Archives for 2016

Since 9/11, colleges and universities have increased their course offerings in Islamic traditions and Muslim cultures. Yet, it seems that anti-Muslim rhetoric is everywhere. In Caleb Elfenbein’s recent blog, he points out that our students know only the world with our “war on terror” or rather he suggests it is ...

To teach is to create worlds. Worlds known and unknown, worlds that we will visit and be visited by, worlds that will haunt us. Worlds that we hope students will engage in many ways. Worlds that hopefully will show the ways in which their own worlds are constituted so they ...

Teaching the Qur’an can be a formidable undertaking. Even though the Qur’an is an abiding research interest of mine, it makes teaching the scripture no less challenging. What do I choose to cover and how should I go about it in the course of a single semester? There ...

After about six months and fifteen horrible haircuts in the San Francisco Bay area I finally found somebody who could give me a decent haircut, and I became a loyal customer for the next six and a half years. Even now, when I’m back in Berkeley, I stop in ...

Theological school deans are not just theological leaders for their institution, they must be EDUCATIONAL leaders. That is, they must implement sound educational practices related to curriculum, instruction, supervision, assessment, and administration. While faculty members can focus on course-level and individual student learning assessment, academic deans need to implement program-level ...