Vocation and Orientation

IST 1000 1: Vocation & Orientation

Winter 2019
Online

Instructor: Caran Ware Joseph Email: cwarejoseph@iliff.edu Phone: 303.765.3111
Student Hours: I will be contacting you to discuss some of your personal learning goals but I also want you to know that I am available by appointment during the quarter. Please, contact me by email or phone to make an appointment.

Welcome! In this course, we will learn from spiritual practices, each other, texts, music, film, poetry, visual art, and a variety of communities. This course is designed to meet some of the learning goals for your

Degree Learning Goals Supported by this Class

MDiv

4. Demonstrate personal and professional self-awareness and emerging competency in characteristic practices of religious leadership

4.2. Describe strategies for their continued spiritual development and self-care

4.3   Demonstrate an awareness of the importance of social location (race, class, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, ability/disability, etc.) for self-understanding and professional practice

4.6   establish an effective presence as a leader in the vocational context to which they feel called, and demonstrate adequate self-awareness of their characteristic styles of interaction, commitments, strengths and limitations as they move into new contexts

4.7   to clearly interpret one's beliefs and behavior to the community one serves

MAPSC

2. Students will identify and critically evaluate the ways in which their personal, religious, and cultural experience, along with their activities in pastoral and spiritual care, shape their theology, moral orientation, and vocational formation.
3. Students will learn an engaged or clinical approach to spiritual care that will help them identify and work with the differences between their own religious/spiritual worlds and the spiritual/religious worlds of those receiving care.

Through our work together over the quarter in a small group setting, we will attend to the following purposes:

1. Providing a small group “sacred space” where you can come to know one another, including your different faith understandings and traditions, at a deeper level than is usually experienced in your 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 you to Iliff (if you're a new student), and assisting you in understanding and adjusting to the framework and characteristics of theological education, which is somewhat different from those in other kinds of educational programs you may have experienced in the past. You will be invited into agency about your negotiation of these experiences throughout your time at Iliff.
3. Assisting you to reflect theologically on and speak about your personal and professional identity, and your ongoing vocational discernment. The 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. Empowering you to engage in spiritual practices that enable you to navigate a vocation towards and/or in social justice.
5. Providing you a space to practice spiritual, imaginative, courageous and nonviolent dialogue around complex social justice concerns.
6. Assisting you in accomplishing an additional goal you may wish to achieve as a result of taking this course. I will be in conversation with students individually about what they are hoping to achieve in this course.

You will not need to purchase a text for this course. All readings will be posted on Canvas.

This course is graded. This course may be taken pass/fail, but you must request this during the first two weeks by emailing me. You do not need to provide a justification for your request.

It is my sincere desire is that you do well in this course. All of the assignments are designed with the intention that you can and will do them because they are interesting and they are ultimately about your vocational/ministerial development. Against that background, here is my invitation to approaching this course:

• Attend the Readings and Discussions - We only have 10 sessions. What we will do together depends on all of us participating. In addition to reading texts, we will be doing a lot of sharing of individual stories. If you aren't present in the course, you will miss someone else's story. It is also equally disappointing if we miss yours. If you are missing for a large portion of the quarter, I can't grade what I haven't been able to observe.
• Ask for Help Early - One of the major takeaways from Iliff is that everyone needs help at many points in life. It is human to both need and seek help. Iliff has resources but you have to let us know that you need them. Here are two types of assistance that you might need:
  • 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.  

• Participate with Integrity and Sensitivity to Community:  All students are expected to abide by Iliff’s statement on Academic Integrity, as published in the Masters Student Handbook  All participants in this class are expected to be familiar with Iliff's Community Covenant.

• Embrace the use of 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 the classroom community. 

• Assignments: There are fifteen preliminary post/discussion assignments and one Final Project. All of the storytelling assignments build upon each other. All of the storytelling assignments require you to write/create, tell, listen and reflect. Each preliminary post/discussion assignment is worth 5 points for a total value of 75 points. The Final Project is worth 25 points. Completion of each of the assignments requires both online postings and discussions. The storytelling assignments are as follows:
  1. Theological Autobiography DUE First Day at Beginning of Class: In 500 words or less, please, answer the following questions:
     • Why are you at Iliff?
     • How does your background and/or journey impact your understanding of theology? Here, we are asking you to look into your genealogy, upbringing, denomination/non-denomination, religious/non-religious background
     • What are you hoping to do with your experience here?
  2. Life Theme Story: Please write your Life Theme Story and Post where you find yourself on the Social Location Chart.
  3. Spiritual Autobiography and Photo: Please, answer the following questions:
     • What resources do you use to provide spiritual nourishment?
     • What connects you to your “deepest self” and/or God
     • This resource or practice can involve music, journaling, prayer, reading, storytelling, television, singing, gardening, sport, or anything else that gives you life.
     • What has influenced your collection of resources? Is your spiritual engagement inherited, learned, founded in social encounters, inspired by spiritual epiphanies.
     • Please, describe the action and how this provides nurture and connection. What does this do for your mind, body, etc.? How does this spiritual practice sustain you? How does this inform you? How does it encourage you?
  4. Community Story: Please write about one of your communities. It might be particularly helpful to write about the community you hope to serve. 
  5. Missing Story: Please write about the people who are not included in your story. Why are they not included? How might they be relevant to your vocation?
  6. Visual Response: Retell your story as an expression of your spirituality using pictures (either photography or drawings) and as an expression of articulated roles. Upload to CANVAS.
  7. Final Project - Create a written, video, audio, or any other type of creative presentation that will tell your story and that of one of your class colleagues in a cumulative way appropriate to this class. 

This course is graded. This course may be taken pass/fail, but you must request this during the first two weeks by emailing me. You do not need to provide a justification for your request.

You will be evaluated based on the following rubric:

• 15 Preliminary Assignments - 75 Points
• Final Project - 25 Points Total - 100 Points

All of the assignments require you to write/create, tell, listen and reflect. Completion of each of the assignments requires both online postings and discussions. With respect to writing, our assumption is that students in a masters program can be expected to produce academic work that is above average (in comparison to undergraduates). Therefore, the modal grade we assign is B+. A paper will earn a B+ if it fulfills all of the requirements of the assignment. A paper will earn a grade higher than a B+ for exceptional quality. A paper will earn a grade of B or B- if there are minor to moderate shortcomings. Grades below B- are reserved for papers with major shortcomings.

Please, look at Course Requirements for more details on each of the Preliminary Assignments and the Final Project.

GENTLE REMINDERS :

Credit Hours: For each graduate credit awarded by a course at the Iliff School of Theology, students should be spending approximately one hour (50 minutes) in contact with the instructor and three hours (150 minutes) on course work outside of class per week over the equivalent of a 10-week quarter. This applies to residential, intensive, online and hybrid classes alike. For more details see Iliff's Credit Hour Policy.

Absences : As published in the Masters Student Handbook, absence from classes equivalent to 20% of course work (two weeks for a ten-week course) may be grounds for suspension from a course with WF (Withdrawal Failing) recorded on the transcript.

Academic Integrity and Core Values: All students are expected to abide by Iliff’s statement on Academic Integrity, as published in the Masters Student Handbook .  All participants in this class are expected to be familiar with Iliff’s Core Values .

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.