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 CURRENT ISSUE
Letter from the EditorDear Colleagues, The start to a new year provides a natural time to reflect upon where we currently stand in light of how far we’ve come and where we are going as a higher education community. Specifically, it presents the opportunity to uncover what might have previously been overlooked in order to move forward toward new growth and potential. While social justice issues have long been at the forefront of our higher education dialogue, we are now just beginning to explore and understand how spirituality and religious diversity play a role in advocating for social justice. The many ways spirituality interfaces with identity formation and development – especially in the college years – should not be overlooked when we consider how to create more inclusive, supportive campus communities. This edition presents many thought-provoking pieces that explore various identity intersections, highlighting the connection between spirituality and social justice through a variety of approaches and perspectives. An interview with Professor Dafina Lazarus Stewart highlights the importance of analyzing multiple identity intersections and the impact spirituality and religious diversity has on college student development inside and outside the classroom. Jennifer Pigza and Marshall Welch add another layer of depth to this dialogue by introducing a new framework – Spiritually Engaged Pedagogy – that helps us understand how spirituality and social justice influence both teaching and learning. Additionally, Julie Park draws upon her ethnographic research of a Christian fellowship group that used faith to dialogue on race in order to dissect prejudice, demonstrating how faith-based communities provide environments that can promote a social justice agenda. Lastly, Patricia Wolfe Anton presents a practitioner’s perspective on how spiritual and religious identities can be integrated into staff training and development in order to broaden the dialogue around promoting social justice and building bridges across differences to unite colleagues together. Living in the midst of economic confusion and a growing sense of societal fragmentation, there has never been a better time in history to collaborate and connect, sharing our limited resources as we seek to better understand our colleagues and students who make our campuses – and our lives – so vibrant and full. As we move forward with this work, we must ask, “how do (and can) our multiple identities inform and enhance each other to promote more unity, oneness, and interconnectedness to others?” Creating an ecumenical community of caring that is fueled by empathy and compassion for the “other” based on our spiritual identities is the truest test of social justice and diversity advocacy. Please feel free to contact me at spiritualitynewsletter@gseis.ucla.edu if you have any comments about this edition or suggestions for future Newsletter topics. Thank you for your continued readership and we look forward to hearing from you soon! Leslie M. Schwartz
Spirituality and Social Justice: Exploring Identity Intersections - An Interview with Dafina Lazarus Stewart
In this interview, Dr. Dafina Lazarus Stewart describes how identity intersections should inform and influence our work within higher education – specifically focusing on how spirituality and religious diversity connects to social justice. As a former Student Affairs practitioner and current faculty member, Stewart highlights the need to become advocates and allies on our campuses, creating spaces for students to explore how multiple layers of their identities interface with their sense of spirituality and/or religion.
This article proposes a new framework – Spiritually Engaged Pedagogy – that draws on the intersecting literature of spirituality, social justice, engaged spirituality, and engaged pedagogy. Spiritually engaged pedagogy integrates the cognitive (head), affective (heart), and behavioral (hands) aspects of learning and development, and posits that all are teachers and learners in the process. In addition to describing the development of this pedagogy, the authors provide academic and co-curricular examples and pose implications for professional development.
In her article, Park explores how religious faith traditions and practices can serve as a foundation to spur dialogue around race and diversity issues. Drawing on findings from an ethnographic case study, Park discusses how the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at “West Coast University” used their faith as a springboard to take on issues of race. Her findings show that religion can also play an important role in unraveling and challenging prejudice.
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