The Wabash Center is a premier space for professional development for educators in Religious Studies and Theology. Through workshops, consultations, a journal, and a number of social media projects, the center has played a substantial part in the development of best practices and best practitioners.
At the 2015 Reception for New Teachers, I was invited to submit a reflection on my course, The Bible and Race in the USA, as part of their Race Matters in the Classroom blog.
This blog [was started] in response to the need for a forum on race and teaching theology and religion in the wake of the August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown and subsequent protests and police response in Ferguson, Missouri. However, we have purposively framed the blog more broadly than this single incident. Teaching for racial and social justice, dismantling the structures of white privilege in academia, and diversifying the faculty, the students, and the canon, are abiding concerns of the Wabash Center and many of our colleagues in the WabashNation.
From Race Matters in the Classroom
If you want to read about my contribution to such an aim, check out my post, “Silence and Real Talk: On Teaching About the Bible and Race in the USA.”
I’m also happy to announce that I’ve been accepted to the Wabash Center’s 2015-2016 Workshop for Pre-Tenure Religion Faculty of African Descent. Over the next two years, I’ll be meeting with 14 other early career faculty for training, reflection, and networking. So a big thanks to The Wabash Nation for this exciting opportunity!
Richard Newton, PhD is curator of Sowing the Seed and Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Elizabethtown College. His scholarship focuses on the anthropology of scriptures.
Sowing the Seed 