Introducing ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards to Graduate Schools of Theology

Abstract

This paper recommends that the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education of the Association of College and Research Libraries should be endorsed by the Association of Theological Schools' accreditation standards and implemented by theological schools to teach graduate students information literacy and to assess their learning outcomes. Several select theological research guides and the experience of a seminary's research methods course are closely examined in detailed comparison to the Information Literacy Competency Standards, their performance indicators and outcomes.     

Faith in the Research Process: Information Behavior at Claremont School of Theology

Abstract

Faith significantly affects the educational experience in graduate studies of religion and theology. This study explored the roles of graduate theological students’ religious faith and degree program affiliation in their information behaviors, particularly their degree-related research behaviors at Claremont School of Theology. The purpose was to explore problems in information action inherent to the dichotomy between academic study of theology that leads to Master of Arts (MA) degree and professional study of theology that leads to Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree. The research design incorporated interviews of MA and MDiv students regarding the roles of their religious faith, degree program affiliation and interpersonal information sources in their research processes. Data were collected, coded and analyzed as a lens into the social network of the theological research community. The study found that information behavior does relate to degree program affiliations and students’ religious faith. Degree program affiliation and religious faith background are relevant to graduate theological research processes and may be useful to consider in research consultations and bibliographic instruction in graduate theological education.     

Goal-setting in diabetes self-management: A systematic review and meta-analysis examining content and effectiveness of goal-setting interventions

Background: Goal-setting is recommended and widely used within diabetes self-management programmes. However, empirical evidence around its effectiveness lacks clarity. This review aims to evaluate the effectiveness of goal-setting interventions on diabetes outcomes and to determine which behaviour change techniques (BCTs) are frequently used within these interventions.

Methods: A systematic search identified 14 studies, describing 12 interventions targeting diabetic-control which incorporated goal-setting as the main intervention strategy. Study characteristics, outcome measures and effect sizes of the included studies were extracted and checked by two authors. The BCT taxonomy v1 was used to identify intervention content. Meta-analyses were conducted to assess intervention effects on the primary outcome of average blood glucose levels (HbA1c) and on body-weight. Psycho-social and behavioural outcomes were summarised in narrative syntheses.

Results: Significant post-intervention improvements in HbA1C were found (?.22, 95% CI, ?.40, ?.04) across studies. No other main effects were identified. The BCT ‘goal-setting (behaviour)’ was most frequently implemented and was identified in 84% of the interventions.

Conclusions: Goal-setting interventions appear to be associated with reduced HbA1C levels. However, the low numbers of studies identified and the risk biases across studies suggest more research is needed to further explore goal-setting BCTs in diabetes self-management.     

Well Trained Users in a Small Theological Library?

Abstract

Few published studies report on user training in theological libraries, despite the growing complexity in the task of finding theological information. This paper is a case study of the evaluation of user training in one small theological library. Using information literacy as a framework, the researcher describes his qualitative research design, then interprets the results. He found little formal evaluation. Additionally, library staff did not put together various pieces of information about the quality of user training available to them. Based on this case, the researcher proposes five lessons for other small theological libraries.     

Traitement de l’information sociale et profils dans le harcèlement scolaire chez les adolescents

IntroductionBullying is an insidious aggressive behavior characterized by repetitiveness, imbalance of power (a bully dominating his victim) and intent to do harm. People can fall into four different categories: bully, victim, bully/victim or not involved. While numerous researchers have explored the psychopathological consequences of intimidation, few of them have studied the way students with different profiles process social information.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to explore whether there are specific ways of processing social information in relation to the bullying profile. We refer to the theoretical model of Crick and Dodge (1994) and assume that this information will be processed differently depending on the adolescent's bullying profile.MethodSeven hundred and seventeen (717) secondary school students took part in semi-structured individual interviews and answered several questionnaires related to bullying and social information processing mechanisms.ResultsThe main results show links between social information processing mechanisms and the bullying profiles. Bullies, victims and bully/victims show biases in their social information processing mechanisms at different stages of the model.ConclusionSpecific cognitive patterns seem to exist in relation to the bullying profile. These results provide a better understanding of the way adolescents process social information and open-up new perspectives for preventing bullying in schools.     

What Is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic in Christian Theological Schools

This article argues for reconceptualizing islām as ‘wholeness making, peacemaking, well-being making, and safety making’ in the institutional setting of theological schools. A small number of Protestant seminaries have hired Muslim faculty and introduced Islamic studies programmes, thereby allowing for approaches to the study of Islam that focus on theology, professional practice and the lived experience of religion. Using the lens of translation studies, this article analyses the semantic and functional equivalence of this fourfold meaning in the Arabic source language and context, as well as the English target language and context, focusing on Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto as an example. The article demonstrates how this translation is linguistically more accurate than ‘submission’ and other conceptualizations and contextually better suited to meeting the theological and professional needs of students who venture into the workplace. Furthermore, the article shows how this fourfold translation serves as an overarching ethos in ethical reasoning, rendering the central theory of the objectives of the law (maqā?id al-sharī?a) functional and pragmatic. At the same time, it provides a foundation for dealing with diversity and difference in interreligious and intercultural settings.     

Relevant and Effective Theological Education in the Context of Twenty‐First Century South Asia

This essay considers Christian theological education in South Asia highlighting pertinent issues in pedagogical content, form, method, and praxis. Debunking the notion of students as “empty bottles” to be filled, and criticizing the top‐down model of education, the paper argues that theological education is an ongoing and interactive process in which students and teachers are participants who share and reflect upon each other's faith and socio‐cultural experiences. Participants reject, test, negotiate, and choose – while remaining open to the variety that is embodied in different human experiences. The paper stresses the relationship between the theological college and the church and calls for mutual responsibility, respect, and accountability. In an increasingly communal and fundamentalist atmosphere that poses a threat to multi‐culturalism, the role of the laity in shaping theological education is highlighted and public debate is encouraged. The paper calls for interactive and dialogic learning. A version of this paper was published in Ministerial Formation 100 (2003): 5–16.     

What Do We Compare When We Compare Religions? Philosophical Remarks on the Psychology of Studying Comparative Religion Abroad

The issue of comparison is a vexing one in religious and theological studies, not least for teachers of comparative religion in study abroad settings. We try to make familiar ideas fresh and strange, in settings where students may find it hard not to take “fresh” and “strange” as signs of existential threat. The author explores this delicate pedagogical situation, drawing on several years' experience directing a study abroad program and on the thought of figures from the Western existentialist tradition and Chinese Confucian philosophy. The article focuses particularly on “oh events” – defined as moments when one learns one has something to learn and something to unlearn. The author argues that the experience of shame that is typical of oh events can become a valuable resource for cross‐cultural learning and personal transformation, if teachers assist students to reflect on the experience as a sign of differing, but potentially harmonizable, cultural expectations. This essay is published alongside of six other essays, including a response from John Barbour, comprising a special section of the journal (see Teaching Theology and Religion 18:1, January 2015).     

The Ressourcement of Black Catholicism in Cyprian Davis,OSB

Fr. Cyprian Davis, OSB (1930–2015) was a Benedictine monk and the preeminent historian of black Catholicism in the United States. Although he began his scholarly career in the study of medieval monasticism, he brought cultural history methods of the Annales school to bear on black Catholicism. While he is known for his archival work on black Catholicism and spirituality, Davis's work should be understood as ressourcement, a theological retrieval of lost sources of black Catholicism. Cyprian Davis offers an iteration of ressourcement that takes seriously the often-violent rupture that black Catholics experienced. The theological vision that arises out of his historical recovery is one attentive to the experience of division, fragmentation, loss of traditional moorings, alienation from a wider tradition, and rejection by the church.     

Reproductive loss: toward a theology of bodies

ABSTRACT

Reproductive loss—the loss of a pregnancy before 24 weeks—is estimated to occur in 20-50% of all pregnancies. It is a common human experience. However, it is an experience that is shrouded in silence and mystery. Not only is reproductive loss culturally taboo but given the marked absence of theological reflection on the experience, it would seem to be theologically taboo as well. The experience of reproductive loss raises profound theological questions about what it means to be (a gendered) human, issues of suffering, the providence of God, and eschatology. This research considers some of the reasons for this theological silence and begins to examine the experience of reproductive loss with the aim of taking the embodied experience of the miscarrying woman seriously as a site for theological reflection.     

Curricular Information Demand in Theological Degrees: Operationalizing a Key Concept for Library Services

If seminary libraries exist to support student information needs, then librarians need specific knowledge about how a given school's curriculum shapes such needs. This article puts forward a model of the intended curriculum in master's-level theological education. Based on analysis of the intended theological curriculum (giving special attention to the use of student time), the author posits curricular information demand (CID) as a way to describe with precision how courses and degree programs expect students to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information. CID has a weaker measure based on analysis of syllabi and a stronger measure based on analysis of actual student work. The author presents examples of CID for courses at Austin Presbyterian Theological School. Finally, the author calls for research to analyze the usefulness of the model.     

Islamic mission and call: The case of the International Islamic University,Islamabad

The following paper begins with an outline of the motives for da^cwah as presented by the du^cat themselves, followed by a discussion of the significance of mission in Pakistan. The International Islamic University and its da'wah wing is documented in detail, with a focus on its ideological foundations and its objectives. The main part of the paper is devoted to how the Da^cwah Academy tries to conduct its programmes among different target groups, especially students, and how it acts at the international level using workshops and various media.     

A Critique of Wolfhart Pannenberg's Scientific Theology

Abstract

In Theology and the Philosophy of Science, Wolfhart Pannenberg argues that theology is on a par with the natural sciences, insofar as theological statements are hypotheses subject to confirmation or disconfirmation by experience. He defends his thesis by claiming that theology makes truth-claims about reality; and, second, that these are verifiable in the same sense that scientific statements are. I will argue that this thesis is wrong; and that the first claim could be right in a sense that has yet to be made clear; the second is not defensible even if fleshed out by some conceivable scientific scenario.     

Teaching and Self‐Formation: Why the Ignoble “Intro to World Religions” Really Matters

This paper explores the idea that the educational process plays a vital role in the formation and transformation of selves. Peter Hodgson's theological interpretation of education as paideia and Lucinda Huffaker's work on the achievement of “clarity of self” are brought together to demonstrate that empathy is central not only to evolution of self, but the educational process as well. The argument insists that introductory courses are places of immense potential for helping students in the lifelong task of achieving self‐clarity. The “Introduction to World Religions“ course is used as a practical illustration of the thesis.     

Leadership Development of Women Preparing for Ministry

This mixed-methods study investigates the leadership development and leadership skills of women graduate students at a theological seminary. Through the Student Leadership Practices Inventory (Student LPI) and Leadership Competency Inventory (LCI), demographic questionnaire, and focus group interviews, the researchers explored the leadership training the women had received and their perception of their leadership abilities and development needs. The findings showed that the women reported frequently demonstrated exemplary leadership practices and many possessed significant leadership experience. Participants scored highest on competencies utilizing people skills and lowest in areas reflecting competence in cognitive or strategic skills. While exposed to formal leadership education they reported receiving their leadership education primarily through observation and experience.     

Use of student support services among university students: associations with problem-focused coping,experience of personal difficulty and psychological distress

ABSTRACT

Universities provide a range of problem-focused social support services to help students who are experiencing personal difficulties. The current study examines how the effectiveness of students' (N = 131) problem-coping style, experience of personal difficulty and psychological distress are associated with actual use of support services in the academic setting. Results indicate that students who experienced a personal difficulty and who had a more reflective problem-coping style were more likely to use student support services. In addition, students with less effective problem-focused coping styles (more reactive and suppressive, less reflective) reported greater psychological distress. The potential personal, psychological and academic benefits of the reflective problem-coping style are discussed.     

TILLICHIAN TELEODYNAMICS: AN EXAMINATION OF THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL UNITY OF EMERGENT LIFE

Abstract Emergence theory has generated many significant new questions for dialogue between theology and science. My work will examine the models of one emergence theorist, Terrence Deacon, and consider the constructive potential of Tillich's multidimensional unity of life for responding to the theological ramifications of this account of emergence theory. Such a Tillich‐inspired constructive process will rely upon Robert Russell's method of “Creative Mutual Interaction.” Building on the interactive quality of Russell's method, I will also begin to offer suggestions for how Tillich's theological themes might influence scientific research programs using Deacon's emergence theory by contributing to the process of defining life. Finally, I will conclude by identifying three facets of continued research that stem from this analysis, focusing primarily on its implications for theological anthropology and what it means to be in the image of God.     

Creating Visionary and Enhanced Theological Institutions

Abstract. Theological school faculty at mid‐career often discover a bifurcated work environment in the theological institutions they serve. Scholarly and pedagogical passions can be set in tension with academic administrative responsibilities – each vying for the lion's share of time. In this essay the author plunges into murky vocational waters to explore possible contributing factors for the bifurcated existence mid‐career faculty experience. The essay suggests creative steps toward new visionary paradigms to aid theological institutions in adopting and modeling visionary theological education. This transformative model would strive to enhance community life, nurture leadership, foster intellectual formation, cope with institutional strife, and constructively shape an institution's future.     

Reforming authority,reforming obedience

Abstract

Past commentators have remarked on the apparent similarities in the theological methods and the attitudes toward God and the world that are to be found in the writings of Ignatius of Loyola and John Calvin, whose careers overlapped briefly at the Colle`ge de Montaigu in the University of Paris. This essay places them in dialogue, as it were, both with one another and within a common spiritual heritage, the late-medieval Devotio moderna or the Modern-day Devout. First, it argues that the influence of the Devout, especially as mediated through the personnel and institutional structures of Montaigu, can help explain the religious formation and mindset of both men. Second, the essay considers how ideas that bear the stamp of the Devout may have shaped Ignatius's and Calvin's views on specific theological topics such as ecclesiastical authority and religious obedience