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Katherine Turpin reflects on the emotional impact of student plagiarism, especially in the age of AI-generated content. She shares how these incidents erode trust, complicate teaching, and prompt deeper questions about course design, student engagement, and the purpose of theological education. Despite compassion for overwhelmed students, Turpin grapples with feelings of betrayal and the challenge of maintaining integrity in remote learning environments.

When emotion replaces inquiry, teaching falters. Fred Glennon reflects on passion, objectivity, and missed opportunities in ethical classroom dialogue.

Does anyone know the origin of the current sentiment of xenophobia prevalent in this day and age? As I have conversations with pastors, church members, and other people, national security is their main issue. Perhaps the aftermath of 9/11 elevated this issue to the forefront. September 11 reminded us of the delicate nature of democracy and the equally delicate peace enjoyed in the United States.[i] I traveled internationally during that time and I remember soldiers standing guard at several airports. However, xenophobia has risen since those days. Nativist sentiments post-9/11 turned against immigrants. I remember being home and receiving angry anonymous phone calls; “Get out of my country!” they shouted, as if I was to blame for the terrorist attacks. The perception was that the terrorists were immigrants, and that all immigrants were suspect. Somehow all immigrants, even those with proper documentation, were less than true Americans and posed a security threat no matter where they came from or how long they had lived in the United States. The issue was that the 9/11 hijackers had visas, entered, and remained legally in the United States. But the anti-immigrant sentiment became so strong that somehow we thought we could be all-powerful and secure the enormous porous borders of the United States – the southern border and then the northern border. Furthermore, everybody had to be screened and they somehow discovered the eleven million undocumented workers present in the Unites States. They were all a threat and had to be removed. I remember the strong anti-immigration proponents on television. And I remember how they pointed out that many Latinos were undocumented. People would come up to me and my Latino friends and ask point blank if we were legally present in the United States. It is like they assume that every Latino they see is undocumented.I am a Pentecostal and I attend church regularly. When these anti-immigrant sentiments peaked, I was deeply immersed in my Pentecostal Latino community of faith. In contrast to the society around us, my community of faith was not scared of the immigrants who happened to attend the church. We did not ask about people’s immigration status. The church regularly reached out to all people, and as far as I can remember no one asked about other people’s immigration status. We also had people who were Caucasian Americans who loved us and wanted to learn Spanish and immerse themselves in our cultures. Our community did not understand the fear and anger at the perception that some in our community may have been undocumented. When I became a pastor in New York, I had some members who confided in me that they entered the United States without documentation many years ago. However, they were given amnesty during Ronald Reagan’s presidency through the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. Reagan was arguably the best friend to immigrant Latinos because of this opportunity. Politically, my experience is that there is no such thing as a “Latino vote.” Our communities come from diverse backgrounds: some lean left and others lean right but our values as a whole tend to be on the conservative side even among those who left oppressive countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. When President Trump said he was going to deport many people, the community still decided to vote for him.Immigration is not easy to control. People come to the Unites States on visas, and some choose to overstay their visas. The US typically sees 75 to 77 million visitors per year. In 2024 the grand total was 72,390,321 visitors.[ii] These are the legally permitted visitors with visas. One wonders how the US can control the mass movement of millions of people. Furthermore, visitors can stay for 180 days on a tourist visa and then apply to prolong their stay. The US also resettles refugees. The restrictions on refugee resettlement fluctuate according to the current presidency and its immigration policies. Since 1980, the US has resettled three million refugees.[iii]Undocumented immigration is less easy to control. According to estimates by the CBS network, the cost to deport one person is $19,599.[iv] More conservative costs place it at $14,614 per person. If in the year 2025, the government wishes to deport an estimated 11 million undocumented persons, this means it will spend between $215 to $160 billion US dollars to do so. Perhaps this exorbitant cost is the reason many are being deported without due process. The government is trying to save fiscally. However, it is trampling due process and habeas corpus. People who are in court proceedings over immigration are being arrested at their hearings and deported. But there is something darker at work for the government to use the military, federal law enforcement, and local police departments to enforce deportation, even though it is fiscally unsustainable. It is a matter of human affections and how one perceives and thinks of the “other.” Relating to the immigrant has to do with deep human dispositions. In Pentecostal spirituality we discuss orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and orthopathy. This last term deals with the dispositions and the orientation of the heart. Many Americans think, “These people broke the law so deport them,” but theology is not merely a rational exercise. It is asking, Why did they transgress the border? Are they fleeing violence, poverty, and/or crime? Are they genuinely scared for their lives? Let us have the courage to understand before we make a judgment. In other words, let’s not be prejudiced or bigoted.  Notes & Bibliography[i] Department of Homeland Security, “September 11 Chronology,” https://www.dhs.gov/september-11-chronology (last accessed June 9, 2025).[ii] International Trade Administration, “International Visitors,” https://www.trade.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/Annual-Arrivals-2000-to-Present%E2%80%93Country-of-Residence.xlsx (last accessed June 9, 2025). [iii] Migration Policy Institute, “U.S. Annual Refugee Resettlement Ceilings and Number of Refugees Admitted, 1980-Present,” https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/us-refugee-resettlement (Last accessed June 9, 2025).          [iv] Julia Ingram, “Trump’s plan to deport millions of immigrants would cost hundreds of billions, CBS News analysis shows,” October 17, 2024, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-plan-deport-immigrants-cost/ (last accessed June 9, 2025).

Recently, I discovered “tea mindfulness,” the term I use for turning the time used in making and drinking tea into moments of meditation. While I have enjoyed tea mindfulness as a means of intentionally thinking and reflecting, I wanted to move beyond the personal practice and engage others in mindful conversation. I started imagining what tea mindfulness might look like in community. Making and sharing tea is an act of hospitality. I thought intently on how to be mindful, intentional, and hospitable while incorporating the practice of drinking tea with my students and colleagues. I considered my Human Diversity course where we encounter, engage, and explore difficult topics which sometimes lead to cognitive dissonance. In a nutshell, Human Diversity builds cultural competence by increasing student’s self-awareness and cross-cultural awareness. Modifying a tea mindfulness practice in the classroom by focusing on mindful conversation and group engagement seemed like a winning strategy for cultivating cultural competence. It would give us the opportunity to engage meaningfully while nurturing appreciation for each other. Thus, the beginning of “Tea, Connections, and Necessary Conversation.”As students entered the classroom, they would encounter a tea station with hot water, an assortment of teas, sweeteners, creamers, lemon wedges, and snacks. At each student’s seat I placed a menu highlighting the variety of teas available, along with an index card. Students moved toward their seats, wondering what was going to happen next. Once everyone had arrived and was seated, I welcomed them to participate in Tea, Connections, and Necessary Conversation, offered directions, and facilitated the process for each student to prepare their tea of choice. One by one they approached the tea station, requested their tea bag, doctored their drink, and engaged in small talk before returning to their seats. After everyone was served, the connections began. Present were: Daniel and DeAndre, twin brothers and basketball players from Metro-Detroit; Josephina, a business major from Grand Rapids; Carl, a thirty-five-year-old non-traditional student who serves as a resident assistant on campus; Abbie, a homeschooled freshman in her second semester; Aisha, an exceptional athlete, who is making her mark on the women’s basketball team; and Eli, a student from a homogenous rural community in Northern Michigan.[i] These are a few of my Human Diversity students whose differences brought them together at Kuyper College. My intention for Tea, Connections, and Necessary Conversation was to provide an opportunity for the students to link up, interface, and join together in dialogue to learn more than surface-level information through engaging, exploring, and experiencing an interchange of thoughts about their similarities, differences, and even points of cognitive dissonance.As students paired up I simulated a “speed dating” activity. I asked a series of questions, where students could enter into short conversations to compare and contrast their interests, insights, perspectives, and experiences. Following two to three minutes of interaction, students would find a new partner and begin a new conversation. The classroom buzzed with excitement, motivating the shyest students to share and dialogue in genuine ways. Questions/prompts included:Tell me about some traditions or rituals your family participates in? Are there new traditions or rituals you would like to introduce to your family?Identify three things you and your conversation partner have in common. Although you share these commonalities, how do you express them differently?What is one word in the English language that irritates you when you hear it? What is another word you could use to replace it?With each question, communication grew deeper, mutual respect increased, and opportunities for connection beyond the classroom became a possibility. The start of necessary conversations began with tea and connection and continued throughout the semester.Human Diversity is a challenging course; it encourages reflection on the difficult truth that we harbor bias and prejudice, engage in racist thinking, and use microaggressions in our daily lives. We spend time confronting these fallen parts of ourselves and identify ways to become our best selves with the Holy Spirit’s advocacy. By engaging and exploring the seven dimensions of diversity (gender, age, ability, religion, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, class) and the oppression associated with each one, we covenant to love God, others, and ourselves, and seek liberation. This is not an easy task, but Marianne Williamson encourages us by saying – “As we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others” (A Return to Love [HarperCollins, 1996]).Necessary conversations are those dialogues that are initiated after the introduction of stories of hard history, culture, and personal experiences. Asking questions, actively listening, and sometimes agreeing to disagree, we grow in self-awareness and cross-cultural awareness and build our cultural competence. Tea, Conversation and Necessary Conversations intentionally provided opportunities for some students to speak to each other for the first time, hear each other’s stories, gain an understanding of one another, and have fun. In one student’s words, “While drinking Jasmine Green tea, relationships became deeper, joy came forth, friends were made.” Notes & Bibliography[i] Names of students changed to protect privacy. 

This is one of the nerdiest statements I will ever write: I was recently on a bus traveling from Istanbul to Iznik (ancient Nicaea) with a group of Wesleyan scholars on a tour of ancient Christian sites in Asia Minor for the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. Yes, we visited the ruins of the basilica where the Council of Nicaea was held on the anniversary—to the day—of the start of the council. If you understood even partly why this was exciting, congratulations! You’re a nerd too.Aside from seeing a bunch of old rocks (how my parents described the pictures I sent them), we gave talks during the long bus rides about various aspects of history and theology related to the ecumenical councils. As a participant, I got to observe a kind of wild teaching different from my own. I came home with ideas.People frequently ask about my use of technology if I’m going outside: “How do you show them videos or PowerPoints?!” I don’t. (Honestly, I don’t use them in my indoor classrooms either.) On the tour bus, though, I saw some teachers thinking about analog versions of the technology they would use in the classroom. The tour guide himself wanted to describe some geography of Turkey to us on the first day, and people struggled. In a classroom, he might have pulled up a map on the projector. Or if we’d been in my elementary classroom, he’d have pulled down the correct map from the roll screwed to the wall. Instead, he handed a large map to one of my colleagues and asked him to hold it up at the front of the bus—even walk down the aisle if people needed to see better. Later on the trip, one colleague tried to explain her conception of a Trinitarian doctrine and drew a large diagram on a piece of butcher paper for us, again walking closer to people as they needed.I was also fortunate to tour the necropolis under the Vatican and a set of catacombs in Rome, and there again I watched my guides give excellent presentations with analog visual aids. These two tour guides had a packet of images printed off, each laminated for longevity and bound with metal rings. They flipped through the packet at the proper times in their spiel to help us see what they described—an analog PowerPoint!All of this has me thinking more about one colleague’s thoughtful question: “I need to use the projector for showing some things, or I have maps I like to use. Help me think about making analog versions of digital aids so I can teach outside more.” I’ll bet we can be more creative. All of our digital realities had analog versions to begin with, right? My students don’t know that a “file” was a thing before computers—but it was. What is the digital thing replacing, and can we go back to the original?If we can go back to the original, there is still the question of whether we want to, which is partly a question of ease. Presumably, we’re using the digital version of a thing instead of the analog because it is easier or more efficient. Why would we go back? Well, I’ve been reading some Wendell Berry lately, so I’m wondering if there are situations when doing things the less efficient way is better for reasons other than productivity. Which leads me back to the question of why I take students outside in the first place. Are those reasons worth working through the challenges of this choice? Yes, for me they are. Need to show students a passage in Greek? Have them bring their NT and work through it together. Or make a handout. Yes, it will take a little more time, but perhaps that little more time is enough for some of them to figure it out because they’re holding something in their hands and tactilely working with the thing. Buy a big map if you use a lot of them. Or draw one. My students love when I draw because I am so bad at it.Are there technologies that might be hard to replicate? Yes. A reader recently got in touch to ask about hearing-impaired students—do I use a microphone? No, I don’t. We don’t even have that capability in our classrooms. But on this tour of Turkey, we used whispers—devices with headphones that each of us wore while our guide had the device with a microphone that transmitted to all of us. This is a great technological invention for hearing in spaces full of people or cars. Perhaps we could invest in a set for classroom use outdoors? For non-hearing-impaired students, is it more important to rely on each other to understand what’s happening—even if it’s less efficient—or do I value more the clarity they would gain from hearing me better the first time through?I realize I’ve asked more questions than given answers, but the question of how to teach outside the classroom—or even inside the classroom—is always going to ask us to consider our values. How we teach is an extension of why we teach. And the more aligned our how is with our why, the more our students will receive the formation we hope for them.