\u201cI love Jesus, and I like ladies.\u201d <\/p>\n
I can still hear the graduate students\u2019 laughter as I candidly used that line to explain how my Christian faith and queer identity informed my work as a faculty member. Looking at my curriculum vitae, it is easy to see how my positionality has shaped my research agenda, leading me to explore questions related to religion in higher education and the experiences of LGBTQ+ collegians. <\/p>\n
Likewise, the years I spent in seminary and later as a campus minister profoundly shaped my approach to teaching and advising. Though I had long ago left the world of full-time ministry behind, I remained pastoral in my approach to student support as a faculty member. As I saw it, my responsibility was not only to nurture students intellectually but also to attend to the fullness of their humanity. <\/p>\n
Undoubtedly, all faculty bring their beliefs and identities to their work. Yet, until recently, little was known about faculty members\u2019 religious, spiritual, and secular (RSS) affiliations and how their worldviews shape their teaching, research, and service. <\/p>\n
Last month, a research team led by Dr. Matthew J. Mayhew\u2014the William Ray and Marie Adamson Flesher Professor of Educational Administration with a focus on Higher Education and Student Affairs at The Ohio State University\u2014released findings from their national mixed-methods study, InFORM (Including Faculty on Religious, Spiritual, & Secular Mattering). <\/p>\n
As Mayhew explains in the project\u2019s overview video, \u201cThis project is not only looking at where faculty differ; it is asking what gives their life\u2019s work meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n
The national study found that faculty need better preparation to engage worldview differences in the classroom; religious inclusion may offer common ground across political divides; and race and religion come together to explain faculty motivation in teaching, research, and service.<\/p>\n
Given the central role faculty play in shaping students\u2019 educational experiences and outcomes, the InFORM findings have implications not only for faculty themselves but also for the students they serve. Additionally, as heightened attention is directed to faculty members\u2019 political ideologies, InFORM illuminates the commonalities that exist across worldview differences. <\/p>\n
As Mayhew notes, \u201cWe\u2019re all motivated to make sure that our work reaches people beyond the audience of the academic journal, making sure that our life\u2019s work has meaning, and I think that\u2019s what brings us together.\u201d<\/p>\n
For me, that is one of the study\u2019s most striking outcomes. As someone who continues to serve as an adjunct faculty member, InFORM reminds me that my colleagues, too, are complex individuals whose work is likely motivated by their deeply held religious, spiritual, or secular commitments. Although they may not \u201clove Jesus and like the ladies,\u201d the study suggests that I likely have far more in common with my faculty peers than I once assumed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cI love Jesus, and I like ladies.\u201d I can still hear the graduate students\u2019 laughter as I candidly used that line to explain how my Christian faith and queer identity informed my work as a faculty member. Looking at my curriculum vitae, it is easy to see how my positionality has shaped my research agenda, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[518],"tags":[1039,486,1041,520,523,1037,519,522,1038,1040,535,1042,1044,463,521,799,1036,1043],"class_list":["post-871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interfaith-family-ethics","tag-academics","tag-education","tag-explores","tag-family-ethics","tag-higher","tag-inner","tag-interfaith","tag-interfaith-parenting","tag-motivations","tag-national","tag-religious","tag-secular","tag-shape","tag-spiritual","tag-spiritual-diversity","tag-study","tag-unveiling","tag-worldviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualparent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualparent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualparent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualparent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualparent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualparent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualparent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritualparent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualparent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritualparent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}