2005-2006 Courses

Click for Starr King course fees.

Updated: 3/27/06

Spring

Monday

Advanced Preaching: Passing On the Power
9:40 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Monday
Alma Faith Crawford
The course will focus on helping students to develop their preaching skills, specifically the construction and delivery of effective sermons, and to find their individual preaching voice. Through readings, lectures, video presentations, discussions, and group and class exercises, the significance of exegeting texts and contexts for theological reflection and the maturational growth of religious communities. The spiritual power of preaching, as well as the appropriateness of varied sermonic forms to differing communities and occasions, will be explored. Students will be required to prepare and preach various types of sermons, and to participate in evaluating the sermons of classmates to sharpen their own critical skills.
Prerequisite: Students must have completed introductory courses laying groundwork for solid interpretation of texts, and have developed basic exegetical skills.
HM 4108
3 units
Limit: 12
Reading Room

Justice Work & Faith For Today
9:40 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Mondays, April 3-May 15
Ron Hersom CANCELLED
Exploration of justice work and its call for people of faith, using various traditions -- Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Unitarian Universalism. Through lecture, readings, reflection and a social action project, the class will come to understand some of the roots of social justice work and its relevance today for us as religious leaders for the 21st century. Reflection papers and final project required.
RSHR 4041
1.5 units
Limit: 20
Fireside Room CANCELLED

Introduction to Preaching
2:10-5 p.m., Monday
Alma Faith Crawford
This foundational course welcomes students into the fellowship of preachers. Together we will read books addressing important aspects of sermon preparation, living as preachers and the ontological transformations that preaching can effect in the lives of individuals and congregations. Students will identify their inner and outer sources of the passion, compassion and loving challenge from which their preaching energy comes. Depending upon class size, students will preach three times. Students preach to their peers, whom they will provide with worship bulletins describing the hypothetical worship service or context for which the sermon was prepared. Students receive the sermons of their peers with critical affirmation and encouragement. In so doing, all will refine their abilities to structure and deliver sermons, communicating effectively in a worship setting. Students will rewrite and hand in to the instructor a revision of a sermon that they delivered in class, along with an explanation of the suggestions that have been incorporated and those that have been rejected.
HM 4002
3 units
Limit: 15
Fireside Room

Liberation Art: Saints and Prophets in the World
7:10-9:40 p.m., Mondays
Sally Hindman (SKSM & CARE/GTU)
This course will use a liberation pedagogy to explore faith-based "liberation art" in the context of activist art for social change. The class will involve students in reflection and dialogue, as well as artist presentations, a fieldtrip and hands-on, studio-based art-making. Each class participant will choose a saint or prophet to live with and create life-size during the semester. The course will culminate in an "art action" involving the completed sculptures, organized in conjunction with a local non-profit working for social justice chosen by students. This course is co-sponsored by Starr King School for the Ministry and the Center for Arts, Religion and Education at the Graduate Theological Union.
RARS 4004
3 units
Limit: 12
Mudd 204

Tuesday

Introduction to Muslim Theology
9:40a.m. - 12:30 p.m., Tuesday
Musa Balde
This course introduces students to the origins and development of Muslim theology and provides a working knowledge about the major themes of Islamic theological thought. Students will read a variety of articles on the topic, in addition to English excerpts from the original texts. The course will begin by discussing the Qur'anic basis of Muslim theology and the relevant statements attributed to the Prophet Muhammed, followed by a survey of the different views espoused by the three major theological schools of Islam: the Mu'tazilite doctrines, the Sunni doctrines, and the Shi'ite doctrines. Major theological themes will be examined, such as the pillars of faith, the doctrines of free will and predestination, God's attributes and acts, Prophethood, the nature of the Qur'an (eternal or created), and other theological points of dispute.
HRST 4316
3 units
Limit: 15
Reading Room

Spirituality and Nonviolent Social Transformation: Gandhi, King, and Day
2:10 - 5 p.m., Tuesday
Dorsey Blake
This course will explore the quests for justice through nonviolence of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dorothy Day. Critical to the course will be an emphasis on the connection between spirituality and social action. What were the influences, e.g., Emerson, Thoreau, Tolstoy, DuBois, that helped shape the zeitgeist of their times? How were strategies determined and employed? What is essential to an effective nonviolent campaign? What were the faith foundations of these extraordinary leaders? What were their relationships to their communities? How did they manage to keep their resolve in times of disappointments? These are some of the questions the course will explore.
SPRS 4024
3 units
Limit: 15
Fireside Room

Paganism in an Unitarian Universalist Context
7:10-9:40 p.m., Tuesday
Carol Bodeau
Many Unitarian Universalists consider themselves to be "pagan" or as having an earth-based spirituality. This course explores paganism and earth-centered spiritual practice in Unitarian Universalist congregations, with consideration of basic definitions of various types of paganism; the history of earth-spirituality and neo-paganism in Unitarian Universalism, including CUUPS (Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans); and the social, political, and ethical issues raised by paganism in Unitarian Universalist communities. Special attention will be paid to concerns about cultural appropriation; discrimination by and against pagans and the role of the Seven Unitarian Universalists Principles in evaluating biases; and social and political imperatives towards healing the Earth, as experienced by Unitarian Universalist pagans.
HR 4043
3 units
Fireside Room

Wednesday

Unitarian Universalist Theologies: Modernity and Postmodernity
9:40 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., Wednesday
Rebecca Ann Parker
The purpose of this foundational course is to introduce the student to distinctive theological perspectives present within Unitarian Universalist traditions and congregations, and to equip students to begin to think and write theologically in the context of post-modern religious communities and culture. Unitarian Universalism will serve as a case study in post-modern religious community and as a specific location for theological reflection. Especially oriented to students who identify as Unitarian Universalists, participants in this course will be encouraged to form a practice of engaged theological thinking within the context of Unitarian Universalism's particular perspectives, resources, limits and possibilities. Students who do not identify as Unitarian Universalists will be encouraged to become acquainted with this expression of American progressive post-Christian Protestantism as a site in which theological issues critical to post-modern religious community can be engaged.
ST 4019
3 units
Limit: 18
Fireside Room

Chapel Practicum -- Spring
12:40 - 1:30 p.m., Wednesday
Alma Crawford
This is a practicum for those who wish to approach Starr King chapels as a context for learning. Participants will make a commitment to plan and lead a chapel service, attend each Tuesday chapel service from 1 - 2 p.m., and attend worship reflection every Wednesday from 12:40 - 1:30 p.m.
LS 4101
1.0 unit
Round Chapel

Queer Thea/ologies and Beyond
7:10-9:40 p.m., Wednesday
David Dezern and Donna Sequeira
This course examines Transgender, Bisexual, Intersex, Queer, Lesbian, Gay and/or Straight(!) thea/ologies within their multicultural and interreligious contexts. Critical analysis (queer, post-colonial, feminist, womanist, disability, class and race theories) will inform our investigation of experience, identity, community, history, economics, sex and relational configurations as thea/ological themes related to ethics, ecclesiology, tradition, eschatology, scripture, liturgy, soteriology, and images of God. Theory, story, poetry, film, art, music, ritual and personal vignettes will function as texts in this multi-sensual class. In addition to extensive reading, class participation, and a ritual, students will complete a final presentation consisting of a film, sermon, curricular development program, poetry collection or performance art piece. Research papers will also be accepted.
STHR 4570
3 units
Limit: 15
Fireside Room

Thursday

Sources for a Liberating Ethical Imagination
9:40 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Thursday
Gabriella Lettini
Our ethical imagination can help us to challenge oppressive systems, to bear witness to the voices of the forgotten, and to imagine, create and sustain alternative, liberating ways of being. This foundational course will explore the role of theo/alogies in shaping our ethical imagination and in promoting individual and collective practices of justice. Readings will include works by selected liberation, feminist, womanist, mujerista and queer theo/alogians, as well as by ethicist and philosophers. This course will also encourage interdisciplinary work among theo/alogies, the arts and popular culture, as works of art will also be considered as sources for ethical imagination. Field trips to sites embodying significant examples of liberating ethical imagination at work will be part of the learning experience.
CEST 4559
3 units
Limit: 18
Fireside Room

Parish Problems and Joys
2:10-5 p.m, Thursday
Patti Lawrence
Using the case study method, this class will meet weekly with a variety of ministers to discuss a particular experience coming from the lives of their congregations. The course will include Unitarian Universalist parish ministers, ministers of religious education and community ministers.
FT 4061
3 units
Fireside Room

Ethics of Caring for the Sick
7:10 - 9:40 p.m., Thursday
Jon Stanger
Courses in medical ethics customarily present a principle and rights-based prescription for resolving disagreements between contending parties in the health care arena. This approach tends to abstract the individual human experience of disease and suffering from questions of how we should care for one another. This course will take a non-traditional approach to the study of medical ethics. Utilizing sources from literature and the arts as well as our own stories, we'll seek insight into the human experience of suffering and healing, disease and dying. We'll then see how our personal philosophies of suffering and healing can inform the traditional principles of medical ethics and, perhaps, lead us toward a more comprehensive ethics of healing. The course will be particularly relevant to students whose ministry will include care for the sick or work in the health care setting, but should be useful to anyone who has ever been sick, anticipates being sick in the future, or has cared deeply about someone else who was sick.
CEFT 4015
3 units
Limit: 12
Fireside Room

Friday

To Be Announced

Prison Pen Pal
TBA
Patti Lawrence
The Unitarian Universalist Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF) offers a pen pal program for CLF members incarcerated in the US prison system and other "free world" CLF members. SKSM students who would like to learn about this prison ministry and practice skills that might serve them in pastoral counseling situations in future ministries can do so becoming penpals.  The Spring course is open only to students who were enrolled in the fall course.
PSRS 4005
1 unit

Infield Assignment II: Congregational Fieldwork
TBA
Patti Lawrence
Fieldwork in Unitarian Universalist congregations includes teaching a religious education class for children or adults, working with a youth group, participating in a stewardship campaign, full-time internship and more. Please arrange with the professor.
FE 4001
1 to 10 units

Student Teacher Reflection Group
TBA
Patti Lawrence
This reflection group is intended for all SKSM student teachers during the semester in which they teach. The class will meet six times, beginning with an initial meeting on Thursday, Feb. 16 from 12:45 - 2 p.m.
ED 4055
1 unit

Intern Reflection Group
TBA
Patti Lawrence
All Starr King students working in Unitarian Universalist congregations are expected to participate in this time of reflection on their ministerial work. Those involved in internships away from the Bay Area will participate in an e-mail reflection group.
FE 4025
2 units

Community Fieldwork
TBA
Gabriella Lettini
Community Fieldwork involves supervised placements in a non-profit service agency, hospice work, literacy counseling and more. Participation in theological reflection groups is necessary. Arrangements should be made with the professor.
FE 4310
1 to 10 units

Community Fieldwork Reflection I
TBA
Gabriella Lettini
All Starr King students doing community fieldwork will meet together for reflection on their ministerial work. Arrange with instructor.
FE 4034
2 units

MASC Project
TBA
Gabriella Lettini
For SKSM Master of Arts in Religious Leadership for Social Change (MASC) students only. MASC students should sign up for this class during the semesters when they are producing their final project representative of their learning during the program. Students are responsible for scheduling an evening at the school to publicly discuss their work. A copy of the project will be placed in a public collection at the school.
MA 5300
1-12 units

In Thesis
TBA
Faculty
All Masters level students in the GTU community should use this designation if they are working on their thesis.
MA 5000
1-12 units

2005-2006
Fall / Intersession / Saturday Intensives / Online

2006-2007
Fall / Intersession / Spring / Summer / Saturday Intensives / Online