For me personally, faces of students keep coming to mind鈥揻rom the UW, Cascadia College, and some of the faces in our community at 天美视频. Students who were brave enough to tell the truth about their experiences in higher education. Students who asked me if I knew the racist history behind a phrase I was using. Students who asked me to account for why there were not more faculty and staff of color. Students who taught me that parts of their identities were silenced when teachers requested that they conform to written academic discourse. Students who were often braver and better at imagining love and justice in the world than me. Students who are still teaching me to see, and to listen.

As your Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning, I am committed to doing the work to make our school more inclusive and more welcoming to students of color. I recognize our need to review our syllabi, curriculum, and grading expectations for the ways in which whiteness is privileged. I am committed to collaborating with OSA to hear the experiences and needs of students of color at our school. I am committed to continuing to listen, research, and learn. Both in our culture at large and especially within our red brick building and all our learning spaces at 天美视频 where we train students to serve God and neighbor through transforming relationships, we want better, which means we need to do better. My commitment is to stay in the hard work, and to stay engaged in conversation and relationship as we do so.

Both in our culture at large and especially within our red brick building and all our learning spaces at 天美视频 where we train students to serve God and neighbor through transforming relationships, we want better, which means we need to do better.

As I sit with faculty during the last several weeks, we grieve and lament the ongoing killing of Black Americans by police, and also the harm done to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color by the system of oppression that is built from the ground up in America. We grieve on behalf of our students, staff, and faculty of color who have experienced individual and collective racial trauma, we also recognize that our institution has not always been welcoming to or supportive of some members of our community.

We did not want to just make another statement. Instead, we want to commit to remain in sustained conversation about how to live into the mission of 天美视频 with greater awareness of and attunement to anti-racism. We believe in the power of words to speak something into being and out into the world, as prayer, as a commitment, as a declaration to which we ask to be held accountable. Yet we also understand that a statement of grief and lament is insufficient. We are called to transforming relationship, and the physical, tangible actions that flow therefrom. We recognize that those of us who are white have much to learn, need to do our work and teach ourselves and one another鈥揳nd follow the lead of people of color. We recognize, deeply, our need to listen, to stay engaged in the conversation and the hard work of self-examination in a sustained way. We have work to do.

We are called to transforming relationship, and the physical, tangible actions that flow therefrom

In the posts that follow in the coming weeks, the Faculty have committed to engage with each other and our colleagues through deep listening, ongoing dialogue, and self-examination. We commit to do this so in light of our call toward transforming relationships鈥揳 call that is at the core of who we are, a call that is the methodology of our mission of serving God and neighbor. As we engage in reflection and conversation with one another in relationship, and as we do so with transparency and in public, we also seek to move toward generative action.

It鈥檚 probably going to get messy. We will work hard to decenter whiteness and elevate other voices. We will invite the voices of our colleagues of color, to speak, to be heard, and we will strive to do so in relationship and in partnership, without tokenizing people of color or merely performing inclusion. We will need to be corrected. We will likely need to apologize. We commit, however, to acknowledging and resisting and staying engaged in the conversation.

As I grapple with my own whiteness and commit to being accountable, these are a few of the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) scholars, leaders, and activists, I鈥檓 listening to and learning from:

• , author of How to Be an Anti-Racist and Stamped From the Beginning
• , author of Me and White Supremacy
• , academic and instructor of online course The Great Unlearn and author of a public address on Revolution
• Alishia McCullough, mental health therapist
• Ijeoma Oluo, Seattle-based author of

鈥淭he opposite of racist isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is ‘anti-racist.’ What’s the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an anti-racist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an anti-racist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an anti-racist. There is no in-between safe space of ‘not racist.鈥�
鈥� Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

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鈥淚 will always be studying and knowing and growing because God is so much beyond my own intellect. This is the place where our knowing can expand beyond the small ways that maybe we have been taught. In order for people to step into healing, we need a renewed imagination that steps beyond what we鈥檝e known before.鈥� Dr. Chelle Stearns

Students at 天美视频 learn to encounter and sit with stories鈥攊ncluding their own. How we were formed, our way of being in the world, and our relationship to God and neighbor all have a profound impact on who we are and who we will become. Understanding how these areas intersect is critical to a student鈥檚 formation as a therapist, counselor, pastor, leader, or artist.聽

Here, Dr. Chelle Stearns and counseling psychology students reflect on their own journeys through the program and how they鈥檝e been transformed at this intersection of theology and psychology along the way. Learn more about our graduate programs including our Master of Theology & Culture and our Master of Counseling Psychology.

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The 鈥�&鈥� in our name is essential to who we are 鈥� we train therapists in our counseling psychology program, but through a distinctively theological lens. We offer programs in and , but with attention to the . Our distinctiveness is, in part, a result of our commitment to keep the fields of theology, biblical studies, and psychology in conversation.

What is Interdisciplinary Learning?

In order to understand interdisciplinary learning, we have to understand what we mean by disciplines 鈥� that is, the academic disciplines. It鈥檚 easy to think about disciplines as static institutions, but academic disciplines themselves are far from monolithic and unified.

Disciplines are complex, multi-layered, and dynamic. Most important, they are made up of people: scholars investigating questions, teaching students, contributing to knowledge, and advancing their fields. A more helpful way of thinking about disciplines is to think about them as communities with a set of shared (but sometimes contested) questions, objects of study, practices, epistemologies, methodologies, and vocabularies. ¹

Interdisciplinary learning first involves adopting what Rebecca Nowacek calls 鈥渕eta-disciplinary awareness鈥� ² 鈥� that is, an ability to see the disciplines as disciplines, examining their assumptions and biases and frameworks, and paying attention to what the disciplines help us see and what they might not. The metaphor I like to use is that of a pair of glasses: if the disciplines are a pair of glasses you might put on to examine an object of study or a question, then metadisciplinary awareness asks us to pay attention to the glasses themselves: What are they made of? How do they 鈥渨ork?鈥� How were they formed, or how did they come to be the way they are? What do they help us see, and what might they obscure?

Interdisciplinary learning, then, recognizes that most of the interesting problems in the world are complex enough that a single perspective isn鈥檛 enough to help us fully see and understand them. We need many voices, and many perspectives, to get a full picture of a person, a phenomenon, an idea, or a problem.

Interdisciplinarity is collaborative at its core, recognizing that one perspective is insufficient for fully understanding a situation; we see and understand better when we work together. Interdisciplinary learning is more than just studying multiple academic disciplines side by side鈥搕hat would be Multidisciplinarity learning, the side by side use of disciplinary understandings without integration. The key to bringing various disciplines together in Interdisciplinarity is integration.

Metaphors can prove useful in understanding what makes Interdisciplinary learning different from other kinds of frameworks. A bowl of fruit could be helpful to think of when thinking about multidisciplinarity. There, each individual fruit sits on its own — peaches are discernable as peaches, bananas as bananas. But Interdisciplinary integration is a lot like a smoothie — fruits come together to create something new, a blended creation where each distinctive fruit is harder to discern. Instead what you have is a delicious, cohesive mixture. Another metaphor we can use is that of a bridge. Interdisciplinarity can be bridge building in the sense that a bridge connects two points (in this case knowledge from two or more disciplines) that would otherwise remain separate.

Why is Interdisciplinary Learning Important at 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology?

The challenges we face in our world are complex and multifaceted. We are complex and multifaceted, and we are understanding that reality more and more deeply as we walk about our neighborhoods, engage in relationships, and participate in our local and global communities. The world needs leaders, thinkers, pastors, artists, and therapists who can approach their work in multifaceted and complex ways. At 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology, we embrace this approach in our name, in our programs, and in our curriculum.

Interdisciplinary learning at 天美视频 means that our faculty have deep expertise in their own fields, but also dexterity in conversations with experts in other fields. Our faculty work together on curriculum and committees, teach together, and even share offices across disciplinary boundaries. What results are generative conversations, consideration of multiple viewpoints and perspectives, and innovative collaboration and curiosity.

Interdisciplinary learning at 天美视频 means that students choose a degree program that meets their vocational needs, but programs are complemented by coursework in the other programs, including a Common Curriculum that invites students to move between the fields of theology and psychology.

Our offers opportunities for encounter, translation, and integration. Interdisciplinary Learning at 天美视频 encompasses all of these things at different points along the journey. Sometimes that means that students might encounter disciplinary questions, ideas, or ways of thinking that help them see the world from a different vantage point. Other times this means that students may find themselves translating what happens across various courses into new language as they make sense of the theological and psychological ways of engaging the world.

Ultimately, we hope the aim is integration, that as our students encounter coursework in the various disciplines, they begin to develop a critical understanding of what each discipline affords and constrains. That is, what it allows us to see and do, as well as its limitations. It is a way of weaving together a multifaceted way of engaging one鈥檚 vocation that draws from the theological and the psychological.

“Given the complexity of today鈥檚 world, we need thinkers and do-ers who understand that complexity. The Interdisciplinary approach offered at 天美视频 prepares students to create holistic solutions by weaving together disciplinary insights as well as both contextual and systemic thinking. As students explore text, soul, and culture, through various methodological frameworks, they come to see their own work as integral to the multi-dimensional fabric of social transformation.” Dr. Jennifer Fernandez

Resources

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鈥淲e are elated that this hard work has come to a good end. It is a sign of our collective commitment to grow, develop, and mature as an institution,鈥� said Dr. J. Derek McNeil, President and Provost. 鈥淭his is a significant milestone, one that has been twelve years in the making.鈥�

The journey toward accreditation began in 2015 when NWCCU approved 天美视频 as an Applicant for Candidacy. As a candidate, the school underwent a rigorous review process and multi-day site visits by the accrediting body, culminating in a final visit in the Fall of 2019. The site team, led by Dr. Linda Samek, Provost, George Fox University, left this last visit with affirming commendations and insights for continued growth.

鈥淭he accreditation process was for us, a very useful and rewarding experience,鈥� said Cheryl Goodwin, Director of Institutional Assessment and Library Services. 鈥淚t made us reflect on our teaching and assessment, challenged us to be self-critical, and gave us extremely valuable guidance to improve our students鈥� educational experience. It is a testament to the dedication of our faculty, staff, students, and alumni who have worked tirelessly in pursuit of accreditation as an important step in the fulfillment of our mission of serving God and neighbor.鈥�

Throughout this process, key members of the institution worked tirelessly to create an Interim Candidacy Self Evaluation Report and ensure all recommendations from the evaluation team were met in a timely manner. The Candidacy stage, as noted in an earlier press release, allows an institution to clarify the institution鈥檚 capacity for long-term impact. 天美视频 achieved accreditation in approximately a year and a half, well ahead of the average Candidacy period of two to four years.

鈥淣WCCU is committed to an accreditation process that adds value to institutions while contributing to public accountability, and we thank you for your continued support of this process,鈥� said Dr. Sonny Ramaswamy, NWCCU President, acknowledging the school鈥檚 achievement.

In their official letter of action, the Commission commended 天美视频 for:

• Its committed, caring, and high-quality faculty and staff.
• The integration of theology and psychology and its deep embodiment of the integrative experience through the holistic student education process as offered by faculty and staff, including the active and relational follow up with alumni.
• Highly committed and well-qualified administrators and trustees who demonstrated steadiness and took on additional responsibilities, all with a keen focus on mission fulfillment.

鈥淎ccreditation through the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities marks 天美视频 as an institution that has successfully engaged in a rigorous evaluation process alongside other quality institutions in our region. We are grateful for the years of hard work by our accreditation team, faculty, and staff, and for the maturity and growth that the process has ignited for us as an institution,鈥� said Misty Anne Winzenried, PhD, Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning.

In his announcement to faculty, staff, and students President McNeil stated: 鈥淚t is with great hope and expectation that we look to the future of 天美视频. To the upcoming graduates who will be among the first to culminate their degree with this distinction, and to partnerships that we will build with other institutions and organizations across the Pacific Northwest. We have much to offer, and much to learn and receive.鈥�

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