{"id":801,"date":"2010-10-19T11:41:02","date_gmt":"2010-10-19T16:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/?p=801"},"modified":"2010-10-19T11:41:02","modified_gmt":"2010-10-19T16:41:02","slug":"the-heart-of-higher-education-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/the-heart-of-higher-education-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Heart of Higher Education: Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We had a good and passionate discussion Monday afternoon at the first meeting of this year's faculty book club. That was my feeling, and I hope the sentiment was shared. We began by going around the table; each person introduced themselves and explained why they signed up for the book club. Thus we all shared what expectations we brought to our reading. Of the eleven people at the table, three cited Parker Palmer as one of the reasons they were eager to read <cite><a href=\"http:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/8705697-the-heart-of-higher-education\">The Heart of Higher Education<\/a><\/cite>.<\/p>\n<p>Next, we followed the authors' advice on page seven, looking at the Wendell Berry quote on page one and asking, \"What do you think?\" From there we moved on to the concept of integrative learning and the critiques against it.<\/p>\n<p>As the conversation opened up, a number of themes emerged. I will try to summarize the ones that seemed most salient to me, though I'm sure I'm missing plenty.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For ourselves as teachers, the need to examine \"who we are\" rather than technique<\/li>\n<li>For our students, the need to focus on inquiry rather than answers<\/li>\n<li>The importance of conveying a sense of awe and wonder<\/li>\n<li>Holistic perspectives need to be woven into discussions on our campus (one faculty member reported only having such discussions off-campus)<\/li>\n<li>One faculty member confessed: We are not connecting with students in our program as we should<\/li>\n<li>Our relation to students may have moved from transformational to transactional<\/li>\n<li>We may do more integrative learning than big research institutions \u2014 but perhaps less than we did twenty years ago<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>With regard to the first point, I wanted to mention our upcoming discussion session, \"Who Are You?\" Dr. Miranti's comments in particular bolstered my confidence that this was a good topic to pursue at this time. You can find details on <a href=\"http:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/events\/?id=01088\">our website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to everyone for participating in Monday's conversation, both verbally and through respectful listening. I was struck today by a passage on the \"sociology of knowledge\" in another book I'm reading, <cite><a href=\"http:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/7414775-dark-green-religion\">Dark Green Religion<\/a><\/cite> by Bron Taylor: \"What people perceive and believe is shaped by conversation.\" Simple and obvious, perhaps, but also profound. It is my hope that our conversations will continue to be just as transformational as the education we hope to offer our students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We had a good and passionate discussion Monday afternoon at the first meeting of this year's faculty book club. That was my feeling, and I hope the sentiment was shared. We began by going around the table; each person introduced themselves and explained why they signed up for the book club. Thus we all shared <a href=\"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/the-heart-of-higher-education-part-1\/\" class=\"more-link\">...continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \"The Heart of Higher Education: Part 1\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[44,236,316],"class_list":{"0":"post-801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-integrative","7":"tag-book-club","8":"tag-parker-palmer","9":"tag-the-heart-of-higher-education","10":"h-entry","11":"hentry","12":"h-as-article"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p82MQk-cV","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5008,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/conversation-28\/","url_meta":{"origin":801,"position":0},"title":"Conversation #28: Service Learning","author":"Bart Everson","date":"December 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Download Conversation #28 A conversation with Jeremy Tuman of Xavier University of Louisiana on teaching, learning and service learning. Ultimately I think a transformative experience is one in which students internalize the idea that reality is not fixed \u2014 that all of these social problems are products, by-products, results of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Old Podcast Archive (\u22642018)&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Old Podcast Archive (\u22642018)","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/podcast\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":757,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/beginning-with-silence\/","url_meta":{"origin":801,"position":1},"title":"Beginning with Silence","author":"Bart Everson","date":"September 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this semester, after eleven years working in faculty development, I led my first session that didn't have anything to do with technology. The subject? A moment of silence. We began the session with a brief moment of silence, then I asked some questions to prompt a short discussion. What\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Transformative Banquet&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Transformative Banquet","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/integrative\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4938,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/xavier-faculty-react-to-earth-in-mind\/","url_meta":{"origin":801,"position":2},"title":"Xavier Faculty React to Earth in Mind","author":"Bart Everson","date":"December 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"For our eighth annual Fall Faculty Book Club, we read Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect by David Orr. At our final meeting, we asked our participating faculty to jot down some thoughts. Here is what they wrote. For my first faculty book club experience, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Transformative Banquet&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Transformative Banquet","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/integrative\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2460,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/xavier-faculty-react-to-sentipensante-pedagogy\/","url_meta":{"origin":801,"position":3},"title":"Xavier Faculty React to Sentipensante Pedagogy","author":"Bart Everson","date":"November 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"For our seventh annual Fall Faculty Book Club, we read Sentipensante (Sensing\/Thinking) Pedagogy: Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice and Liberation by Laura I. Rend\u00f3n. At our final meeting, we asked our participating faculty to jot down some thoughts. Here is what they wrote. The book challenged traditional approaches to teaching\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Transformative Banquet&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Transformative Banquet","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/integrative\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2016,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/sources-of-inspiration\/","url_meta":{"origin":801,"position":4},"title":"Sources of Inspiration","author":"Karen Nichols","date":"September 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"With the beginning of the fall semester came an increase in my workload and in the general activity of CAT. That's a good thing, but it's time again to post my bi-weekly blog and I hadn't really thought out in advance what I wanted to say. Rather than procrastinate, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;CAT &amp; Mouse: E-Learning&quot;","block_context":{"text":"CAT &amp; Mouse: E-Learning","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/online\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"What are your sources of inspiration?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-content\/uploads\/DSC021101-264x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5292,"url":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/conversation-29\/","url_meta":{"origin":801,"position":5},"title":"Conversation #29: Sustainability in Higher Education","author":"Bart Everson","date":"January 14, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Download Conversation #29 A conversation with Meghan Fay Zanhiser of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education on teaching, learning and sustainability in higher education. We are a nonprofit membership-based organization that exists to serve anyone in higher education working on sustainability. Meghan Fay Zanhiser is the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Old Podcast Archive (\u22642018)&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Old Podcast Archive (\u22642018)","link":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/topic\/podcast\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cat.xula.edu\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}