When I started planning my sabbatical, I thought, “Ooh, I’ll have all this time. I could take two classes at United rather than my usual one per term.” I quickly realized that this would soak up a great deal of the time freed by sabbatical, that there is no hurry to move through my program, and that I should stick with just one course. So I did: The Arts for Leadership (the course description and syllabus is probably viewable on one of the lists here, though maybe not when you read this, since the course lists change with each semester). Assuming that the final project I turned in a couple of weeks ago was satisfactory, I have completed three credits, putting me 1/3 of the way to the DMin degree. The last three credits are the dissertation and, immediately preceding it, the DMin Practicum and the Research Tools and [Dissertation] Proposal. So I have only three more courses before that process begins, which feels rather sad since there are at least half a dozen courses I am itching to take. (One of United’s perks for its graduates is that we can audit courses for free, so I can carry on that way.)

The purpose of the DMin degree is highly pragmatic, as a rule: while one’s dissertation must be academically rigorous, the aim is less to produce original scholarship and more to learn something that one can apply in one’s ministry. This semester’s course was organized the same way, with the final project being the outline of a plan (integrating the arts and leadership, of course) that we could then implement in our setting. My plan is to facilitate the creation of a mural by guests of three programs for unhoused people that UUCPA hosts, literally putting their vision for the wider community before everyone’s eyes. So this course was a perfect fit with the sabbatical, since it sends me back to UUCPA with a plan in hand for a project that I think will work really well in our congregation. The fact that this was my course this semester was a happy accident; it is required for the DMin in Theology and the Arts, and this was my first opportunity to take it. I’d heard that the professor (Rev. Dr. Cindi Beth Johnson) was top-notch, and the rumors were spot on.

Since I had so many other things I wanted to do, reported in my “Sabbatical activity” posts here, I’m glad I decided to take only one course this term. And I’m really glad it was this one.

I hope you’ll check out my new column, Ask Isabel: Advice for the Spiritually Perplexed or Vexed

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