Let's not speak about calling in the singular

When people ask me about my calling, it seems almost always assumed to be "a priest". But I'll let you into a secret: that's not how it looks and feels to me. I think that I (and everyone else) have several callings. Some of mine add up to being a priest, some of them add up to being in the Church of England, some of them add up to being a chaplain and some of them add up to being involved in higher education . Oh, and some of them add up to being a spouse and a parent. And they all intersect in changing constellations. Some of them feel more fundamental than others and some of them seem to be capable of being expressed in different ways according to circumstances. I'm a chaplain in higher education because more than sensing myself to be drawn to preach, teach, minister sacraments and help people discern God in their sometimes messy lives, I can't shake the conviction that the church needs people like chaplains to counterweight its own tendency to become a world in itself -rather than becoming itself in the world. Chaplains work as public representatives of the churches on that worldly interface beyond where church normally publicly reaches.I had felt drawn to HE chaplaincy for ages but thought lack of opportunity meant I was a mistaken until a hefty push from circumstances and especially others' discernment shoved me out of parish ministry into the local university. And I thrived! My intellectual curiosity, inner-drive towards secular workplace issues, and disposition to improvise missionally, make higher education chaplaincy a good place to be, for me. But beyond feeling drawn, I had to experience it to see the fit.The combination of inner conviction, self-awareness and the insights of those around me coalesce and re-coalesce in me to convey the voice of God in the context of living with the Scriptures and the prayer of the church (I think that the Holy Spirit hovers over all those waters).It should be said, though, that I could imagine my sense of vocations (note the plural) being worked out in different contexts. (Perhaps this other blog post might help explain a bit further: http://nouslife.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/priesthood-ontological-change.html). Other situations and circumstances would change which vocations came to the fore and which were most usually expressed, but they'd all be there acting as stars to steer by or prompts to pay attention. So, discernment did not end with ordination: weaving together the various strands of calling as a human being, as a Christian, as a member of several families, as someone with various God-given gifts and interests is still one the main tasks I find surfacing as a talk with my spiritual accompanist and my nearest and dearest.

Vocation to ordination plus ...

I was very clear in my very late teens when 'what are you going to do after university?' was becoming a pressing question that the ministry of the whole people of God in the world is the primary church-related vocation: redemptively related to the human vocation to tend and till and to 'surprise' God with how we name the creatures making culture along the way. That's how I express it now, btw, not then!So while I first looked to live out a Christian commitment in secular life, I became aware of an inner nudging towards helping God's people to be equipped to live God's mission in the world. So I thought "being a Reader?" ... but the nudging seemed to have presiding at communion in it. So, "non-stipendiary ordained ministry then?" You see, I couldn't really shake that sense of ministry pressed close into the 'secular' world. I decided it was easiest to go for a conventional route to ordination (as I didn't have a career at that point) with a view to revisiting that 'in the world' issue further down the line. You may, rightly see in that brief description (and, oh, so many questions it begs!) how being a chaplain might be a good way to be a priest pressed up against the secular.Of course, I could have been kidding myself about that 'inner nudge' and I knew that. So I didn't act on it without much thought and chatting things over informally with friends and more formally with people like chaplains and other clergy. Because they seemed to discern in me things that confirmed that inner nudge, I kept on with the process of enquiry as the CofE then had it. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense of the person I felt I was becoming. I sensed then and now more-or-less know that God speaks to me most in these growing inner convictions which are sensed by those around me. Clearly, that's not a quick process.

x

A Future of Undergraduate Teaching

In various fora, I've been doing a lot of discussing and thinking about this lately and I think that this scenario is very likely.

 ... most teaching in the early years of an undergraduate degree will gradually cease to be via lectures and will instead take the form of online presentations produced by professionally trained presenters backed up by teams of academics. This online content will be paralleled by peer tuition (or teaching by questioning) which, when done well, is clearly effective (see here and here), and the associated growth of so-called learning analytics. Lectures may well become special occasions in which the best-known academics make their presence felt. Meanwhile, small group teaching will make a come-back in all years, especially in the best universities.

We've been saying for years that lectures are not a good way to learn except for a minority for whom it resonates with their learning style. And when we take on board the critique of our education system more generally that it is a huge university entrance system predicated on forming traditional research academics, then in GB it really is likely that the new fee regime is going to concentrate pedagogical minds on androgogical matters (though I prefer a term like mathetogogical). That is assuming that we are able to effect a culture change in British culture more widely to take away the prejudice that the only form of 'education' worth having is precisely invested in the system to produce research academics (even though simultaneously that is derided)

The fact is that HEI's will have to think hard about just what it is that they are 'selling'. I think that part of the answer will be 'accreditation' (largely about summative assessment and benchmarking) and another will be formative assessment and learning coaching.

The question in a barebones version of that future is about the way that those less able to access learning resources (including the human ones) of a traditional-ish form will be enabled to access it. Or will the 'total package' including access to counselling and other support services remain a kind of gold-standard?

The Future of Undergraduate Teaching - WorldWise - The Chronicle of Higher Education:

University as corporation

In my university, Northumbria, the VC (who also bears, significantly, the title Chief Executive) has just completed a round of staff briefings to present 'Vision 2025'. I was intrigued to not that he and the governors have clearly been considering things in the kind of way that this article
Focusing a Corporate Lens on Global Universities - Planet Academe - The Chronicle of Higher Education envisages:

when universities overcome their natural resistance to comparing themselves to multinational corporations, they can think in new and useful ways. And learning to think differently is, after all, what universities are all about.

In particular these things from the article resonate:

Universities need to make it someone’s job to manage international partnerships, to sustain relationships, to make sure the institution and its partners are getting what they want from relationships

I think that 'we' can tick that box: over the last couple of years or so there have been appointments in this area in its various dimensions. Or at least so it seems to me.
And how about this? 

Universities, like companies, may need to make the transformation from being a national brand to being a global one.

This was, essentially, one of the big themes in the VC's briefing. Except that, perhaps, the leap is even bigger: from a regional to a global 'brand'. The demographics are a clear indicator of what needs to happen: today's 1-5 year olds will only number about 3.5 million in 2025, which is not a lot to share between 140 or so institutions as they exist today in GB. But look at the comparable figures for China, India, Indonesia and you'll see which are the big markets to reach for. Go figure...
And I think I discern the basis in the way that I hear university managers talking for this being taken seriously, especially as the university already has very good employability ratings and a big focus on professional education.

An organization, whether it is a company or a university, can identify two arrows. One is what people are looking for in jobs, and the other is what the institution has to offer. An organization that can find the intersection of those arrows can build powerful, long-term success.

And I suspect that the recent de-merging of Careers from Student Support and Wellbeing in the University -and it seems to be a very good careers service- may be about freeing them up to help in this process, but I may be over-interpretnig. If so, then it certainly won't harm the Uni to be doing this in the light of this remark.


Of course, the wider issue is how far we 'like' the idea of university as corporation, but it does seem that survival and thriving have a financial dimension and this does indicate that attention to matters that enable thriving in financial terms. The problems with the model are not at that level, but whether the mentality associated with the business model is compatible with or noxious to the main 'missions' of a university. I think that this is analogous to individual human beings experiencing some tension between various aims in life. We sometimes express this in phrases such as 'Am I eating to live or living to eat?" or 'Are we working to live or living to work?'. For a university, I suspect,  this may be something like 'Are we making money to learn and teach or are we teaching and learning to make money?' And, as with human individuals, it is easy to slip from the healthy  '-ing to live' to the soul-destroying 'living to -', so it may be be universities, I would suggest.


With human individuals we know or suspect that they/we have veered into the unhealthy relationship with work or money when relationships are damaged, physical health is compromised and mood falls into depression and irritability which may also show up in poor decision-making.


I would suggest that similarly with universities. Relationships with partners, employees, government and the environment are damaged (and this may involve fraudulent and abusive patterns of behaviour); organisational dysfunction becomes prevalent; employee satisfaction falls and morale plummets. Now those things need to be read off in terms of people being part of the enterprise of HE because they believe in something of the 'mission' of a university (and, theologically, I'd say that has something to do with the providential purposes 'under God' which is strongly related, I would suggest, to the vocation of an HEI) and that would have a relation to the issue of morale.


Hmmm. It'd be great if there were comments on what other uni's are doing, but I' don't know how many of my readers are likely to be in a position to do so...

proselytisation

I've been considering the words proselytism and proselytisation. It seems to me they're a bit like 'fundamentalist'  or 'racist': it's always a term applied to someone else and it is always derogatory; a way to dispose of someone else; to put them beneath consideration. Our own university in its memoranda of understanding by which chaplains and the like are incorporated into working within the university has a 'no proselytism' clause and this can be interpreted to rule out any shairing of faith at all. But that interpretation, it has to be said, would be ridiculous. We need a more nuanced understanding and this is why.

It is important to acknowledge that most world faiths are explicitly or implicitly 'converting' faiths and that most are not at all unhappy for conversions to them to happen and make provision for the formation of converts in appropriate spiritual perspectives, disciplines and practices. They understand themselves to me making truth claims or at least claims to be able to help people to discover the best for themselves in life and/or beyond it and as such they each would be less than generous by their own lights if they were to collude in deliberately turning people away from this or helping others to find a fuller truth. 

To ask them via their followers and representatives to refrain from explaining and propagating their perspectives and dearest convictions would be to attempt to impose on them yet another ideology which would not be compatible at all points with particular beliefs or practices. In effect it is to ask them to agree to the proposition that some other 'truth' trumps their own. 

We should, by the way, in this respect, note that humanisms and secular ideologies function as belief-and-value systems and so are not neutral entities in the public arena and so should neither expect their tenets or practices to be accepted without challenge, discussion or the gaining of mutual consent. It should be noted that many secularists are clearly set to gain assent and 'converts' to their beliefs as well as the more well-known religious faiths.

In a university context it is acknowledged also that the freedom to debate, disagree and to express opinion is part of the fundamental value set implied in the search for knowledge and intellectual advance. Thus a university should be a place where different ideas, perspectives and beliefs can be expressed. Held. debated and scrutinised and where the skills of differing respectfully can be honed.

Thus we must distinguish between on the one hand expressing a belief and commending it to others and on the other hand doing so in a way that amounts to harassment, bullying and/or undue inducement. It is, in practice, this latter cluster of abuses that is really in the frame when someone is worrying about 'proselytisation' or 'proselytism'. I propose than that we should understand proselytism as pressing ones beliefs upon others in ways that harass, bully, and/or which use extrinsic inducements.

'Extrinsic inducements' are things such as power, conditional affection, money, other material considerations which are not inherent to the faith or belief-system concerned. By these things I have in mind power over someone which effectively means that not going along with them puts one in an unfavourable position whether that is explicit or unstated what is communicated is 'agree with me or things will be awkward'. The other way this can be expressed, of course, is the offer of power; that 'converting' will give access to power and its correlates. Similarly and usually relatedly, money or other material advantages could be offered openly or by implication. In effect: "Change your mind and you will be paid more /have food /gain sexual favours .... etc". What I have in mind in naming 'conditional affection' is the 'love bombing' some groups were accused of using in the 80's and still today in some cases: "join us and you will be loved, accepted and cared for (leave us and you will rediscover what a cold, hard world it is)".

One of the important words in that phrase is 'extrinsic': Most belief and value systems have some element of highlighting the advantages of agreeing with and joining them. However, in legitimate, non-exploitative and ethical faith-sharing these are intrinsic to the 'offer'; they are part of the package and can't be separated from it. When they are extrinsic they are simply bribes or threats or some combination of those. Thus Sikh's might offer food, but that is intrinsic to their faith practice, langar -and in any case is not an inducement as it is offered to all regardless of response to Sikh faith (or so I understand). Christians might offer (however imperfectly) 'love'  but that is part and parcel of living out a faith in God who is Love and indeed are not permitted to offer conditional love without departing from the faith. 

I think that this forms a workable perspective on proselytism that doesn't rule out respectful faith sharing or sensitive raising of faith-related issues in the public sphere.

The real challenges of chaplaincy ...

I discovered I'd drafted this a few months back and then forgotten to post it. So....

The bishop of Newcastle, at my interview for the post of co-ordinating chaplain to the University of Northumbria, said, “I reckon this is the hardest job in the diocese, why on earth do you want to do it?”* A good question; why did he think it was hard? I supposed that he meant something like: being a university chaplain in a large and secular university means that you don't have a settled congregation to pastor and your role is widely misunderstood and you are in a very pioneering situation with regard to discerning the mission of God and playing your part. So it's hard because you need to have a good degree of resilience, imagination, ability to cope without the normal encouragements of working in ordained ministry.
The lack of a settled congregation may be a surprise to some -remembering chaplaincies from student days as vibrant nexuses of Christian gathering and growth. Not so now: the demographic concern for falling numbers of young people participating in church life is showing up acutely in university chaplaincies; they rarely attract enough people for a critical mass of consistent and regular activity. young people who do identify as church-actively Christian tend either to go to the RC chaplaincy (by dint of a strong 'brand loyalty' on the part of the catholics and even here the numbers can struggle) or they are attracted by the vibrancy of the Christian Union -and whichever churches are most fashionable among the CU's members.
The role is misunderstood quite often because of this: the assumption is that a university chaplain is concerned mostly with students. And while some of it is, often in a quite expanded role working within teams concerned for student welfare, international students and religious equality and diversity, much is also concerned with staff and with broader institutional matters. I sometimes in the past described my role as being “an industrial chaplain to a knowledge-based industry” to try to get over the idea that it was a more institutional~ and staff-related ministry than many might have realised.
It is a pioneering role in that, with the traditional student role being less to the fore, more scope is given to encouraging wider and different forms of participation and offering different forms of ministry. In Bradford, I organised faith-related art-exhibitions, text-prayers, spiritual direction, meditation training as part of a de-stressing programme, vigils for peace at the time of the Iraq conflict, group facilitation services, life coaching, and fair trade advocacy among other things.
I am aware that this kind of institutional and staff-related ministry is much more like chaplaincy work in other sectors. In common with them I would also say that part of the role is to affirm and to facilitate ministry in Christ's name by 'ordinary' Christians in the workplace. The chaplain by their presence says, I hope, “your workplace is somewhere that God is active, a big part of the wider church's mission takes place there”.

*Interestingly, in the diocesan newspaper version of this, I toned down the actual quote; I was worried that some clergy in the diocese might take it amiss that the implication could be construed that he didn't think their job was. But of course, that would be an unfair implication; I'm sure that he was indulging in conversational hyperbole.

Teenagers begin high court challenge against tuition fee rise

I don't think they'll succeed, but it'll be interesting if the case enables the facts to be heard. See here: Teenagers begin high court challenge against tuition fee rise | Education | guardian.co.uk:

Two teenagers have begun a case in the high court against the government's decision to let universities almost treble tuition fees next year

It will all hinge on two main challenges:

(1)... the rise in fees is in breach of the right to education protected in the Human Rights Act 1998. That right does not guarantee free higher education, but it does place curbs on steps that limit access to higher education ... and

(2) ... the government failed to give "due regard" to promoting equality of opportunity as required under the Race Relations, Sex Discrimination and Disability Discrimination Acts.

I don't think either will succeed because I suspect that the conditions under which the finances are actually granted are likely not to be considered a bad deal. In the case of the first objection, the fact that the student finance arrangements are arguably better than the previous arrangements (and I would say, in effect, closer to grants and a graduate tax) and in relation to the second objection; it's not debt as we normally understand it: it is written off if unpaid by a certain point, it is only payable on a PAYE basis once ones income reaches a (higher than present) certain point. It's in effect, a hypothecated graduate tax. The odd thing is that a Conservative administration has swallowed the idea -it's occured because it has been dressed up to look like a safely capitalist loan. But in effect, if the investment doesn't produce a graduate with the kind of lifetime increase in earnings usually predicted, well, the government picks up the bill. That's the real worry: sometime in the future, the books may not balance ...

But perhaps I've misunderstood something.

Of course, that is not to say anything about the rights and wrongs of various approaches to financing HE.

While we're on the topic, however, I think it may be worth considering an article about the future of HE. In this case in the USA, but I think some of the issues are transferable.

http://faithoncampus.com/four-disruptions-that-could-shake-up-college-ministry/ I'm particularly interested in the demographic issue combined with the issue of whether HE will continue to be considered a good investment. And on that issue, it's also worth having a read of this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/oct/31/university-open-days-soar; the consumer approach is finally coming home to roost; the faint beginnings have been with us a little while, but it seems to me that here it arrives in fulness.

Academic Congregations - Northumbria University

Last week I attended three congregations for the admission to degrees at Northumbria University. I have a few reflections which I managed to get down to writing up today.

This was the first time they had been held in the newly-opened Sport Central. This is essentially a sports' centre and the congregation was held in the main hall with the guests on the banked seating around three sides, the graduands in blocks in the middle facing a platform on the fourth wall. It was a typical 'call the name, walk across stage, shake hands' kind of ceremony. It was preceded (as people were taking their places) by extended promo videos on the two large screens set either side of the platform. The promotional films were well made and upbeat about the student experience and the benefits of a studying at Northumbria University. There was a brass band whose main function was to provide processional and recessional music. There was in the programme, and announced at the start, a request for there to be no clapping of individual graduands and no calling out or whistling. With regard to the former, every so often (every 20 or so graduands or at a change of subject area) there was an announced pause for applause. In some cases families or other well-wishers simply 'couldn't help themselves' and called or whistled a few particular candidates. This was particularly so towards the latter end of the longer of the congregations. I suspect a kind of boredom coupled with a sense that others got away with it emboldened people.

The ceremony opened and closed with formal announcements by the MC of the fact. The VC made a 5-10 min speech which I wondered whether it needed to have so much about the university as the pre-ceremony promotional videos had already kind of covered that ground. One of the things I find myself reflecting on most from the speech is that he mentioned that the intstitutiton that became the university was founded by "a Victorian philanthropist". I've been looking into the history of the Uni a bit and know that Rutherford was in fact not just a Victorian philanthropist but one who was motivated by his Christian faith and was able to mobilise the support among other support of his own Congregationalist Church in Bath Lane of which he was the minister. Admittedly Rutherford's vision was a non-sectarian (ie without religious tests or particularities) education, but I think that to elide the religious dimension altogether is perhaps significant and the possibility of reminding us of the Christian (Socialist) basis (albeit one which was 'non-Christendom') of the precursor institutions might be helpful in terms of handling religious diversity today by asserting that there is a place for a hospitable, co-operative, seeking-the-common-good kind of religious faith.

One of the other things I found myself reflecting on was the ceremonial use of space. It seemed that really what they'd tried to do was to recreate the kind of proscenium arch kind of experience much used in school halls, university halls where the space has been designed with a stage for theatrical experiences as well as to allow the platform party at assemblies and the like to see over the heads of others and to be seen by most of the assembled masses. This layout then dictates the form of ceremony.

The thing to note, though, is that if the space changes then new possibilities arise and old formats don't need to be followed. So there was a feel that the space was fighting the ceremony: the space is designed with sporting events such as basketball (Newcastle Eagles play there) in mind. In such a space everyone sees not because the spectacle is raised above their heads or to eye-level but because the seating is banked to look down on the central space where the action takes place. Arena not stage.

So I started to wonder whether there might be a more in-the-round, arena-style way to do the ceremony with the central point being for the central action and things being arranged concentrically around that. I take it that the main action is the handshake which represents being admitted to the degree (note not being /given/ a degree -though I saw graduands being given beribboned scrolls as the began their walk across stage, I took this to be a dummy rather than the actual degree certificate): the handshake is one of fellowship from a representative of the university and the action is performative; bringing the graduand into the fellowship of graduates of the university; a change of status is conferred. Thus the walk is from being an undergraduate to being a graduate: one enters the stage (or arena) un-degreed and leaves degreed; the performative point is the handshake. This might suggest, too, that they be handed the symbolic scroll as they leave the liminal space.

It would open up possibilities for ceremonial to attempt to use rather than fight the arena layout. Possibilities such as having the 'platform party' (consisting of representatives of the university senior management and governance and the school whose degrees are being awarded in that congregation) gathered around the central point of action (perhaps a quartered circle with four entrance and exit points). The screen could then be used better as ways to convey action from different vantage points to the guests (I did appreciate the use of two camera angles and screening the names of each graduand as they went across the platform, this capability could be extended and come into its own in the arena schema). It might be possible to consider assembling the graduands (given the extra space afforded by the venue) behind the guests and for them to come into the central arena space and perhaps be seated, having been admitted to their degrees, in the central area. Then at the end they could all be invited to stand and to turn to face the guests and be applauded and cheered, perhaps even to bow and wave, throw their hats in the air or whatever.

The band was interesting: they played nicely and suitable sorts of music (Handel, for example). However after they had played the processional piece they left the arena, and returned shortly before the end. This was a little distracting. I would guess that having them sit through an hour or more of naming-handshaking-clapping might be the reason to let them go, but I do wonder whether a less obtrusive way of deploying them could be found.

I also wondered whether having an obvious gathering of a cohort who would then be standing together to be clapped would help with the intrusive clapping/cheering/whooping that happened from time to time. I must admit the constant ripple of applause for every candidate that I have usually experienced is helpful in this but it is wearing, particularly when you come to the last quarter or so. So I applaud Northumbria Uni for trying to deal with that -I was really pleased when I saw in on the programme.

I was also interested to see the processional objects: a mace (of sorts -more a squared silver club than the spiky object that I usually associate with the term 'mace') and a sword (which I'm told has "Newcastle Polytechnic" written on it. I was interested because they are such martial objects which is rather at odds with the equality and diversity ethos of the institution. I found myself wondering whether it would be better to get an suitably artistic member of the university to design a way to turn the sword and mace into a figurative or perhaps literal ploughshare.

Academic Congregations - Northumbria University, Newcastle UK

University offers bespoke prospectuses

At first I thought that they were offering personalised degrees, but no, ...

"'The traditional prospectus has about 200 pages, of which around 120 are devoted to details about individual courses. Most students are only interested in four or five courses which means about 120 pages of a traditional prospectus are irrelevant to them.'
If a prospective student decides to order a hard copy, it will have their name printed on the cover and include a personal welcome message inside."

So it's just the prospectus. But the next step is to look at a personalised degree, don't you think? It'll cost, though.

University offers bespoke prospectuses | Special Reports | EducationGuardian.co.uk:

accountability and bureaucracy

A good question from an amusing and insightful essay.

There can be bureaucracy without accountability, but can there be accountability without bureaucracy?

An important question way beyond the Higher Ed community it's written from. It's a principalities and powers sort of question, and so has interested me. Is bureaucracy a necessary evil or can it be a kind of nervous system? And what distinguishes the two cases? I have to say I have come across instances of benign bureaucracy and, off the top of my head, would say that they have been to do with putting welfare of people first and balancing the needs of users and workers and have been marked by a humane approach rather than the petty form-filling jobsworth attitude. So I would add bureaucracy to my list of principalities, theologically understood to be part of God's purposes for good but capable of fallen behaviours.
Jonathan Wolff on accountability and bureaucracy | comment | EducationGuardian.co.uk