Holistic Education Requires Soul in the Curriculum, say SWC Leaders…

Today, eight leaders of Southwestern College (Me, Robert Waterman, Katherine Ninos, Webb Garrison, Deborah John, Jason Holley, Laura Lansrud-Lopez, and Gabrielle Viethen), met for over two hours, discussing the role of  “Soul” and  ”Consciousness” at Southwestern College, among a great many other things…

We discussed how to have open conversations about these sometimes charged and triggering Words/Constructs/Topics, and about how and why they ARE charged and triggering for some. We talked about how best to foster what Miller, in the book “Education for the Soul”, calls a “Soulful Curriculum.” We collectively felt like many of us already do it pretty well, but were wondering about how to do it better, how to most intentionally live our mission in the classroom.

We found ourselves completely quiet at times. We noted that to ourselves…At other times, we asked a lot of questions, and reminded ourselves we did not need to rush to answers…We had a lot of thoughts…Not a surprise—look at who was IN there…Those are some strong voices and personalities…There were master teachers in that room. Yet nobody dominated. Nobody was a know-it-all. Everyone was heard, and everyone was listening…It was that kind of space…

It was kind of sacred, really, as we were hovering around the fire that is the soul and mission of Southwestern College, and we all knew it, and there was respect and awe in the room. It was clear that what we were about was something really much bigger than all of us, and we knew that our coming together to “be” with these topics was our best gift to current and future students…

We discovered that conflict is a great invitation to “meet at the level of soul”, rather than get stuck in an ego place where nobody is listening anyway. It was a wonderful start to a new initiative to get more and more clarity about our mission, our language, and what we expect of our faculty and students…We discovered too, that, while we will NOT define the” College’s understanding of Consciousness or Soul”, and while we will doggedly refuse to get dogmatic at that level, we WILL insist that we WILL discuss it at our school, and we WILL bring it into the classroom. We articulated that while we are not dogmatic, we do have a strong body of principles. We talked about how and why students or faculty might find themselves in resistance to any of this, to the notion of Soul or Consciousness in the classroom. We talked about the difference between Art Therapy and Counseling, the perceptions each discipline held of the other and of itself.  There were strong representatives of both disciplines in the room…

I am still kind of in a quiet awe as I think about the potential magnitude of this beginning…I think it is safe to say that I never attended a school where the faculty that were  entrusted with providing the core value of my educational experience sat around together in holy time to discuss how they were going to best accomplish for me what I most needed to receive at that stage in my professional development. That is what we were doing, where we will be going in future meetings of this group. I have to say, as I write this, and feel it,  that I am proud of Southwestern College, proud of the founders,who are still “open at the top”, proud of the newer faculty, so on fire for doing what they do well, and with integrity, and with soul…

It was a good day for Southwestern College…These meetings will go on…There is much work to be done…We will do it…Art Therapy with Soul, Spiritual Counseling…..We like the sound of that…

Jim Nolan

About the Moderator

Jim Nolan
Jim Nolan is in his 6th year as president of Southwestern College. He has worked for a dozen universities or colleges, both online and on the ground. He holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, and attended graduate school in English/Irish Literature. He reads a lot of books, takes a lot of photos, plays guitar, got married in India in 2010, and has a wire haired fox terrier named Barney. He is the opposite of a guru, whatever that is called.