Trinity Evangelical Divinity School : 2003 Seminar
Project Report
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
{excerpt}
Issue and Context
We arrived in Maine Summer 2003 with an essay titled “At TEDS, as It Will Be in Heaven.” Our desire was to wrestle with the lack of diversity (ethnic, economic, gender, theological) present in our historically Swedish-Norwegian seminary. We left that summer not so much with an answer, but with a challenge to pursue ethos change by developing conversations (the theme of the Lexington Seminar) among our faculty as we learn who we are as individuals and as a community of theological educators.
Our grant application thus focused on “How do individual faculty life narratives inform and shape our vocational identity and calling as teachers? What are the implications of this for the collective vocation of TEDS faculty as theological educators?” The challenge we recognized was less a call for diversity per se, and more a call for us to recognize what has formed our thinking and convictions as faculty, and how those are played out in the context of the classroom, and our faculty/institutional life in general. The question became: if we believe God is the author of the diversity we seek, how then do our present convictions inform who we are and what our task is as theological educators?
This issue of ethos identity was and is extremely significant for TEDS in that we are at a cross-roads for change. We are diverse in many ways and have been recognized as such by the Association of Theological Schools. Yet there are voices not present at the table. We yearn for greater ethnic diversity; though our present student body holds representation from over 50 countries of the world. We desire greater economic diversity; as most of our students come from middle to upper socio-economic classes and financial aid for the disadvantaged is severely limited. We wish for greater gender diversity; presently only two of fifty faculty are female. And we desire greater theological diversity within historic orthodox Christianity; despite the fact that our faculty represents over twenty and our student body over fifty denominations...
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Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
{excerpt}
Issue and Context
We arrived in Maine Summer 2003 with an essay titled “At TEDS, as It Will Be in Heaven.” Our desire was to wrestle with the lack of diversity (ethnic, economic, gender, theological) present in our historically Swedish-Norwegian seminary. We left that summer not so much with an answer, but with a challenge to pursue ethos change by developing conversations (the theme of the Lexington Seminar) among our faculty as we learn who we are as individuals and as a community of theological educators.
Our grant application thus focused on “How do individual faculty life narratives inform and shape our vocational identity and calling as teachers? What are the implications of this for the collective vocation of TEDS faculty as theological educators?” The challenge we recognized was less a call for diversity per se, and more a call for us to recognize what has formed our thinking and convictions as faculty, and how those are played out in the context of the classroom, and our faculty/institutional life in general. The question became: if we believe God is the author of the diversity we seek, how then do our present convictions inform who we are and what our task is as theological educators?
This issue of ethos identity was and is extremely significant for TEDS in that we are at a cross-roads for change. We are diverse in many ways and have been recognized as such by the Association of Theological Schools. Yet there are voices not present at the table. We yearn for greater ethnic diversity; though our present student body holds representation from over 50 countries of the world. We desire greater economic diversity; as most of our students come from middle to upper socio-economic classes and financial aid for the disadvantaged is severely limited. We wish for greater gender diversity; presently only two of fifty faculty are female. And we desire greater theological diversity within historic orthodox Christianity; despite the fact that our faculty represents over twenty and our student body over fifty denominations...
{ Read The Full Report by Downloading the Word Doc Below }
Document Downloads: