Spiritual Life at Colorado College

My primary teaching responsibility for the Religion Department focuses on a set of linked courses for our junior majors. Junior Seminar explores the multi-disciplinary nature of religious studies and the relationship between theory and practice by exposing students to significant figures in the development of the discipline. Field Study in Religious Community offers majors an opportunity to observe a local religious community and to test theoretical models of religious experience in a specific setting. Occasionally, I have offered topics courses such as Shamanism(s), Postmodern Theologies and American Religious Thought. In the summer, I teach off-campus courses alternating between Wilderness and Spirit (taught in Alaska) and Listening to Country: Learning in Aboriginal Australia (taught in Australia).

My own education includes an undergraduate degree in philosophy, classical-Protestant seminary training (with an emphasis on philosophy of religion and exegetical studies) and a graduate program in theology focusing on modern and contemporary thought in western European and American contexts. Ironically, I rarely teach within this broad academic tradition. I have expanded my own understanding of approaches to the study of religion in the history of religions school as well as in the social sciences (including field study methodologies) in order to teach the Junior Seminar/Field Study sequence. My fascination with the intersection between religion and the natural world has prompted my current teaching interests in religious constructions of wilderness, shamanism and indigenous religions, which focus my current scholarship.

I believe the distinctive teaching styles and contributions of the different members of our department is our single greatest asset. My own teaching begins with the power of texts and experiences to expand horizons and open new depths for our students. I do very little lecturing–letting student encounters with text and experience serve as the primary location for teaching and learning in my courses. I urge students to take responsibility for their own education, emphasizing the cultivation of an internal motivation that downplays the value of external rewards–such as grades or pleasing the professor. I hope that my passion for collegial conversations and my facility with unsettling experiences assist students in their learning. I am gratified when I hear reports that majors report a sense of camaraderie with each other and a sense of belonging to the department and our discipline after the Junior Seminar/Field Study sequence. Likewise, I am pleased that a number of students who take my summer and topics courses chose to major in religion.

I treasure the opportunity to teach our bright and engaged students. I value my relationships with Sam Williams, David Weddle, David Gardiner and Tracy Coleman. I would not trade our convivial and collegial spirit for any other department on campus. I am constantly learning from both my student and faculty colleagues. Furthermore, I recognize how rarely college and university chaplains are invited to participate, so fully, in the life of a department of religion.

For years, I attempted to keep my roles as college chaplain and faculty member in the religion department distinct and separate. I finally realized that this strategy is neither possible nor desirable. Understanding my responsibilities as a single integrated vocation has strengthened my contributions as both faculty and chaplain. As faculty, I have embraced the notion that my courses are opportunities for student transformation, whether as scholars of religious studies or as human beings on a path. As chaplain, I am grounded in the understanding that our students’ religious experience is discovered within and shaped by our educational context.