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Coming back from a semester of AI-generated slop assignment submissions isn’t easy. I left last term feeling more disheartened than I usually do, despite some wonderful final projects and great learning, in part because the world I teach in is changing and I can’t predict where it will go next.With that in mind, it’s been helpful for me to focus on the best and most exciting parts of a new semester, in hopes that these joys carry me into the first weeks of class with interest and ambition—and maybe those things will rub off on students as well!I’m about to meet some of my new favorite peopleEvery semester I see new names on my rosters (and usually plenty of familiar ones—I teach at a small college). Part of me is intimidated by knowing I’m going to have to memorize another round of who is a Hayley and who is a Kaylee, but I’m also so curious about who, of these new-to-me students, are going to be just the BEST people. There are always a few! Sometimes I can pick them out on the first day of class, but usually I don’t. I have 15 weeks to get to know these learners, and some of them—honestly, most of them—are going to have incredible “spark” moments when we read or discuss a topic that they connect to deeply. I’m always on the hunt for new Theology minors, but I’ve also had students for just one semester that I tremendously admire and keep track of after graduation. The possibilities are endless, but for sure I’m about to say hello for the first time to several strangers who will blow my mind and make me proud mere months after meeting.I have a captive audience, and I get to help them love the field I loveI never cease to be floored by the idea that I am getting paid to geek out about topics that I found so interesting that I needed multiple advanced degrees to enjoy them thoroughly. My students are literally paying for the privilege of hearing me go on and on about what I enjoy the most. It is, truly, a dream come true.But better than me getting to yammer about theology for hours each day, I have the chance to see if my enthusiasm is contagious. I have students who, mostly, would never have taken a Theology course if it weren’t required. What that means for me is that on day one I get to start breaking expectations and turning their anxiety and trepidation into interest. (For the many students who are fearful that academic Theology is just Sunday School Guilt Redux, it turns out that having purple hair and using the occasional swear word goes a long way.) I get to tell them that I want this class to be useful, and a break from the rote memorization that characterizes so much of their introductory courses in other disciplines. A nervous audience is very willing to be convinced that things won’t be so bad, and I get to come in with a big smile and a reassurance that this is going to be great. It always is.Everything old is new againLike many professors, I mostly teach a rotation of a few courses. While occasionally I’ll do a big overhaul to integrate new information or adapt to new assessments, mostly my courses feel like old songs—I know the rhythm and the lyrics by heart, and stepping back into the music feels a little like coming home. What keeps it fresh is that the students in my classroom have never heard this little ditty before, and I get to hear their first, halting attempts to join in.I love seeing the fascination on unfamiliar faces while I go through my usual spiel about how our program prioritizes the voices of women and people of color. I still get chills when explaining the idea of human dignity—the idea that people are fundamentally valuable and deeply loved—to learners who have spent so much of their lives scrabbling to be useful and relevant. I even get to tell the same terrible jokes and hear the obligatory pity laughs! The beat goes on, and I get to keep singing, but everything feels fresher with these new harmonies.What are your favorite parts of a new term?

When I was a pastor in New York, I worked with many people who were immigrants. In fact, New York City is a city of immigrants. For many, the drastic changes in the neighborhoods and in the metropolitan area are disorienting. The sources vary, but as many as 800 languages are spoken in Queens alone.[i] The whole world is in New York, and this is one reason New York is described as the “Capital of the World.” The most cosmopolitan urban jungle attracts business from all over the world. Many others come looking for work.I met a Caucasian man from Alabama there. He said he moved to New York because of an ad in the paper about doing roof work, and the next day he had twenty phone calls asking him to do roofing jobs. In an instant, he was already earning a living.For many who have been poor and lived in poverty, New York is a place of opportunity. I lived on the North Shore of Staten Island. The North Shore has a beautiful view of New York Harbor, with the Statue of Liberty at the center and Manhattan’s skyscrapers as the backdrop. The area had neighborhoods for the wealthy as well as many poor enclaves. But this is typical of New York: the rich and poor live next to one another. It reflects the immigrant nature of the city.Emma Lazarus wrote a poem about the Statue of Liberty. In this poem she states:“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries sheWith silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”In many ways, this is a microcosm of the history of the United States. The people who came to the United States came to work. The people who founded the first colonies were looking for opportunities to flourish. The United States makes every naturalized citizen renounce any royal titles when they take the oath of allegiance to the country. This is the very reason anyone can prosper here: it is a land of opportunity for everyone. Everyone is created equal.But in the Latin@ experience, those who most seek to come to the U.S. are not the wealthy and privileged. They are the tired, poor masses, and the “wretched refuse.” I remember visiting Ellis Island, where millions of immigrants passed through in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many could barely read or write. Some anti-immigrant posters in the museum called them “the dregs of Europe,” in other words, the bottom of the barrel. These are the people who were attracted to the United States: those thrown about by wars and conflict in Europe, and the poor.The main targets of the anti-immigrant posters were the Irish and Italians. They were European, but not European enough for many. Many of them were Roman Catholic entering a land of Protestants. They spoke English with a different accent. They had customs that contrasted with the traditional White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant ethic. But they worked. They had children. Their children learned English. Their families prospered. When I lived in Staten Island, people of Italian, Irish, and Jewish descent were among the largest ethnic groups on the island.My faith community rented a historic Black church that had been there for more than 30 years. They had bought their property on the North Shore from a synagogue. The building had been modified to accommodate Christian worship, but many of the characteristics of the synagogue remained. Upon entering, one could see the hekhal, or Torah Ark, a great cupboard opposite the main entrance, with a large bimah, or raised platform where the Torah was read. The building was designed with a separate women’s gallery on the second floor.The Black church that bought the synagogue prospered to the point that they purchased surrounding buildings, and the historic synagogue became rental property for other worship groups, or space they could use when their Sunday worship overflowed, or for their youth and children’s ministry. It was impressive. At some point, our church, composed mostly of immigrants from Latin America and Puerto Rico, decided to approach the Black church to rent their building that had once been a synagogue for worship.This was a pattern continually evident in New York. People migrated to the city. Usually, immigrants settled in a neighborhood together. They established a community and brought in all the elements important to that community. In the past, it had been mostly Europeans who brought Christianity, or, in this case, Judaism. Then, as the communities prospered, they no longer needed to live in the area. Their homes turned to rentals. In New York, it is common to split one house into a two- or three-family home. Each section is rented out. This results in tight urban spaces with multi-family housing.However, in the area around the church, there was a Mexican store, a Honduran restaurant, a Trinidadian restaurant, an Italian store, a church of African immigrants pastored by a Liberian woman, Mexican barber shops, Black barber shops, a Honduran barber shop, a Black church, our church, Sri Lankan restaurants, Bangladeshi restaurants, a large mosque that housed the Albanian Islamic Cultural Center, Indian restaurants, an Albanian-owned pizzeria, a Roman Catholic church, and a Jewish community center, among many others.Changes like these are not welcomed by some. It can be disorienting. In New York, it is common to see neighborhoods shift—quickly and dramatically. Communities come, establish themselves, prosper, and move to suburbia, leaving rental properties or selling properties to new communities. This pattern repeats itself time and again. Some communities find meaningful space, like Bangladeshi immigrants finding the Albanian Islamic community, or Latin Americans finding the Italian/Irish Roman Catholic church. As turbulent as it may be, it is also a great opportunity.It points to a new reality where we must live together, work together, learn from one another, be a community, and explore liminal spaces and interstitial identities. My wife of English descent and I (Honduran-American) enjoyed eating at the Bangladeshi restaurant and having our taste buds explode with flavor, dining at the Albanian pizzeria, and enjoying real Italian food cooked by our Mexican parishioners. For the American experiment to work, it will require patience, compassion, and empathy. Notes & Bibliography[i] Lubin, Gus. “Welcome to the Language Capital of the World: Queens, New York.” World Economic Forum, 22 Feb. 2017,https://www.weforum.org/stories/2017/02/queens-in-new-york-has-more-languages-than-anywhere-in-the-world/. Accessed 12 June 2025.

On rotation, I teach a graduate-level course entitled “Introduction to Early Christian Thought.” And every year — in the week of course evaluations — I have a conversation with my students that has become an important feature of their education: a conversation about how teaching evaluations are gendered.Once you’ve seen the pattern, you can’t unsee it. Men are routinely described as “brilliant,” “authoritative,” or “the best lecturer I’ve ever had.” Women, by contrast, are “kind,” “caring,” “approachable,” “compassionate,” or “pastoral.” Men “really know their stuff.” Women “really care about students.” Expertise attaches to men; emotional labour attaches to women.The same holds for grading. Students often expect women to be gentler, more flexible, more indulgent. A male lecturer who grades firmly is “rigorous” or “serious.” A woman who does the same may quickly become “harsh” or “unfair.”Having taught in three different academic institutions over the past decade, I have several examples which have made this very clear. I’ll mention just one here: a student received a B from me and a B from a male colleague. The student challenged my grade — not his. Same work, same outcome, different reaction. Nearly every woman in academia has a version of this story.I speak openly with my students, then, about gender bias before they write evaluations. Not because I want to avoid critique — I value thoughtful critique — but because evaluations stick. Many evaluations I receive are positive and thoughtful. Some are wonderfully memorable. My personal favourite is “Professor Thomas is a badass.” But, it is hard to forget that I “grade like a man.”ResearchRecent work in higher-education research confirms what many women have long observed:A large-scale experimental study found that female instructors receive significantly lower evaluations than male instructors for identical teaching, even when students never interact with the instructor in person (MacNell, Driscoll & Hunt, Innovative Higher Education, 2015).A 2025 analysis using natural-language processing on tens of thousands of comments showed that men are more frequently praised for “competence” and “authority,” while women receive comments about warmth and personality, regardless of teaching quality (Zamora & Ayllón, 2025).A comprehensive review argues that student evaluations often reflect biases — including gender — more than they reflect actual learning or teaching effectiveness (Uttl, White & Gonzalez, Studies in Educational Evaluation, 2017).These are not small effects; they are systemic patterns. What I Ask of My StudentsSo I ask students to pause before they complete an evaluation and consider a few questions:Am I using different language for a woman than I would for a man?Am I expecting more emotional labour — more nurturing, more availability — from this instructor?Am I reacting to discomfort about standards or grades by labelling them “unfair”?Am I evaluating teaching, or evaluating whether this lecturer fits my image of what authority looks like?Honest evaluations are essential. Students should say what worked, what didn’t, what could be clearer or more engaging. But fairness requires noticing our assumptions. It asks us to evaluate teaching rather than gender stereotypes.If we care about justice and equity in higher education, one simple starting point is here: noticing the words we use, the labels we reach for, and the people we instinctively challenge first. Notes & BibliographyMacNell, L., Driscoll, A., & Hunt, A. N. (2015). “What’s in a Name: Exposing Gender Bias in Student Ratings of Teaching.” Innovative Higher Education, 40, 291–303.Uttl, B., White, C. A., & Gonzalez, D. (2017). “Meta-analysis of faculty gender and teaching evaluations.” Studies in Educational Evaluation, 54, 22–42.Zamora, C., & Ayllón, S. (2025). “Gender Bias in Qualitative Course Evaluations: Evidence from NLP Methods.” (Open-access working paper).

Last semester, my dean very briefly mentioned that a student compared their classroom experience to shopping on Amazon, evaluating courses based on convenience, clarity, and efficiency. Students pay tuition, professors deliver knowledge, and assignments become products exchanged for grades. Initially, I laughed – it felt relatable, even humorous – but soon that laughter turned into personal pedagogical reflection. I paused to consider: Have our theological classrooms unintentionally become marketplaces?Reflecting honestly on my teaching practices, I recognized an uncomfortable truth: sometimes my syllabus reads like a product description listing knowledge and theories, promising clear outcomes, neatly packaged insights, and efficient delivery. Subtle pressures – course evaluations, enrollment metrics, accreditation standards – often shape how I structure my courses, sometimes nudging me toward clear, measurable outcomes. I humorously imagine adding “Fast shipping guaranteed!” next to the grading criteria, but beneath the humor lies a serious question: Have I unintentionally reinforced transactional expectations in theological education?A student’s recent questions encapsulated my growing unease: “Will your class provide everything I need for effective pastoral care and counseling in ministry?” and “Will this material prepare me adequately for the State Licensed Professional Counselor exam?” Their sincerity reminded me of an Amazon customer checking product specs before placing an order. The questions made me pause and again consider transactional exchanges.The commodification of education isn’t new – Paulo Freire famously critiqued the “banking model,” where teachers deposit knowledge into passive students (Pedagogy of the Oppressed [Continuum, 2003], 72). Yet, the Amazon analogy brings a renewed sense of urgency for us. As theological educators, we may have internalized institutional priorities for clarity, efficiency, and predictability, reinforcing transactional interactions rather than transformative engagements. We may unintentionally frame knowledge as a neatly packaged commodity, delivered promptly and evaluated by customer satisfaction ratings in the form of course evaluations and professor rankings.However, a theological education which truly emphasizes formation often emerges through reflective collaboration, relational experiences, mutual empowerment, and communal learning – processes that are inherently less clear, less measurable, and less efficient in my teaching experience. This means theological education often isn’t neat or predictable; it thrives on ambiguity, relational vulnerability, and surprising discoveries. These messy and complicated processes invite unique transformations, precisely the opposite of what Amazon Prime delivery promises.As theological educators, we face an important challenge: What does it mean to create a learning community where students discover who they are becoming together, especially when our educational culture quietly favors predictable transactions over relational and messy learning?Learning with my students about how to care for each other and the community, I recall countless sessions where careful listening and authentic storytelling reshaped not only my students but myself as well. While I can’t pinpoint every transformative moment, I vividly remember instances when a student’s deeply personal narrative unexpectedly transformed class discussions, moments when students intentionally empowered each other through their presentations, and times when they embodied mutual care by genuinely and courageously sharing their presence and vulnerability. These experiences remind me daily of the profound power of empathic listening, communal care, and collective transformation – practices that inherently resist quick-fix, Prime delivery solutions.Acknowledging our complicity in this commodification is uncomfortable yet necessary. Rather than positioning students as consumers by saying student-centered pedagogies, we must reflect critically on our institutional and pedagogical practices. How do accreditation standards, enrollment pressures, and evaluation metrics shape our teaching and interactions? How might we, as theological educators, reclaim our agency and intentionally resist transactional frameworks?This critical reflection invites concrete shifts: embracing pedagogical practices that prioritize relational depth, tolerating ambiguity, and explicitly framing courses as collaborative journeys rather than neatly packaged transactions. It might also require courageous institutional conversations about how to evaluate genuine educational transformation rather than student satisfaction or predictable outcomes.If your theological “package” arrives later, messier, or even missing a piece or two, maybe consider it a hopeful sign. After all, genuinely transformative theological education rarely comes neatly boxed. Sometimes the best “deliveries” leave us slightly surprised, nervously laughing, and deeply transformed. Notes & Bibliography:Freire, Paulo. 2003. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30th anniversary ed. New York: Continuum.