Editor's Note

Abstract

It is a happy serendipity that we have both an article and a classroom note from New Zealand in this issue of Teaching Theology and Religion. Submissions from outside the United States and Canada provide valuable perspective and alternative models that clarify the overly familiar through comparison and contrast. Hence Tim Meadowcroft's description of the interplay of religious studies and theology in New Zealand casts a fresh nuance on what has become a tired debate for many of our readers. Lynne Wall's multicultural setting has created sensitivities in her that can stir up our habituated complacencies. I hope the editors will continue to receive these important reflections offering a variety of views “from where I stand . . .”– outside the more commonly represented North American sites of teaching and learning. At the same time and with this inaugural issue of the tenth year of Teaching Theology and Religion, I am cognizant of how different and more lively our local conversations about pedagogy have become in the last decade. The topic of teaching with technology is but one example of the extraordinary depth and range of emergent issues that have shaped our dialogue. Various types of student diversity, 9/11 and changing perceptions of religion and politics, and the heightened sensitivity to learning outcomes and assessment have all found expression in the robust conversation about good teaching in which the Journal participates. As I end my tenure as co-editor of Teaching Theology and Religion and my time at the Wabash Center, I could not be more pleased and excited about the new leadership for both. Dena S. Pence, as Director of the Wabash Center and co-editor of the Journal, brings considerable experience in teaching and editing that will be quickly manifest through timely topics and an expanded group of contributors. Patricia O’Connell Killen, winner of numerous teaching awards and highly respected for her ability to conceptualize and communicate the subtleties of the scholar's craft of teaching, will continue as co-editor with Dr. Pence. I am grateful that it is so easy to leave the work with such competent and visionary leaders! And I am enormously grateful for the staff of the Wabash Center who tirelessly perform the daily tasks that actually make Teaching Theology and Religion come together – Rita Arthur, Paul Myhre, and Tom Pearson. Teaching and learning is the life work of academics. A job, a career, a profession or vocation – however we think of it, if we honor the work through time, care, and our best reflective capacities, it is much more likely to become a meaningful and personally sustaining expression of our gifts and graces for others.