Transforming Service: Reflections of Student Services Professionals in Theological Education

Transforming Service

Reflections of Student Services Professionals in Theological Education

Edited by Shonda R. Jones and Pamela R. Lightsey

Afterword by Frank M. Yamada

Transforming Service

Reflections of Student Services Professionals in Theological Education

Copyright ©

2020

Wipf and Stock Publishers. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-9425-7

hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-9426-4

ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-9427-1

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Jones, Shonda R., editor. | Lightsey, Pamela R., editor. | Yamada, Frank M.,

1966–

, afterword.

Title: Transforming service : reflections of student services professionals in theological education / edited by Shonda R. Jones and Pamela R. Lightsey ; afterword by Frank Yamada.

Description: Eugene, OR : Pickwick Publications,

2020

| Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers:

isbn 978-1-5326-9425-7 (

paperback

) | isbn 978-1-5326-9426-4 (

hardcover

) | isbn 978-1-5326-9427-1 (

ebook

)

Subjects: LCSH: Theology—Study and teaching.

Classification:

BV4020 .T735 2020 (

paperback

) | BV4020 .T735 (

ebook

)

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

06/02/20

Table of Contents

Title Page

Illustrations and Tables

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: Graduate Theological School Choice

Chapter 2: Supporting Seminarians through Crises of Faith as a Means of Transformative Learning

Chapter 3: So That You Can Endure

Chapter 4: Developing Culturally Responsive Student Services for Latinx

Chapter 5: At Home with Movement

Chapter 6: The Lord Requires What of Me?

Chapter 7: Meaning, Messaging, and Money

Chapter 8: Bureaucratic Grace

Chapter 9: Communicating Culture through Admissions

Chapter 10: Before the Buck Stops

Chapter 11: Staff Leadership

Chapter 12: Radical Hospitality

Chapter 13: [Degree] Planning Ahead

Chapter 14: In Service of Character Formation

Chapter 15: A Lamp unto Their Feet

Chapter 16: Transforming Economic Challenges and Student Financial Well-Being

Afterword

Contributors

Illustrations and Tables

Illustrations

Figure 1. Perna’s Conceptual Model of Student College Choice | 6

Figure 2. Jones’s Conceptual Model of Student Theological School Choice | 26

Figure 3. Taxonomy of Cultural Responsiveness | 67

Figure 4. Average Student Debt of LTS Graduates Who Borrow | 245

Figure 5. Percent of LTS Graduates Who Borrow | 245

Tables

Table 1. Naming Exercise | 53

Table 2. Response to Student’s Return to Campus and Community’s Triggers/Traumas | 54

Table 3. Taxonomy of Cultural Responsiveness and Applied Critical Leadership Theory | 69

Table 4. Nine Characteristics of ACL | 71

Table 5. Appendix A: Theological Education Models (TE) of Schools Participating in the Latino/a Peer Group | 73

Acknowledgments

This has been a labor of love done within a community of practitioners who are dedicated to students in theological education. We are grateful for the contributions of those who made this publication possible. We are especially thankful for the support and resources of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada. Particularly of note is the ongoing leadership of Mary H. Young, who provides oversight for the Student Services Personnel Network (SPAN) and who has embraced our vision and provided the needed resources for contributors to put forth their best work. We also acknowledge the work early on of Jo Ann Deasy with SPAN and her continued support of institutional initiatives that enrich our efforts with students. To our student research assistant, Graham Lee, we express our deepest thanks for spending countless hours assisting with this project.

We acknowledge and express sincere gratitude to the many colleagues who submitted proposals and accepted our invitation to be a part of this seminal book in theological education. Many thanks to Wake Forest University School of Divinity and Meadville Lombard Theological School for providing fertile ground for innovative practices and imagination in student affairs and student services.

Finally, we are thankful for students in theological education who make the work of transformation possible in the church and in the communities they serve.

Introduction

Embracing Transformation

Student affairs as a profession emerged in higher education as a means to monitor and react to student behaviors. Over the years, student affairs practice (also known as student personnel, student services, and student development) has shifted to focus on the growth and development of students spanning pre-matriculation to graduation and beyond. For our purposes we will more regularly use the term, student services personnel though this is considered to be a dated term since the work is far more nuanced than simply providing services. However, the terminology is less essential than how the field and profession has actually progressed. Though the aforementioned shifts in student affairs practice is a reality in higher education institutions, for far too long the voices of student services professionals have been situated on the margins in theological education. Student services professionals in theological education are often absent from theological scholarship and higher education literature. Further, their work and contributions are often considered to be peripheral to the main actors or contributors in theological schools.

As we began this project, we started with the claim that as administrators we are central to the educational task within institutional settings. Situating student services personnel in this way is essential to the work of theological education and legitimizes the profession within higher education. This is a seminal book developed for and by student services professionals. Although our primary audience is student services personnel, we hope this work will resonate with all administrators in theological education and beyond. We recognize that our work is unique and innovative in that it puts the student services professional and their work with divinity students center-stage. Amid the various and serious changes afoot within the church and academy, there is a need for astute and perceptive expertise to assist professionals and institutions in transforming how to reach, serve, and sustain those they wish to enroll—namely students.

This volume, the first of its kind, brings perspectives from experienced administrators on a variety of topics related to student services administrative leadership—from understanding the conceptual models that guide the work and gaining deeper knowledge of institutional contexts, to executing academic and co-curricular goals and recognizing the challenges of doing this work as shown through history. Thus, chapters include original and scholarly research, conceptual papers, and reflective essays. Given the need and desire for theological institutions to create vibrant learning communities, chapters focus on theory and holistic practices, and the various forms of diversity that exist in an ever-changing church and world. It is crucial for administrative leaders in theological education to engage within a community of practice attentive to the needs of diverse students, as well as to thoughtfully reflect on their own vocational identity as student services professionals amid vast changes within the profession. This is an offering designed to establish and sustain conversations among student services professionals in theological schools about the nature of the profession and the students they serve, and to more fully educate those who may not understand the role of student services personnel as theological educator. The aim is to provide a rich combination of useful information, reflective instruction on a host of student and professional leadership issues, and animated narratives on the ways different colleagues address common student affairs practices and challenges in their context.

The book is organized in three major sections. In Part One (chapters 1–5), Theoretical Frameworks, contributors introduce frames that distinctly guide and ground the work of student affairs professionals. We begin with Shonda R. Jones’ Graduate Theological School Choice: A Case for Multiplicity, in which Jones explores—through the narratives of students of color—ways that racial/ethnic minority masters-level students engage the school choice process in deciding to pursue graduate theological education. Using a comprehensive conceptual model, Jones provides critical information that can help theological schools to reach, cultivate, and serve students of color from the start of their process. With an important shift to the experiences that some students encounter after entering seminary, Anastasia E. B. Kidd then focuses on understanding and constructively grappling with students’ crises of faith as an educational frame for student development. In her chapter, Supporting Seminarians Through Crises of Faith as a Means of Transformative Learning, Kidd uses transformative learning theory to suggest best practices for supporting students having crises of faith and how institutions can develop methods that are explicit to the curricula to address and further understand these crises. Following this, Yvette D. Wilson-Barnes provides sharp focus on burnout with student affairs administrators and student services practitioners in So that you can Endure: Pastoral and Prophetic Insights as Competencies for Graduate Theological Student Services. Adding specific and essential professional competencies, Wilson-Barnes provides administrators with ways to be personally sustained and continuously successful in the profession. Drawing on Applied Critical Leadership Theory, Joanne Solis-Walker demonstrates a possible path for institutions to be culturally responsive communities utilizing transformative leadership approaches in order to better serve Latinx students. Here, it is argued that cultural responsiveness includes critical pedagogy that is linked to the everydayness of life for students. Donna Foley’s chapter proposes an integral ecology of vocation. In Home with Movement, Foley provides a poetic frame in which both students and student services professionals are encouraged to take seriously movement, location (home), and vocation as essential to formation and spirituality. Each of these chapters provide important theoretical frames and concepts that can be valuable in transformative service to students.

In an intentional and provocative way, Part Two, Called or Captive? (chapters 6–10), provides space for practitioners to think deeply and theologically on their vocational tasks, the rhythms of work, and the institutional and environmental conditions emerging. Posed as a question, this section is an inquiry for professionals gifted for administrative ministry and also for those who may be confined by traditional, rather than transformative, ways of doing theological education. To lead this section, in "The Lord Requires What of me? C. Mark Batten and Shelly E. Hart reflect on the vocational call of student services administrators and the ways in which their work and the work of colleagues in the profession is ministry. Using a case study approach through the lens of the reflective practitioner, Graham McKeague and Ashley VanBemmelen examine various enrollment practices in theological education. Specifically, the backdrop is a particular setting in which enrollment professionals are affirmed as unique contributors to institutional contexts as they have the potential to articulate the unfolding narratives of prospective students, the institution, and larger narrative of the Gospel. In Bureaucratic Grace," Vince McGlothin-Eller provides an overview of the role of the registrar and the qualities and competencies that are crucial. Similarly focused on a particular role within the seminary context, in Adam J. Poluzzi’s chapter, he considers how culture is communicated by way of the admissions officer. Through a qualitative study, Poluzzi unpacks how admissions officers have communicated culture to prospective students and their perception of effective methods for such communication. Rounding out this part of the book, Pamela R. Lightsey is attentive to how campuses and administrators respond to twenty-first-century era student outcries and protests. Lightsey challenges us to move beyond using conciliatory crisis management and to consider other campus crisis management approaches, especially in light of issues of racism and other -isms. By raising questions, engaging deep reflection and praxis, and offering new perspectives of practices, this section offers student services personnel tools to embrace notions of calling and consider ways to be free to do creative and transformative work.

Building institutional capacity is the emphasis of Part Three (chapters 11–16). This section is attentive to how student services administrative leadership can be transformative within the context of theological education. This last and final part is concerned with learnings and practices that build our capacity toward a brighter and more informed future as theological educators. Thus, it includes a reflection, Staff Leadership: Forming Collaborative Teams and Hospitable Academic Communities, by Alexandria Hofmann Macias on building effective teams between staff and faculty with keen insight on the leadership capacity of staff. Next, Katherine H. Smith and Amy E. Steele offer wisdom about their own theological school setting as a means of sharing resources for student services personnel and institutions interested in enhancing their practices in radical hospitality with LGBTQ+ seminary students in their chapter on Radical Hospitality. Recognizing the changing demographics in theological education, Jo Ann Sharkey Reinowski draws attention to the need to transform academic advising in order to have better student success outcomes in her chapter, [Degree] Planning Ahead. Naming an important shift in capacity building, Reid A. Kisling notes the changing nature of theological education, particularly, with student development. Here, Kisling argues that there has been a change from traditional student growth models to emphasis on learning outcomes. Further, in his chapter In Service of Character Formation, Kisling posits that character formation is part of the task of student development in theological education, and thus, offers ways to consider the development of character as a part of our shared work. In the last two chapters of this section, Lillian Hallstrand Lammers offers guidance on vocational discernment and career planning in A Lamp unto Their Feet. Here, Hallstrand Lammers emphasizes how institutions must partner with their students to support discernment and career planning efforts. Kris Bentley, Charisse L. Gillett, and Windy Kidd identifies the clear theological and financial challenges that seminary students face. They offer suggested practices and policies that can make a difference to students and institutions in the final chapter entitled, Transforming Economic Challenges.

The book is organized in this way to usher readers through foundational material that introduces theory and then provides ample space for readers to learn about how this is embodied in particular practices across various administrative roles and tasks for the student services professional. Understanding that the voices and work of student services professionals are essential to theological education is an initial step in embracing transformation for the work ahead.

Part One

Theoretical Frameworks

Chapter 1

Graduate Theological School Choice

A Case for Multiplicity

Shonda R. Jones

Amid all the change occurring within graduate theological education, the student profile of those attending theology schools has shifted dramatically with more racial/ethnic minority students seeking graduate ministry degrees. Reflecting on this hallmark shift in what historically has been a space that has been white and male-centered, theological institutions must adapt strategies and service models to attract, retain, and educate students of color. Thus, the work before us is to deeply examine the potential pool of candidates attending seminaries and understand more fully the students of color in our midst. Unfortunately, assumptions are often made about who these students are, their motivations for seeking graduate ministry degrees, and what they need to excel in theological education. Oftentimes there is the inexplicable notion that these are monolithic communities or that there are not important differences that require attention and distinct pedagogical strategies needed inside and outside the classroom. As theological educators and student services professionals, it is essential that we consider the layered realities and multiplicity of students of color in order to cultivate a meaningful and sustained culture in which these students can thrive. It is this backdrop that motivated me to make this the focus of my research and subsequent dissertation work.¹

This chapter, using data that emerged from my doctoral research, examines particularly how the school choice process unfolds for US racial/ethnic students enrolled in the Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree program at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. That is to say, I will focus attention on how students in a particular divinity school describe their decision-making as they considered graduate theological education. This discovery takes place as a result of twenty-seven students of color being interviewed and sharing individual stories of their lives, family context, educational background, aspirations, and vocational goals. Further, each student of color talked specifically about their graduate theology school choice process. These students are African-American, Biracial, Latinx, and Multiracial students enrolled in the MDiv degree program in an ecumenical university-related divinity school. Those interviewed represent a diverse group of students with different backgrounds. While the mode age is twenty-three years old, ages of the student participants ranged from twenty-three years old to sixty years old, with an average age of thirty years old. Though there are commonalities in some cases, no single story is exactly the same. As each individual is unique, so is their narrative. Racial/ethnic minority students are not uniform and offer distinctive and personal accounts of their aims, opinions, beliefs, motivations, and values. The narratives of these students represent the weaving together of stories that highlight the individuality of persons (habitus—their system of values and beliefs that shape their views and interpretations²), while also holding in tension the structural contexts that make up the material and economic realities of not only persons, but communities of peoples. Thus, the process of how racial/ethnic students choose the MDiv program has not been completely clear. This is what I would hope to uncover by centering the narratives of students of color.

Let me briefly summarize the relevance of examining students of color and why their choice process is crucial to theological schools. Graduate theological education in America and Canada has recently demonstrated enrollment stability after years of a dramatic decrease in student enrollment in theological schools accredited by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS). However, pressure remains in what has traditionally been considered the gold standard degree—the Master of Divinity. The number of students enrolled in the MDiv went from about 29,300 in 1998 to 28,400 in fall 2017.³ It is important to note that the MDiv reached its peak enrollment at nearly 35,000 student headcount in 2006. Recently, the overall numbers are encouraging with 50 percent of all ATS schools having enrollment increases in overall enrollment, and 45 percent of all ATS schools had enrollment increases in the MDiv.⁴ Much of the gains are evident for evangelical Protestant theological schools, with at least half of the schools having experienced enrollment increases in every degree category from 2016 to 2018. The reality is a bit different for mainline Protestant theological schools where only 40 percent of the schools experienced enrollment increases in the MDiv. However, 60 percent of all ATS schools showed enrollment increases in the professional MA category.⁵ While there is obvious growth in professional MA degree enrollment, there also appears to be growth potential in the MDiv with racial/ethnic students. Racial/ethnic minority students enrolled in graduate theological education grew from 13 percent in 1990 to 41 percent in 2017, according to ATS data. Looking at these numbers, I would argue that after a decade of decline, enrollment stabilization has occurred, in part, due to the influx of students of color to graduate theological education. The shifts in the religious environment and those attracted to theology schools will have lasting consequences on theological institutions of the future. The changing trends in graduate theological education have implications for student recruitment, enrollment, and retention, as well as how the school choice process unfolds for particular students considering vocations where theological education is important.

Drawing on data collected through interviews with students of color enrolled in a MDiv program, I examine how their habitus and other social and cultural capital shapes the process of choosing divinity school. I do so by employing Perna’s conceptual model⁶ of student college choice as a theoretical frame with a focus on (1) the individual’s habitus; (2) school and community context; (3) the higher education context; and (4) the broader social, economic, and policy context (see figure 1). Drawing on a conceptual model that integrates both economic and sociological perspectives, I assumed that students’ graduate school decisions are determined, at least in part, by their habitus. Thus, this chapter focuses on the students’ habitus, or the system of values and beliefs that shape their views and interpretations. Similarly, I listened for the structural and cultural factors, or organizational habitus, experienced within the undergraduate and other institutional contexts from which racial/ethnic MDiv students emerge. Measures of social and cultural capital that include race, financial resources, and academic preparation and achievement, play an important role in explaining the educational decisions of racial/ethnic students. By exploring these influences, I hope to offer insights into the graduate theology school choice of racial/ethnic MDiv students.

Figure

1

. Perna’s Conceptual Model of Student College Choice.⁷

Though Perna’s model specifically examines choice as students move from high school to college, her model can serve as a useful framing of choice as students move from undergraduate studies to post-baccalaureate education—specifically, graduate theological education. While all layers of this model aids in a deeper and nuanced understanding of the school choice process, I am most interested in magnifying the first layer of Perna’s model. Habitus can be linked to one’s embedded social and cultural capital and represents a series of internalized dispositions that individuals use to form perceptions, decisions, and choices.⁸ My interest is not so much in why racial/ethnic students choose a particular theology school, but in how these students engaged the school choice process. How is it that these racial/ethnic students decided to enroll in the MDiv program? What does the choice process for this group look like? What internalized messages were front of mind for these students as they decided to pursue their theological degree? Discoveries from these questions can inform student affairs practice and institutional praxis in theological schools, seminaries, and divinity schools.

Understanding School Choice

A number of studies examine undergraduate college choice.⁹ Among the most commonly cited model related to college choice is Hossler and Gallagher’s¹⁰ three-stage model of predisposition, search, and choice. The initial stage outlined in Hossler and Gallager’s model is predisposition, which typically occurs between seventh and tenth grades in high school. In this stage, students develop aspirations and interest toward attending college. The second or search stage is when students begin their college search by gathering information about colleges. According to Hossler and Gallagher, it is at this stage that students determine an initial group of colleges and universities that they will consider applying to and proceed to gather information about the institutions. Students also develop preferences among institutions and consider an ability to pay, along with considering criteria for admissions. Likewise, students develop expectations and perceptions about the institution. Search, at the undergraduate level, typically is during the tenth and twelfth grade, while the third stage, also known as choice, occurs in the eleventh and twelfth grades when students select an institution and decide to enroll to a particular college or university.¹¹ According to Perna, little is known about the timing of the three-stage model for nontraditional enrollment for those who do not attend college immediately after high school. Further, there is limited information about graduate school choice processes. Graduate-level decision process has been described as complex. The complexities of graduate student school choice are multidimensional concerns of ability, income, costs, and return on investment.¹² There remain a relatively small number of studies that examine the college choice decisions of graduate and professional students.¹³ Even a smaller number of studies include findings specific to racial/ethnic graduate student choice issues. In recent years, several researchers have adapted or applied Perna’s conceptual model to graduate school choice processes.¹⁴

What is known about MDiv students is that over 55 percent considered graduate theology school before or during college, while 27 percent first considered the MDiv after some type of work experience.¹⁵ Most first-year students enrolled in the MDiv most likely learned about their degree program from a friend, graduate, or pastor/religious superior. It should be noted that the school’s website is among the top five ways that a student first learned about their school and was the top method for gaining more information about the school, followed by communication with the school’s staff¹⁶ Further, entering students in theological education ranked the following as the most important factors in the decision to pursue theological education and the MDiv in particular: (1) experienced a call from God; (2) desire to serve others; (3) opportunity to study and growth; (4) desire to make a difference in the life of the church; and (5) intellectual interest in religious/theological questions¹⁷ Additionally, entering MDiv students who completed the ATS Entering Student Questionnaire also indicated that the primary factors in their decision to attend their institution was quality of the faculty, curriculum, academic reputation, and comfort with the school’s theological perspective. These data specify how these responses differ between male and female students, however, they do not specify information about the school choice process for students of color. Also, quantitative data of this sort only tell part of the story. The current milieu in theological education provides the opportunity to examine more closely how shifts in culture, religious leadership, and demographics influence racial/ethnic minority students who seek to hold religious positions, engage ministry vocations, and their decision-making to attend divinity schools.

As we explore more fully the school choice process for students of color in an MDiv program, using Perna’s conceptual model of school choice is the most appropriate framework. Unlike other theoretical approaches, Perna integrates aspects of sociological and economic approaches.¹⁸ Ultimately, Perna’s model is based on the comparison of the benefits of college enrollment versus the cost of enrollment, but the model is not just influenced by supply and demand or one’s ability to pay. This integrated model is also influenced by an individual’s habitus, by school and community, the higher education context, and social, economic, and policy context. The conceptual model provides the opportunity to examine more closely issues of school choice in graduate theological education. The inclusion of both economic and sociological approaches to understanding student choice is compelling and serves as an excellent theoretical source for developing a model for graduate theological education.¹⁹ Perna’s model in figure 1 is used as a starting point in probing the narratives of students and is useful in framing the layered context by which graduate theology school choice occurs.

Habitus—Telling Their Stories

To better understand the students’ narratives in the context of graduate theology school choice, in addition to using Perna’s conceptual model as a theoretical frame, narrative inquiry is used as a technique in order to engage in sense-making of their stories. As I present the narratives of racial/ethnic minority students, I use a hermeneutic lens of habitus that focuses on the biographical and psychological aspect of storytelling. Because I am concerned about factors like race/ethnicity, family origin, life events, and persons of influence in their life, a biographical approach to narrative analysis is highlighted. Similarly, I am interested in learning more about the thoughts and motivations of students of color, including their contextual knowledge, and the psychological aspect of their stories. For our purposes, the hermeneutic or interpreting lens is that of habitus as outlined in Perna’s first contextual layer. The focus here is on the student’s narratives and how they articulate the factors that influence their decision-making and school choice for divinity school. Using narrative inquiry, an interdisciplinary method, themes and groupings emerged that informed the overall narratives of these students of color enrolled in the MDiv degree program. In order to maintain confidentiality of the students interviewed, pseudo-names are used throughout.

Demographic Characteristics

Many students expressed expectations of being in the racial minority in divinity school. Often their sentiment stemmed from their previous contexts and was influential in their graduate theological school choice. Marcus grew up in a small town and was often the only person of color in his Honors or AP classes. Thus, he had not fully considered what it would mean for him to attend a predominately white institution for graduate theology school. He recalls typically being the only African-American in a class of at least twenty students from Kindergarten to college. Marcus reflectively proclaimed:

So this entire time, this entire time until my first year in divinity school I