Spring 2021

Community Intern Reflection

This course is a peer group seminar for interns doing fieldwork in community field sites. It offers the@logical reflection, linking the experience in the internship to the student’s broad educational and vocational goals (praxis). The class is designed for students to assess their personal progress, gather support from peers and the instructor, integrate their internship experience into their degree program, and deepen the@logical practices to sustain religious leadership in community ministry. Students gather multi-religious sources of wisdom and inspiration, which serve as touchstones for group spiritual reflection. The course includes a required live web-based video seminar approximately twice a month, as well as weekly online discussion postings that orient the seminar sessions. This online course is synchronous on Zoom and counts as low residency; students must have consistent internet access to relevant technology. Evaluation is based on participation, depth of engagement with peers and resources, as well as written self-evaluations. Required for MDiv/ MASC students enrolled in credit for community internship during the same semester. Fulfills thresholds based on personal learning goals. Maximum enrollment: 6

Prerequisites: Simultaneous enrollment in community internship credits for the semester. Full and complete approval of the internship agreement by the Director of Contextual Education, site supervisor and faculty advisor. Student must submit description of approved internship and copy of agreement to instructor prior to first session.

Faith-Rooted Organizing for Social Change

This foundational course – applicable to all vocational paths, from community organizing to parish ministry to non-profit leadership to theological scholarship – explores tools, best practices, and multi-religious theologies for faith-rooted organizing for change. Paying close attention to the intersections of social issues, identities, and religious traditions, participants will draw lessons from a diversity of historical and contemporary social movements. Merging the pastoral with the practical, students will learn to articulate their unique faith-rooted organizing style and strategize on how to take concrete, spiritually grounded action in their own congregations and communities. This asynchronous, interactive, multi-faceted course combines multimedia, readings, class discussion, a praxis (action/reflection) component, and more, and is open to all.

RSFT 8405 Faith-Rooted Organizing relates to these thresholds: Life in Religious Community and Interfaith Engagement (1) and Prophetic Witness and Work (2).

Maximum Enrollment: 15

Families & Spiritual Practice

This class will explore ways of protecting, nurturing and strengthening families at home, in congregations and communities through spiritual practice and care. We will examine what “family spirituality” means and looks like in different times and contexts. We will also study and engage in a variety of family-oriented practices including: gratitude, mindfulness, shared meals, play, prayer, sabbath time, rituals, community service and activism. Families of all kinds, across generations and from different ethnic, cultural and faith traditions – including our own families – will receive our attention.

The class will be online, using an asynchronous format on Moodle, while also encouraging students to meet together periodically through Zoom. The course is experiential, counter-oppressive, and multi-religious. Students will engage with texts that include readings, poetry, art, and videos. They will also engage with family and/or friends in weekly spiritual practice exercises. Evaluations will be based on student posts, reflections, and a final project. This course is designed especially for those preparing to be spiritual leaders and/or chaplains in congregational and/or community settings.

The course will satisfy SKSM’s Threshold 5 on “Spiritual Practice and Care” and the Unitarian Universalist Ministerial Fellowship Committee’s requirement #3 “Spiritual Development for Self and Others.” Enrollment is limited to 20 students maximum. Prior faculty permission is required.

Intro to Pastoral Counseling

This online course introduces students to culturally responsive counseling practices and multicultural awareness. Students examine societal and institutional structures of power and privilege, and become more aware of biases, prejudices, and microaggressions detrimental to the growth of the human spirit. Students study major counseling theories and practice basic helping skills centered on Person-Centered (Rogerian) counseling and Bowen Family Systems Theory. Pastoral elements will include individual, family, and congregational contexts. Asynchronous course with written lectures, readings, videos, and links to online resources. Weekly personal Moodle reflections and one synchronous component, a weekly self-scheduled dyad-skills practice session with a classmate. There are two assigned textbooks. Intermediate/advanced course intended for MDiv students, and with doctoral upgrade possible. It relates to Thresholds #2 and #5. MFC Competences #2 and #4. Maximum enrollment: 24

Leadership Along the Way

The rationale for this course is to develop one’s own life-regenerating leadership along the long arc of social change and transformation that existed before our time and will continue after us. We will explore ways of engaging and directing energy within an ecosystem so as to encourage diversity and distribution of leadership. This includes rediscovering our agency in challenging environments while leading in a way that honors the leadership present in any given moment, as well as the leadership that preceded and will follow such moments.
This course is online, synchronous, interactive, and informed by Taoist, Zen, and Somatic praxis. Students will be expected to complete readings, reflections, and activities that will deepen their leadership practice. This online course is synchronous on Zoom and counts as low residency; students must have consistent internet access to relevant technology. Maximum enrollment: 12

Relates to SKSM Thresholds 1, 3, 5, & 7, and MFC Comps 3, 5, & 7.
Recommended prerequisite: ECO Core Intensive.

MASC Project Spring

For SKSM Master of Arts in Social Change (MASC) students only. MASC students can split this course over two semesters or sign up for it during their last semester. This final project can take a variety of forms and should be representative of the student’s learning and creative work in the MASC degree. Projects include research thesis, public presentations, designing and implementing educational curricula, organizing local/national conferences and special events, multimedia art-work, writing a book and more. The thesis topic, proposal and final draft need to be discussed and developed with the Director of the MASC program and a second faculty member. The project can have a public presentation at SKSM. A total of 3 MASC Project credits are required for graduation in the MASC degree. – Fulfills Threshold # 2.
This project is variable credit between 0.5-3 credits.

Queer Studies: Multireligious Perspectives

In an increasingly changing and globalized world, the intersection of religious and queer studies is vital for understanding the construction of identities. This online course is designed to introduce you to the place given to gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, the sexual division of labor, gender role expectations, race, and ethnicity within world religions’ theo(ideo)/logical discourses. Drawing from an interdisciplinary approach you will develop a self-critical perspective on the way that sacred texts and dogmatic corpus influence the lives and spiritual practices of queer individuals and communities. Together we will explore the mutual constitution of queerness and subjectivity of religious experiences and their social and political implications towards the deconstruction of stereotypes, power dynamics, and marginalization.

Thresholds: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and MFCs: 1, 3, 4, 6, 7
Maximum enrollment: 20

UU Prophetic Witness

This online course will explore the history of Unitarian Universalist Prophetic Witness since the Merger in 1961, as expressed in action and voted on by the annual Unitarian Universalist General Assembly. It will combine historical investigation of social justice actions and witness with deep analysis of Unitarian Universalist polity and how congregations transform affirmation into action. Students will trace the moral  arc from 1961 issues like desegregation, disarmament, reproductive rights, migrant farmworkers, House UnAmerican Activities and Capital Punishment to those of the present, including Islamophobia, gun control and Black Lives Matter. Required texts will be drawn from the Ministerial Fellowship Committee’s reading list and will include The Arc of the Universe is Long, The Premise and the Promise, Prophetic Encounters, and Conrad Wright’s Congregational Polity. Students will be evaluated through demonstrated preparation, class participation on Moodle, class presentations in VoiceThread on Moodle and a final paper based on class presentations.

Relates to SKSM Threshold 2, 4 and 6 and MFC Competencies 4, 6 and 7.