Case Study with Women Faculty in Denver
Background:
Some faculty have the time and desire to lead faculty ministry events. Others welcome an event but hope for a catalyst to make it happen. For those who welcome someone from the outside coming in to help, I have found that simply showing up with my title, a word or two from Scripture, and a few good questions, can be powerful. Something happens beyond expectations.
Case Study:
Before a recent trip to Denver, I reached out to a couple I had met the summer before at a GFM faculty conference. He is on staff with GFM in Denver and she is a faculty member at a Christian college there. As I would be in the area, I offered to meet with any women faculty or grad students who would be interested. There was interest, and a gathering was planned for women faculty coming together for lunch with me as the speaker. The day after the announcement, six people committed to coming. When I showed up at the lunch the following day, there were ten women.
In my presentation, “Challenges and Opportunities as a Woman in the Academy,” I identified the three areas of challenge I hear as I talk with women faculty— “poly-loneliness” faced by Christian women academics who feel like outsiders in both academia and in their churches, the challenges of work/life coherence, and the internal and external impediments to their flourishing. Then I made a few comments and opened it up for their response. The conversation took off!
It was interesting to me to hear these women describe their challenges—very similar to the ones I hear from women faculty in other schools. Even though they are serving at Christian colleges, many find that in the church their education is seen as unnecessary and they are often suspected of arrogance or conceit. One woman told us her husband suggested she introduce herself as a teacher as she’d had so much negative reaction when she identified herself as a professor. Another woman tells people she attended a school in New Jersey. Her PhD is from Princeton, but she feels awkward saying so.
Although this group had never met before, these women all agreed they wanted to continue to meet. Any of them would have been qualified to initiate a group like this. But what they needed was a catalyst.
Reflections:
- There is power in just getting people together and giving them space to be seen, to talk, and to be heard.
- Women faculty in Christian institutions are saying the same things as their counterparts at state schools or other non-Christian schools both in terms of how they experience their jobs as women and how they are treated in the Christian community.
- One simple event can be the catalyst to forming a supportive witnessing community.
Conclusion:
Sometimes it takes someone (an “expert”) coming in from the outside to be the catalyst for a group to form or to initiate an event. Once a group has come together, it can often draw on the resources within itself to keep going and minister on campus.
If you think a catalyst would be helpful to start something on your campus, contact me or another GFM staff. We would be glad to work with you and explore what God might have in store.
