Associate Dean for Ministry Studies Teddy Hickman-Maynard talks about preparing future leaders, innovative teaching, and trauma theology.
Welcome again to Faculty Focus, a special new podcast series from Harvard Divinity School, where we speak with HDS professors about their courses and research interests.
Today’s guest is Teddy Hickman-Maynard, who is Associate Dean for Ministry Studies and Lecturer on Ministry here at Harvard Divinity School. Dean Hickman-Maynard has more than 20 years of ministry experience, serving in roles as senior pastor, youth pastor, minister to men, and minister of worship. Currently, he is an associate minister at Bethel AME Church in Lynn, Massachusetts, where his wife, the Rev. Bernadette Hickman-Maynard, is the pastor.
Thanks for listening and joining us today. Let’s jump right into the interview.
Jonathan Beasley: Thanks for joining me, Dean Hickman-Maynard. I wonder if we could start the conversation with the course you’re teaching this semester, “Introduction to Ministry Studies.” Could you tell me what the structure is like and how you plan the class lessons?
Teddy Hickman-Maynard: We have a lecture day, we have a studio series day where it's like an interview, a series of interviews. And then we have five small group sections, and I'm leading all of it. And also the lectures are the first time through. Hence, the late night. Every time I'm building a new class, the night before my lectures, I can't sleep. I'm tinkering all the way up until go. And so that is happening now. Next year will be lovely because it'll all be in the can, and I'll just have to replicate and trim down.
But the first time through just trying to figure out and calibrate what I want to say versus what they need. And I like to leave a lot of room for experimentation, and play, and responsiveness. So it's not, there's a plan, but it's not all scripted because I want to be able to see what's going on with the students. And they're very different. There's 63 of them, and there's probably 30 to 40 different pathways that they represent. So it's not like you can have one way of talking about things and hit everybody. You have to really think pretty broadly.
So for that reason, the beginning of the semester has been really tough but rewarding because I think it's working. I think it's working.
Jonathan Beasley: That’s fascinating. And you kind of hit on this, but what is at the heart of the course, and what are you really hoping that students take away from the course at the end of the semester?
Teddy Hickman Maynard: So curricularly, the goal is simply to give MDiv students a solid foundation for understanding both the MDiv program, but also understanding how they are going to navigate the choices and the different movements that are encapsulated in that program. So there's a curricular structure to the program. So there are distribution requirements. All MDiv students have to take 12 courses that, in some way, fulfill either scriptural interpretation, or histories, theologies, and practices of a tradition or traditions that they're focusing on.
That's a pretty wide range of stuff. I mean, within that you have students who are studying certainly any one of the religious traditions that are identifiable—Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and so on. But there are a lot of students whose tradition, if you will, is no tradition at all. Or there are students who are multireligious in their identity. Or there are students who are none, who don't pursue the idea of vocational discernment from the perspective of any religious tradition.
And so they're designing their degree program around a particular kind of work. Whether that be peacebuilding, whether that be humanitarian work, whether that be racial justice and healing. There's a whole host of, environmental justice is one, gender and sexuality studies. And they may not have a particular job in mind, but they have a calling. They have a calling to a particular way of entering the world and using what they have to do what they can to make the world a better place.
And we conceive of ministry pretty broadly as service. Service to humanity, service to the world. We're an institution that hopes to prepare leaders who will help seek peace with justice. I mean, that's in the HDS mission statement. So we have these structures, but because they're so expansive we want to allow MDiv students to go about those choices from a place of confidence where they can understand how they are integrating theory and practice.
Jonathan Beasley: I have another question really about the learning experience of students at HDS. Is what you're talking about giving them those extra tools, and really allowing them to be set up for success, and not just “Intro to Ministry Studies,” which we've been talking about, but these other classes as well, is that part of what makes the learning experience unique for students at HDS?
Teddy Hickman-Maynard: So on the one hand, it's hard to answer that question because every student is going to feel different about the educational experience. On the other hand, it's also hard to answer because of the diversity of our faculty. Every faculty person has been trained so differently. We used to have departments at HDS long before I got here. But probably about 15 years ago when the curriculum changed over from a classical Protestant, Christian curriculum where there were three areas of study.
There were basically Christian texts and traditions, and then there was systematic theology and ethics, and then there was a section called World Religions where you studied everything else. Well, that didn't fit the multi-religious, inter-religious nature of our student body, or the multi-vocational interests of our student body. So that curriculum was abolished, and the new curriculum that we have now was instituted where every student gets the center themselves-- their own tradition, and their own experience.
But along with that came the abolishment of our departments. Because our faculty was too diverse to be held within the old traditional departments of church history, and biblical studies, and systematic theology, and so on. So we have faculty now, most of whom are interdisciplinary in their work. So they might be a professor of history of Hinduism. But that same person might also be an ethicist. That same person might also do ethnographic work.
Or on the other hand, you might have an anthropologist who is here as professor of xyz studies. And they're an anthropologist, but they're also doing deeply theological contemplation and construction. So every class that students take is different. And what that does is it creates a situation where students can sometimes have a feeling of whiplash, where every room I walk into I'm being asked to accommodate myself to a completely different, and sometimes innovative pedagogy.
Because our professors are pushing the boundaries so much that even the way they are teaching their classes may not be taught that way by anybody else. They're not even just replicating what they've been through as PhD students. They're now doing new things in their field and trying to do new things in their classroom. So even if you have a professor who you feel really comfortable with and say, that's the kind of person I want to study with, and I really vibe in this classroom.
The methods that are used are right down my alley, the books we use are right down my alley. That feeling—you may only get one or two of those a semester. The other two are probably going to stretch you and make you feel uncomfortable. So there is a sense in which the one thing students share in common is that at any given moment, just about every student is going to feel uncomfortable, and a little out of place, and a little bit marginalized.
Because as I said before, we're actually trying to build a curriculum for which there is no center. So when there is no center everybody feels marginal. And I think that that's a reality we have to contend with, and not pretend that that's not there. We can't pretend that that's not going to impact students, not only intellectually, but also spiritually, emotionally, relationally. So the more that we can prepare students for that, then they can actually engage that feeling of discomfort as a gift.
So now, instead of something that crushes you, it's something that stretches you. Now, instead of something that confuses you, it's something that excites you. Because now you're getting a chance to, not only be introduced to content that maybe you didn't think you were interested in, but ways of engaging—texts, communities, social realities, relationships. Ways of thinking about the world that are expansive and immersive, and every class is going to ask you to do that in a different way.
So you walk away with a kind of meta experience where you do have to step back, and look at how all these different modalities are coming together to form what is your own perspective on the world, on yourself, and on what you may one day do with all of this. I think that is the experience that I would say is common. The common experience is one of being stretched, and being a little bit uncomfortable, and using that experience as a way to find parts of your own thinking that you didn't know were there, so to speak.
Jonathan Beasley: Let’s take very short break before we rejoin Dean Hickman-Maynard for the second half of our conversation. If you enjoy what you’re hearing, I encourage you to subscribe to Harvard Divinity School wherever you get your podcasts. And if you’re interested in learning more about Dean Hickman-Maynard and his work, or you want to know more about HDS, our faculty, students, and degree programs, check us out on our website or follow us on social media @HarvardDivinity.
Now, let’s get back to my conversation with Dean Hickman-Maynard.
Jonathan Beasley: I want to turn the spotlight a little bit on you, and to ask you what does a day in your life look like as Associate Dean for Ministry Studies? And I know we're already running out of time, but maybe if we can narrow that focus a little bit more to what's your day-to-day engagement with students like?
Teddy Hickman-Maynard: Yeah. So certainly, during the fall semester my engagement with students is primarily through Intro to Ministry Studies. I'm teaching the course, all 63 students. And this semester, I'm actually also leading all of the small group workshop sessions. So that's a lecture every week. We also have a studio series that we're running every week, which is like an interview-style session where we bring in different members of the community.
Because it's actually an opportunity to introduce them to the rest of HDS, and do so in a context where people get to let their hair down. So they get to talk to Dean Hempton, and Dean Gyatso, and Dean Bartholomew in a different context. They get to talk to a professor or an alumni. So we do those two, and then there are five small groups throughout the week where the students are workshopping with each other their ministry projects. So I lead all of those as well.
So that's a big part of my engagement with students, is just running that class. Secondly, my regular job is to administer the MDiv program. What that means is I have to approve all of the curricular decisions that students are making that don't conform exactly to what's on the page. Which means that for most MDiv students, they're going to have to come talk to me at least two or three times over the course of their curriculum. Because every MDiv student is pushing the boundaries of the curriculum, every single one.
Jonathan Beasley: And following up on that, I do think it's worth reiterating that all of this work that you're doing is for the benefit of students. I think it's remarkable, the energy that you have, and the commitment that you have for the work.
I did want to take an opportunity here at the end to talk about one of your research areas, if you don’t mind, about trauma-responsive congregations and trauma theology. Could you explain what that is, and why this area of ministry is so compelling to you?
Teddy Hickman-Maynard: Yeah. So a number of years ago, myself and one of my colleagues at Boston University School of Theology, Dr. Shelly Rambo who actually—she's taught courses at Harvard Divinity School in the past as well. She is a constructive theologian, but her work led her to thinking about theologies of trauma. And her work in trauma, as a theologian, led her to a lot of conversations with chaplains who are trained in trauma responsiveness.
But not just the technical, clinical tools for dealing with people who are recovering from trauma, but theologically, how do you help people work through the spiritual and theological dimensions of trauma. Trauma does not just affect the body, but it affects the mind, the soul, the spirit, your self-conception. And trauma breaks us in many ways that are not seen. And in working through trauma responsiveness, both theologically and practically through the clinical training that chaplains get…
What we discovered was, not discovered, but what we really were concerned about is that while chaplains get all of this training for how to work on helping people with trauma, congregational leaders actually have to do this work on a very regular basis. Oftentimes, a local congregation, whatever the religious affiliation may be, is sometimes people's easiest source of support when they've been through something pretty dramatic.
There are also forms of trauma that are communal and systemic. So just working with particular populations may mean that your everyday work as a congregational leader is trauma response without carrying that name. And yet, most congregational leaders, even if they've gone through an MDiv program and have a degree, maybe they took one class on spiritual care and counseling. They are not as trained in trauma responsiveness, both practically, clinically, but also theologically.
When you're dealing with people who've experienced trauma, how you talk about the ultimate, how you talk about the divine, how you talk about ultimate meaning should be responsive to the kinds of things they're working with. And a lot of times, thinking they're doing good, thinking they're helping, congregational leaders may say things like, well, don't worry. In my tradition we will say, weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
We're trying to rush people to the point where they feel better. And in doing so, we actually minimize their current pain, and prevent them from being able to come to us to deal with that pain. So the grant project that we applied to the Lilly Endowment, they had a project called Thriving Congregations. And we flipped that around and said, thriving is usually defined in economic terms of vibrancy, and numerical growth, and all these other things.
And we said, what if a congregation that was thriving was a congregation that was actually equipped to deal with people's pain. And we started that grant project to recruit congregations that were interested in having that conversation. To put them into contact with theological educators and chaplains, to start having a conversation between the Academy and congregations between chaplaincy and the work of congregational leadership to see if we can find new models and ways of thinking about trauma responsiveness that would work in the congregational setting.
But also feed back to the schools of theology and divinity schools to teach us how to teach that differently, how to teach it better. So when we do work in trauma, we're not just teaching to the clinical side of chaplaincy training, but we consider congregational leaders as the audience for trauma theology and trauma-responsive religious education. So that's what that work is about, and it's ongoing. It's wonderful work. I did, however, have to drop out of the project last week because of all the work I just told you I was doing.
I had to step down as co-director of that project, but still very much appreciative of the work that they're doing over there. And even though I'm not a part of that project, it does consume my mind when I think about the work we do to help train MDiv students. Because so many of them are going to be going into areas of work where they're going to be working with people who are at their lowest, people who have just been crushed by various structures, and systems of inequality, or by interpersonal relational harm.
And so it is an area of research and work that I'm still engaged with because I want to bring it into the classrooms here at HDS.
Jonathan Beasley: Such important work, and I know just having seen what appears to be such an uptick in the interest of students, and particularly those pursuing chaplaincy in that area as well. So thank you for laying that out and describing that. So boy, this has been fantastic.
Teddy Hickman-Maynard: Thank you.
Jonathan Beasley: I feel like we could honestly go on for like another two hours. But we won't, but we won't.
My thanks to Teddy Hickman-Maynard for giving us an inside look at his role as associate dean for ministry studies. This is the second interview in our new Faculty Focus podcast series. Again, please subscribe to Harvard Divinity School if you haven’t already so that you never miss a future episode. And don’t forget to visit our website or follow us on social media if you’re interested in learning more about HDS, our faculty, and the student experience.
Until next time…