Teaching Tactics Zoom in on Interpretive Skills by, Amy Beth Jones, Stephanie Day Powell The Buddha's Positionality, by Christina Anne Kilby Maximizing Engagement between Online and On-Campus Students Via Zoom, by Daniel Orlando Álvarez Does This Sound Religious?, by Amy DeRogatis, Isaac Weiner

“I’m just so sick of feeling awkward,” I told my spouse the night before the first day of classes this semester. After having taught for eight years in another school across the country, I was about to begin teaching at a new institution. I was bemoaning the fact that everything was different at my new job, and I felt like a fish-out-of-water most of the time. My new colleagues were extremely warm, welcoming, and supportive. But I was still learning the ropes at my new institution. I had to ask questions about nearly everything: how to use the copy machine, if I could use the coffee maker at the end of the hall, how to navigate the learning management system, and who to go to on campus for what. I was also feeling unsure about the new age range of students I’d be teaching. I had been at a small graduate school, comprised of adult students (generally ages 40-70), and I was now at a medium-sized liberal arts institution, teaching mostly undergraduate students (typically 18-21 years old). I hadn’t taught undergraduate students since I had completed my PhD, over 9 years ago. When I was chatting about my nervousness with a friend, she consoled me by saying, “You’ll be fine. Just don’t dress frumpy!” So, when I was getting ready for work on the first day of classes, I went to my closet in search of my least frumpy ensemble. I donned a brightly colored geometric-print skirt and a pair of 3-inch heeled sandals in hopes that my students, over twenty years younger than me, might approve. My first two classes that day went well. I introduced them to the syllabus and assignments, but also sprinkled in some course content. I also tried to introduce them to my teaching style, by using music, 1-min journal writes, and a think-pair-share exercise. By the third class of the day, I was getting into the groove and feeling more confident, which means I began to walk around in the classroom. Then, right in the middle of class, when I was near the front of the room, I stumbled. I lost balance on my right foot—remember: I was wearing 3-inch sandals—and then tried to regain balance by putting all of my weight on my left foot. The next thing I knew, I was tripping around the front of the class and flailing my arms in big circular motions until I went crashing into the whiteboard behind me. The only saving grace was that my skirt remained in place. When I regained my composure and looked up, the 24 students in the room (nearly all of whom were first-years) were staring at me wide-eyed, their mouths gaping. One cried out, “Are you okay?!?!?” I managed to mumble a joke about them not expecting an acrobatics performance in a theology class, but it had no effect. No one laughed. They were, I’m guessing, still in shock. I had to keep talking and teaching, because what else could I do? After class (thankfully my last class for the day), I headed back to my office. I passed my new colleagues in the hall, and did what any self-respecting introvert would do: When they asked me how my first day went, I smiled and said, “Fine!” Then, I went into my office, closed the door, and posted about it on Facebook. The next day, I could laugh about it (and could also tell my new colleagues about it). I laughed about it with my students, which gave them permission to laugh about it too. And now that we are almost at the mid-term mark in the semester, I realize, like most awkward and humbling experiences, there’s a teaching and learning moment in this one too. Here’s what I learned: 1) Embrace the awkward; it may help in relating to students. Even before I fell, I was feeling awkward, but I’m guessing that many of my students were too. As first-year students, it was also their first day of class in a new institution too. Some students had to present me with sheets verifying their learning accommodation needs, which, based on societal stigmas, they might not have preferred to do. Others, I later learned, were first-generation college students and were wondering if they belonged on campus. And a few were single mothers, trying to balance a full course load with parenting and part-time jobs. When I stopped worrying about how I looked and felt, I could be more in tune with their needs. 2) Think about how to help first-year students succeed in a new learning environment. I had been learning the ropes in a new school, but so had they. Many had left home, family, friends, and partners, and they were living away from all of their most stable relationships. They were also learning to manage their time and new freedom. Realizing this, I decided I could do more than simply list on my syllabi the contact information for the Student Success Center. I set some time aside in the course schedule for supportive activities. For example, I had a representative from the Student Success Center come into class and talk about the services they offer; I asked a librarian to demonstrate the research database to them; I led workshops on how to avoid plagiarism, how to read critically, and how to write a theology paper. I also passed around informal evaluations after the first few weeks of class, and I learned that students were feeling nervous about disagreeing (even respectfully) with other students in small groups. So, I led another workshop on respectful, critical dialogue. 3) Be comfortable. I’m back to wearing flats and 1” heels, even if they are frumpy. But it’s not just my shoes that have to feel comfortable, I have learned. So does my teaching style. When I over-plan or am too calculated about what I want to do in any given class session, the delivery usually falls flat (pun fully intended). When I relax, loosen my grip on the lesson place, and let the feel of the room and the students’ questions and concerns guide the way I present the material, it usually works much better. The students are more engaged and take on a more active role in their learning. Have any of you had big embarrassments in the classroom? If so, I’d love to hear about them—not just to stroke my bruised ego, but to hear what you’ve learned from them too! Please comment below.