IST1000-1OL-WI16 - Vocation and Orientation

Welcome to the course and to our learning community!  It is my pleasure to teach and learn with each of you.  I look forward to our time together. The topic of our quarter together is the ongoing process of vocational discernment, with particular attention to how vocational journeys intersect with the experience of formal theological education. The texts for this course will be the lives of the students and instructor, the lives of the mentors you choose as living conversation partners, and historical partners accessed through autobiography or oral history.

Through our work together over the quarter in a small group setting, we will attend to the following four purposes (Here are the Degree Learning Goals that these course purposes support).:

1. Providing a small group “sacred space” where students can come to know one another, including their different faith understandings and traditions, at a deeper level than is usually experienced in their other courses. Sacred space has the expectation of honesty, transformation, and healing. It may sometimes be uncomfortable, much as athletic training can be challenging in a way that does not harm, but yields greater strength and skill.
2. Introducing new students to Iliff, and assisting them in understanding and adjusting to the framework and characteristics of theological education, which are somewhat different from those in other kinds of educational programs students may have experienced in the past. Students will be invited into agency about their negotiation of these experiences throughout their time at Iliff.
3. Assisting students to reflect theologically on their personal and professional identity, and their ongoing vocational discernment. Focus will move back and forth between who we are as unique individuals and the needs of institutional contexts for particular kinds of leaders.
4. Beginning the development of personal and professional skills required to work effectively across difference in North American multicultural society.

The course is Pass/Fail in order to give each of us space to map and mark our individual journeys without the weight of letter grades. To assess progress and engagement we will use the following rubric: 

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Note that you must complete the listed number of points FOR EACH SECTION in order to earn a passing grade. 

• Journals are worth 3 points each, you will complete 8 of these through the quarter.                      1- Below Expectations; 2 - Meets Expectations; 3- Above Expectations

• Final Project is worth 9 points.                                                                                                             1- 3 = Below Expectations; 4- 6 = Meets Expectations; 7- 9 =  Above Expectations

• Participation assignments are worth either 1 point (completed) or 2 points each.                           1 = Meets Expectations; 2 = Above Expectations

These are the formal means of assessing the course, but my expectation is that our shared and individual learning goals will be the primary motivation for our work together.  The course is meant to give each of you safe space and accountability as you map and mark where you've been in your vocational process so far, where you hope/imagine it will take you and how you will stay connected to the resources needed to go there.  These goals are beyond letter grades.  Our work together should reflect that. I look forward to exploring the passions that brought each of you to this program and to our learning community!

In this class we are using reflection journals as a disciplined tool of self-reflection and learning. Good reflection journals are lively and engaging, concise, on topic, and about 3-4 paragraphs in length. Several layers of editing generally occur between a good journal entry and the stream of consciousness that marks the beginning of thought process on a topic. Your instructors and classmates will be reading your reflection journals, so you are writing for an audience rather than as a personal journal. As a gift to them, please re-read your entries a few times before posting them to be sure that they are relevant and readable.

Because of the need for editing and potential posting problems, it is always a good idea to compose your reflection journal in a Word file or other document and save it to your own computer as you create it, and then to cut and paste it into the discussion forum for your journal. This allows you to have a copy of the journal should something happen in the process of posting it.

Self- Disclosure in Professional Contexts

This class does not call for absolute vulnerability in self-disclosure, but rather thoughtful engagement with your own experiences as a source of learning material. The value of reflecting on your own experience is that such narratives are more likely to become a resource rather than a roadblock in your professional life. Another value is that you may learn ways to talk about formative experiences as you might in ordination or certification processes, sermons, teaching sessions, care conversations, and other professional occurrences. The disadvantage of writing about your own experiences is that you will likely need to be able to process psychologically and spiritually the memories and feelings that come from writing and talking about your own experiences.

You will not receive a better grade just because you have disclosed more information or deeper feelings than your classmates. We invite you to be thoughtful about how your personal disclosure and disclosure of the experiences of your living mentors contributes to the learning of the class. Alternatives to this would be disclosures for the sake of self-healing, attention-seeking, entertainment, or gossip. While there may be places and times for extended personal storytelling in these modes, for the purposes of this class we are not generally engaged in this kind of sharing of personal narratives. Each person is responsible for his or her level of self-disclosure. There will be no pressure to disclose more or less, either in online journals or with class colleagues in person.

Confidentiality

Personal disclosures and conversations occurring in online discussions and class conversation are not to be discussed outside of the community of learners in your section without agreement and permission of the involved parties. This is professional rather than absolute confidentiality: limits to this confidentiality include Colorado reporting laws and practices with regards to disclosure of abuse or potential harm to self or others. Due to the personal nature of some of the topics of this course, there may be times when you need to seek consultation outside of class to address emotions and reactions that have been generated in you by the experience. You, of course, have the right to seek the support of your informal circles of relationship and trust in processing issues and ideas that arise in the class that have been challenging to you. However, in doing so you cannot report what has been said by other people in the class to persons outside of the class. These conversations should be limited to discussions of your reactions and emotions to the conversation, unless you are discussing the incident in a professional consultative conversation where the practices of confidentiality are legally held (i.e. therapist, physician).

In this particular class it is especially important to treat the stories of living mentors with great respect and to offer them as much confidentiality as possible. Good practice requires that you change the name and identifying details of your mentor when talking about them in your reflection journal, unless you have been given express permission to share their stories with the group. Because professional and denominational circles can be quite small, holding these stories with confidentiality can be of special importance given that members of your group may one day be in professional relationship with the mentor you have selected.

Feelings and Emotions

Given the emotional content of reflecting on formative experiences, there may be moments when we react strongly to each other. When this happens we need to first do an internal check-in with ourselves to process our reactions, before we post our responses. Next, we need to judge whether a response would enhance group learning, or whether it is solely for the purpose of processing our own feelings. If the former is the case, we need to respond with an “I” statement that identifies our feelings, not a “you” statement, particularly one that implies a global assessment of the other person. This internal processing is especially important in blogging responses to each other in an online format because responses are more likely to come across as critical when we can’t communicate compassion through our body language or tone of voice.

Language Framework

Please use inclusive language in your writing for this class. Inclusive language attempts to respect all forms of sexual, gender, and sexual orientation diversity and to avoid terms that have been used to diminish the humanity of oppressed persons. Using inclusive language is a learning process for many students, and we will work together to move toward greater inclusivity and respect in our language.

Degree Learning Goals: Please take some time to look over the Professional Degree Learning Goals (MDiv, MASC, MAPSC) and the Academic Degree Learning Goals (MTS, MA).

Incompletes:  If incompletes are allowed in this course, see the Master's Student Handbook for Policies and Procedures.

Pass/Fail:  Masters students wishing to take the class pass/fail should discuss this with the instructor by the second class session.

Academic Integrity and Community Covenant:  All students are expected to abide by Iliff’s statement on Academic Integrity, as published in the Masters Student Handbook, or the Joint PhD Statement on Academic Honesty, as published in the Joint PhD Student Handbook, as appropriate.  All participants in this class are expected to be familiar with Iliff’s Community Covenant.

Accommodations:  Iliff engages in a collaborative effort with students with disabilities to reasonably accommodate student needs.   Students are encouraged to contact their assigned advisor to initiate the process of requesting accommodations.  The advising center can be contacted at advising@iliff.edu or by phone at 303-765-1146. 

Writing Lab:  Grammar and organization are important for all written assignments.  Additional help is available from the Iliff Writing Lab, which is available for students of any level who need help beginning an assignment, organizing thoughts, or reviewing a final draft. 

Inclusive Language:  It is expected that all course participants will use inclusive language in speaking and writing, and will use terms that do not create barriers to classroom community. 

Spiritual Memoirs and Autobiographies (available at libraries and online retailers)

If you don't recognize the names on these pieces, you can feel free to research them online before choosing one!

Howard Thurman, With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman

Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist

Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Dorothee Sollee, Against the Wind: Memoir of a Radical Christian

Mab Segrest, Memoir of a Race Traitor

Paulo Freire and Myles Horton, We Make the Road by Walking

Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith

Cornel West, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud

Joan Chittister, Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir

Reinhold Niebuhr, Leaves from the Notebooks of a Tamed Cynic

John Lewis, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Simone Weil, Waiting for God

Alice Walker, Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer’s Activism

Renita J. Weems, Listening for God: A Minister’s Journey through Silence and Doubt

Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love

J. Philip Wogaman, An Unexpected Journey

Nora Gallagher, Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith

Madeleine L’Engle, The Crosswicks Journals, especially A Circle of Quiet

Sara Miles, Take this Bread: A Radical Conversion

Lillian Daniel and Martin Copenhaver, This Odd and Wondrous Calling: The Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers

Louise Zwick, Mercy Without Borders: The Catholic Worker and Immigration

Kate Braestrup, Here If You Need Me – A True Story

Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix

Oral History/Memoirs available in library and for purchase from www.veteransofhope.org 

Bernice Johnson Reagon, James Lawson, Ruby Sales, G. Zoharah Simmons, Andrew Young, Dolores Huerta, Anne Braden, Charles H. Long, John Biggers, Vine Deloria, Tom Feelings, Sonia Sanchez