Spring 2022

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; 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.

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. ECO CORE INTENSIVE PREREQUISITE. MAXIMUM ENROLLMENT:6.

Congregational Intern Reflection

The Congregational Intern Reflection course is paired with the on-site experience of Congregational Internship. It is in synchronous online modality. This course is for M.Div students. The Intern Ministers meet twice a month by Zoom to discuss progress on Learning Goals, development of pastoral/prophetic/ preaching voices, and integrating theory with skills. Evaluation will be based on the Zoom conversations and the content of the mid-term and final evaluations. During the Internship experience, there are opportunities for all 8 Starr King Threshold Areas to be explored, as well as each of the UU Ministerial Fellowship Committee Competency Areas. ECO Core Intensive is a prerequisite.

Dynamic Youth Ministry

This lively and interactive course grounds participants in philosophical, psychological,
programmatic, ethical and theological aspects of youth ministry. Asynchronous online modality. Geared toward Unitarian Universalists, but open to all religious or secular affiliations, this course seeks to embody a vision of youth ministry that is a vibrant, robust, and flexible part of every congregation and community. Topics of instruction include leadership and spiritual development, professional support for youth advisors, denominational polity, adolescent life issues, building intergenerational community, and a critical analysis of different models of youth ministry and programming. A foundational course recommended for all religious leaders, both new and old to youth ministry.

Students must contact the professor for permission prior to enrolling in the course. Maximum Enrollment:15. Auditors excluded.

Introduction to System Thinking

This is an introductory course in systems thinking, a leadership model that recognizes that people, structures, and processes interact within organizational systems to foster (or restrict) organizational (and individual) wellbeing. Wherever your ministry takes you: serving a congregation; working as a chaplain; supervising volunteers in a voter registration drive; living in a cooperative or homeless encampment, knowledge about systems thinking offers tools to respond appropriately to the needs of the system in which you find yourself. Our study of congregations and other systems (likely the medical-industrial and educational systems) will be rooted in a multi-cultural, anti-oppressive understanding of the intersectionality of systems and identities, power and privilege. Our work will also take us into less-charted territory to explore systems thinking in relation to social media and non-hierarchical (rhizomatic) organizational systems. Asynchronous Online.

Meets Thresholds: Life in Religious Community and Prophetic Witness Meets MFC Comps: Social Justice in the Public Square and Administration

MAXIMUM ENROLLMENT; 24

MASC Project Spring

For SKSM Master of Arts in Social Change (MASC) students only. MASC students may 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. The student will work independently under faculty supervision. 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 project’s 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 may be presented publicly. A total of 3 MASC Project credits are required for graduation in the MASC degree. – Fulfills Threshold # 2. ECO Core Intensive is a prerequisite. This project is variable credit between 0.5-3 credits.

AUDITORS EXCLUDED. MAXIMUM ENROLLMENT: 10

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 asynchronous 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.

The 19th Century Roots of UU Prophetic Witness

This asynchronous online course will locate the roots of Unitarian Universalist Prophetic Witness in nineteenth century social justice concerns: abolition, education, prison reform, utopian communities, suffrage, temperance, humane treatment of animals, civil disobedience, and poverty. We will also explore the nineteenth Unitarian and Universalist influence on Biblical Criticism, literature, philosophy, music, and art. Our course will begin with the Unitarian Controversy at Harvard, against the backdrop of the Second Great Awakening, and explore how theological education influenced Unitarian and Universalist social commitments. We will discuss a variety of attitudes about race and racial justice and find disconcerting inconsistencies and evolving understanding as the arc of the moral universe bends a young nation to engage in Civil War. The heart of this course is Transcendentalism, from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Divinity School Address in 1838 to the death of Margaret Fuller in 1850, and we will finish with the emergence of Humanism at the century’s end. Although our focus is on North America, we will also consider parallel developments in Great Britain and Transylvania. Most of our texts will be found online as our emphasis will be on nineteenth century documents which are out of copyright: philosophy, essays, scriptures, and biographies. Students will be evaluated through demonstrated preparation, class participation on Moodle, class presentations in VoiceThread on Moodle and a final paper.

This course relates to the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Ministerial Fellowship competencies 6 and 7, and the Starr King Thresholds 4 and 6.
PREREQUISITE: ECO CORE INTENSIVE
MAXIMUM ENROLLMENT: 20

UU Theologies

This online course introduces the student to distinctive theological perspectives present within Unitarian Universalism. Especially oriented to students who identify as Unitarian Universalists, this course encourages participants 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 become acquainted with this expression of American progressive post-Christian Protestantism as a site in which to engage theological issues critical to post-modern religious communities. Weekly synchronous oral discussion, asynchronous written discussion threads, reflection papers, and final project. The course is suited to MDiv, MA/MTS, DMin students.

Relates to SKSM thresholds 1,6 and MFC competency 1. 15 max enrolment.