From Spiritual Emergency to Visions of Wholeness

Plateau Experience

Eventually this re-awakening started to lose its natural momentum.

The image of a banquet has been helpful in conceptualizing this work, emphasizing the virtues of hospitality and joyful fellowship.

Our hope is that the right nourishment and refreshment will prove transformative for our faculty, staff, students, administrators, alumni — indeed the whole Xavier family.

A Chain of Coincidences

This is serene and calm... response to the miraculous, the awesome, the sacralized, the Unitive.... It is far more voluntary than peak experiences are. [It] becomes a witnessing, an appreciating, what one might call a serene, cognitive blissfulness which can, however, have a quality of casualness and of lounging about.

(Maslow, 1964)

Sometimes the first step is the hardest.

Contemplative Practices in Diverse Traditions, Pt. 1: Lectio Divina

When Words Becomes Stillness

In September of 2010, after eleven years on the job, I led my first workshop that didn’t have anything to do with technology.

The subject?

Later that semester we invited Rev. William Thiele to join us and lead a session on lectio divina. Though my approach so far had been decidedly secular, I wanted faculty to learn how contemplative practices play a role in diverse wisdom traditions. I figured something with Catholic roots would be a good place to start.

This led directly to the formation of the

Xavier Mindfulness Support Group

A Moment of Silence

With the subtitle "Your Vocation & Our Shared Mission," this roundtable discussion turned on the following questions:

We met regularly to discuss our experiences and challenges, to talk about how this might inform our teaching, and to discuss programmatic initiatives.

Who Are You?

What values and life experiences do you bring to Xavier? Do you have a personal life mission, or do you wish to develop one? What passions motivate your teaching? Where do you feel you have your greatest success, and what are your biggest challenges? What aspects of Xavier's mission are most compelling to you? Are there aspects of the mission which are difficult to connect to your teaching?

After a year of mindfulness meditation, and bolstered by my attendance of the Mindfulness in Education Network's annual conference, I felt that I was ready to offer a more focused workshop to Xavier faculty.

I wanted to change that.

So, in September of 2012, I conducted a session called "Mindfulness for You & Your Students," inspired in large part by Deborah Schoeberlein's wonderful book, Mindful Teaching and Teaching Mindfulness.

Triple Goal

In 2013 we read Sentipensante Pedagogy by Laura I Rendón.

We integrate contemplation into our faculty development programs for three distinct but mutually supportive reasons:

Every year CAT sponsors a Fall Faculty Book Club.

It seems odd, in retrospect, that I'd worked in faculty development for a full ten years before attending my first faculty development conference. But such is the nature of the "divided life" so accurately critiqued by Zajonc.

And indeed POD 2009 proved to be a transformative event for me. I went as a technologist, but I returned as a faculty developer.

At that conference in Houston, on the 25th anniversary of my apostasy, I found myself drawn to sessions on religious literacy, contemplative pedagogy, integrative learning, transformative education and the like. I don't think I attended a single session on technology.

Does an academic conference seem like a strange place for a religious awakening?

Perhaps, but I such things are always strange.

In 2010 we read The Heart of Higher Education by Parker Palmer and Arthur Zajonc.

• to enhance the programming itself,

Meanwhile I'd developed my own personal practice, involving meditation, baking bread, writing, and observing a cycle of seasonal celebrations.

The first link in the chain might have been forged in 2002, when my wife and I purchased our first home. The previous owner was on the mailing list for the SteinerBooks catalog, and we inherited these mailings.

(SteinerBooks publishes the work of Austrian esoteric thinker Rudolf Steiner and many others.)

I attended a session called "Uncovering the Heart of Higher Education," facilitated by Virginia Lee. It was a freeform discussion (following up on a forum sponsored by the Fetzer Institute) revolving around the idea of connecting our inner and outer lives as educators. I found myself very intrigued by the concepts under discussion, but I had absolutely no idea what to say about any of it.

That's why it was such a surprise, a few months later, when Virginia Lee asked me to join a group presentation on the same topic for POD 2010. I'm quite certain she had me mixed up with someone else, which makes this perhaps the most unlikely link in the chain. Yet rather than disabuse her of my mistaken identity, I seized on the opportunity. I knew it would require me to extend myself in a new direction, and I relished the challenge.

• to promote faculty well-being, and

Fortunately I had the support of my immediate supervisor, Dr. Elizabeth Yost Hammer, director of CAT. She wanted to encourage all CAT staff to take a broader view of our work in faculty development, and her disciplinary background in psychology meant that she had at least an inkling of familiarity with the topics I was beginning to learn about.

• to encourage contemplative pedagogy.

There's more on the table. While contemplation is a worthy end in itself, we also want to get faculty thinking about how everything connects. Thus we have offered a number of sessions which are not explicitly related to contemplation but nonetheless form part of a larger integrative program.

I embarked on a process of discovery: reading, attending webinars and conferences, learning as I went.

I joined the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education and (later) the Mindfulness in Education Network.

These programs transformed my understanding of our work as educators; I came to see this as sacred work, to see our campus quad as sacred space, to see the university as a sacred community.

There seemed to be a burgeoning movement afoot, which was very exciting and encouraging.

I was not particularly interested in any of this; the catalogs went straight to the recycling bin for years. Yet for some reason — primed by the aforementioned "one-two punch" — in early 2009 I found myself leafing through the most recent arrival.

I realized that I was a part of something bigger than myself.

But this wasn't enough. In order to be ready for POD 2010, it would be necessary to actually do something, to practice what I was learning about.

At this point I did not have anything that I would call a formal personal practice.

Without that foundation, how could I possibly conduct a faculty development session on the topic, much less have the audacity to report on this effort to other faculty developers from around the world?

In fall 2011, we gave a joint presentation to our faculty. I gave a broad overview of the ideas of contemplative pedagogy and integrative learning. Dr. Hammer described her class and shared student responses to these techniques. We encouraged attendees to discuss the utility of such techniques in their own courses and disciplines.

I was perusing an article by Arthur Zajonc from his new book, Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry. I found it intriguing. Electrifying. I wanted to know more. I took special note of the fact that Zajonc was a college professor, teaching physics at Amherst.

One of our first faculty to actively attempt implementing a contemplative curriculum was my boss, CAT director Elizabeth Yost Hammer. She integrated various contemplative practices into an advanced research class in psychology.

In looking at the whole banquet of offerings, however, a certain irony emerges. These attempts to address the holistic needs of our faculty represent a piecemeal approach. To extended the metaphor, we had a nice smorgåsbord but we did not have a coherent menu or a longterm dietary plan.

Our podcast series was in the running for an Innovation Award from the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education.

POD 2009

CAT invited Dr. Homan to share his pedagogy with colleagues as an example of an integrative approach. Several students also participated in the session and discussed their projects and what they'd learned about the content matter and themselves. We hope to make this the first of an occasional series.

Integrative Learning Spotlight

For several years, Xavier faculty member Dr. Michael Homan (Theology) has used a unique project-based approach that challenges students to engage the course content in the so-called real world.

(Pardon the violent metaphor.)

I begin with myself. I take my own story as a starting point in hopes of illuminating the connection between personal experience and professional life, in hopes of showing how one person’s development can inform a program of development.

Punch 2: Persephone

(my daughter)

Punch 1: Katrina

Age 32: CAT

We come together to sit in silent meditation, sharing the space, the air, and the stillness.

Two things happened in the aughts which may have been precursors to later changes.

The path leading here has been circuitous and unexpected,

a journey from spiritual emergency to visions of wholeness.

Xavier University of Louisiana, founded by Saint Katharine Drexel and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, is Catholic and historically Black.

The ultimate purpose of the University is to contribute to the promotion of a more just and humane society by preparing its students to assume roles of leadership and service in a global society.

Age 17: Apostasy

I realized that if I wanted to maintain my personal growth and development, I would have to work at it.

For approximately the next three years or so, I lived in a state of high anxiety. These were hard times. A friend of mine was murdered. My wife had a painful miscarriage. I did a lot of hard drinking. But I was also highly engaged in my community. For example, I helped found a nonprofit group dedicated to promoting the creation of a multiuse trail through the heart of the city.

A failure of infrastructure led to the flooding of 80% of New Orleans, including my neighborhood and my home.

I was 41 when she was born.

Here she is a few years later.

One experiences dissolution of personal boundaries and has a sense of becoming one with other people, with nature, or with the entire universe. This process has a very sacred quality and feels like one is merging with creative cosmic energy, or God. The usual categories of time and space seem to be transcended, and one can have a sense of infinity and eternity. The emotions associated with this state range from profound peace and serenity to exuberant joy and ecstatic rapture. The American psychologist Abraham Maslow, who studied these experiences in many hundreds of people, gave them the name “peak experiences.” (Grof & Grof, 1989)

From

Spiritual Emergency

to

Visions of Wholeness

Our colleges and universities need to encourage, foster, and assist our students, faculty, and administrators in finding their own authentic way to an undivided life where meaning and purpose are tightly interwoven with intellect and action, where compassion and care are infused with insight and knowledge.

(Palmer & Zajonc, 2010)

The term spiritual emergency… is a play on words, suggesting both a crisis and an opportunity of rising to a new level of awareness, or “spiritual emergence.”

(Grof & Grof, 1989)

This session invited participants to understand creativity as playing a central role in our professional lives. We dispelled unhelpful myths and examined current theories of creativity. A broad array of tips and techniques for enhancing and supporting creativity were offered.

Age 22: Spiritual Emergency

Episode of Unitive Consciousness

toward a program of

contemplative faculty development

We began incorporating contemplative practices directly into our programs in big and small ways.

We also discuss teaching and learning in the context of our shared mission, including teaching and learning through and about meditation and other contemplative practices.

Bart Everson • Xavier University of Louisiana

I experienced a “falling away” from the faith of my childhood. It did not feel like a choice. It felt like a nonchoice, a painful and difficult necessity born of cognitive conflict.

This preparation takes place in a diverse learning and teaching environment that incorporates all relevant educational means, including research and community service.

Here I am with some of my stuff. I was 38.

I was hired to work on the staff of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching, to help faculty with multimedia production. I had not heard of “faculty development” before this job opportunity, and for years I did not identify myself as a faculty developer. I saw myself as a technology expert and an artist.

Tip: Text will be easier to read in full-screen mode.

(Click the screen icon in the corner of the presentation window.)

I think of these as a sort of one-two punch.

In recent months a small number of faculty and staff have been meeting regularly in the meditation room of the St. Katharine Drexel Chapel.

I was raised in a suburb of a major Midwestern metropolis. Though I attended public school,

I was given a thorough religious education through a doctrinally-conservative Protestant church.

Over the next couple years I experienced a spiritual re-awakening, resonating with my experience at age 22. This felt like an unfolding, an opening to possibilities, an expansion of the self.

The experience of living in post-Katrina New Orleans softened me up for the second punch, which came two and a half years after the flood...

So in the fall I made my way to my first POD conference.

Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth. —Sartre

Originally presented at the Fifth Annual Conference of the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education.

Academics are required to manifest a great deal of creativity. Teaching, research, service — all may be viewed as a creative acts. Yet we don't often think in these terms.

It so happened that I was producing the first season of our podcast at this time. Teaching, Learning & Everything Else is a series of conversations about teaching in higher education which we'd begun in the fall of the 2008. I was actively on the lookout for potential interviewees. I got in touch with Arthur Zajonc, we interviewed him, and we got our first inkling of what contemplative pedagogy might entail.

Listen to the podcast:

http://cat.xula.edu/food/conversation-8/

Many of the specific details of this work are intertwined with my professional life and the practice of faculty development. Some of these details are explored in the next section.

The Transformative Banquet

So far, our meetings have been private. This is an important phase as these faculty have sometimes felt tentative in their efforts, vulnerable in trying something new. Recognizing that a tender new plant may benefit from shelter in the initial stages of growth, we have been proceeding cautiously and slowly. We are taking the time to explore this territory together.

Just as with my personal development, our efforts in this area of faculty development are very much in process. Furthermore, I believe it's important to understand that this will always be the case.

What's Next

?

Contemplative Practices in Diverse Traditions, Pt. 3

Contemplative Practices in Diverse Traditions, Pt. 2

Introduction to Zen Meditation

Three faculty were selected to attend the Summer Seminar in Contemplative Curriculum Development at Smith College.

These faculty will in turn share their expertise with colleagues on campus.

When asked for an early reflection, Dr. Schulte wrote about "the importance of knowing my students on many levels. I have found myself opening up to, and learning more about, the personal lives, concerns, motivations, etc., of students."

Dr. Eskine identified three goals for her Abnormal Psychology class:

• 1) give students a new way to alleviate stress,
• 2) explore how contemplation/mindfulness is used as treatment for psychological illness, and
• 3) foster compassion for those suffering from psychological illness.

Students are required to select a specific practice to research and incorporate into their lives for the duration of the semester.

There's a Confucius Institute at Xavier now, a partnership with Hebei University in China and the Chinese Ministry of Education, which aims to "prepare students to become global leaders, and to teach Chinese language, culture, and economic development courses to Xavier students and the surrounding communities." We are partnering with the Confucius Institute to offer a workshop on t'ai chi ch'uan.

In this introductory session, faculty will learn the basics of how to practice sitting meditation in the Zen tradition and some of the essential principles of Buddhism relating to working with the mind.

Contemplative faculty development is a journey, not a destination.

There is no finished product here, no targeted endpoint.

We proceed in good faith into continually unfolding mystery.

Further in the Future

Me Personally

Given Xavier's unique identity as the only Catholic college in the western hemisphere that is also historically Black, it seems that exploring contemplative traditions in the context of the African diasporic experience would be a rich ground for inquiry.

I'm hopeful that we can mount a significant initiative around this theme.

A systematic, programmatic, formal initiative should be more powerful in transforming campus culture.

Financial support, in the form of a grant from the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, has made all the difference.

The Sustaining the Dialog initiative supports faculty in developing a contemplative curriculum and fosters a sustained campus dialog on the topic of contemplative pedagogy.

My own personal practice continues to develop. In addition to writing the College Contemplative, I've been invited to write a regular column for Humanistic Paganism, which will be entitled "A Pedagogy of Gaia." (Look for my article on the winter solstice coming on December 18th.) I was also invited to officiate a blessing at a civic tree-planting ceremony. No one could be more astonished about this development than me.

In Fundamentals of Public Speaking, Dr. Louis revised a traditional warm-up session before graded speeches, asking students to begin from a position of stillness and quiet. "We stand, shifting slightly from right to left, forward and backward, until we find an equilibrium that balances our bodies along a horizontal and vertical axis. Then, we follow our breaths inward and outward. While this brief exercise takes no more than one minute, I am struck by how still and quiet our bodies become. The exercise seems to function as both a relaxation technique and a community effort toward mindfulness."

What Do You Love?

The Contemplative Classroom

This brings us back to the beginning. Since returning from the Summer Session, these three faculty members have met regularly, to meditate together and to share dialog. It's been my privilege and pleasure to participate in these meetings as well.

The Zen session will concentrate on a specific contemplative practice, as part of our ongoing program of education and enrichment.

We respect these practices for their intrinsic value, but at CAT we also place great emphasis on practical applications for teaching and learning. Therefore we will offer a follow-up session which will focus on how faculty can "use" contemplation in their teaching.

This session will be designed and conducted by the Sustaining the Dialog participants.

Inspired by Wayne Muller's How, Then, Shall We Live?, we will invite faculty to participate in an informal roundtable centered around the topic of our passions and desires.

"By what star do we navigate our journey on the earth? What we love will shape our days and provide the texture of our inner and outer life. How can we plant what we love in the garden of this life?" These and other questions are all fair game.

For more information, including photo credits and sources, visit our wiki. http://xulacat.wikispaces.com/Contemplative+Faculty+Development

Sustaining the Dialog

But even the most reticent among us have affirmed that this sense of community needs to be shared. That is one of our next steps.