Orientation at TEDS

I am back online. Here is a summary of my time at the TEDS Orientation this weekend (see schedule). I attended most of the Saturday and Monday sessions.
  • We pulled into our new apartment at Vernon Hills at 8:30 AM on Saturday morning, and I needed to be at the Trinity campus 15 minutes away at 9 AM. So we quickly unloaded the car from the auto transport, threw Harley into it, and off I was to TEDS in my grubby travel clothes.
  • I arrived at the TEDS orientation shortly after 9 only to find that child care services don’t start until 10:15. I probably looked extremely frazzled. Thankfully, Mike, the director of the Kids on Kampus program, offered to watch Harley for me while I did the opening orientation activities. After the initial orientation stuff, I headed out to my car, grabbed my suitcase, went into the bathroom and changed, curled my hair and put on my make-up. Then I was feeling much better. Mike and the other Kids on Kampus workers were really awesome and took great care of Harley.
  • One of the first things I noticed about TEDS is that everyone is so freaking nice. No, seriously; think Ned Flanders, only not at all annoying, and that is what everyone is like. People go out of their way to find out what you need and help you regardless. In case you are wondering, yes, they’re even nicer than the people at BYU were. I’m not sure how a total bitch like me got into this school—can I even say “bitch” anymore now that I go to Trinity? Well, I just did. Anyways, I’m legitimately concerned that all this niceness is going to rub off on me and then I’ll have to stop being snarky to people.
  • So the Saturday sessions proceeded. Most of it was pretty standard orientation stuff. At one of the sessions (I think it was the academic one),  Tite Tiénou spoke about the school’s policy of allowing women to enroll in the Master of Divinity program. Some background for my LDS readers may be useful here: TEDS is affiliated with the Evangelical Free Church of America, which is a complementarian denomination and does not ordain women as pastors. MDiv is the degree program usually sought by those wanting to become pastors, and I believe some evangelical seminaries don’t allow women to enroll in it. By allowing women to enroll in the MDiv, TEDS is basically saying, “No, the EFCA doesn’t ordain women, but we’re going to look the other way if other denominations want to do it.” I think as far as complementarians go, that’s about as accepting of egalitarianism as you’ll get.
  • There was a church fair on Saturday, but I was exhausted and didn’t have the chutzpah to walk up to all these pastors and say, “Hi, does your church ordain women? Oh, sorry, you can’t be on my list.” So I just took brochures from all of them (unless I knew they were complementarian from the denomination—sorry all you EFCA churches that were there) and still need to sort through them. There was one woman pastor there whom I added to my list. I felt kind of bad because a lot of them seemed eager to talk to people, but I really just wanted to go.
  • I learned that Trinity Wives Fellowship is for female students who are wives as well as wives of students. So I’m gonna check them out.
  • Monday was a lot more fun. I brought my husband to meet some of the faculty and we had lunch with my future formation group, which is like a small group I’ll be meeting with on campus. The group is led by Douglas Sweeney (Professor of Church History & Christian Thought) and Robert Yarbrough (Associate Professor of New Testament), so my husband got to meet them. He also met John Woodbridge (Research Professor of Church History & History of Christian Thought).
  • After lunch I had a meeting with Scott Manetsch, the chair of the history department. We discussed my academic plans and my class schedule and I decided to drop my theology class and my survey history class and take higher-level, more specific classes. So my class schedule has changed! Check it out if you’re following that, I’m way excited about the changes.
  • After that I went and met Woodbridge in his office and had a really long, wonderful conversation about BYU and my interests in Mormonism as well as my academic goals, and I learned more about him.
So, here’s my schedule this week:
  • On Wednesday I’m attending a lunch for the Trinity Society of Women from 11:15 AM – 12:30 PM. I think there’s a Formation Group orientation after that.
  • On Thursday my formation group meets from 12 PM – 1:20 PM, then my History of Fundamentalism & Evangelicalism class meets from 1:30 PM – 4 PM.
  • On Saturday I’m attending the Church History Department barbecue from 4 PM – 8 PM at Scott Manetsch’s house, and most of the people and students from the history department are going to be there.
It’s going to be a fun week.

Comments

Orientation at TEDS — 12 Comments

  1. Fantastic! I’m so glad you’re enjoying everything so far. I’d be worried, too, that everyone would rub their niceness off on me, LOL! I love how involved your school is and how many different activities you’re doing this week.
  2. I can’t think of how to say it in a clever way. I am glad you have met so many unannoyingly nice people. It makes me think of my grandparents, and several other choice people I have been blessed to meet.
    It is amazing to see the fruit of Jesus Christ in others.
  3. At my own orientation, I’ve often wondered how your experience might be different. I am surprised to read that so many things are the same despite the two schools being almost as opposite theologically as you could possibly get. Except letting the women enroll as MDivs (which goes without saying here), everything else is striking similar: the people are way nicer than at BYU, there are tons of student activities and get togethers, the faculty-student relationships are close, and there is a robust spouses’ community—which I am really grateful for.
    How do your teachers and colleagues react to Paul’s being Mormon.
  4. Paul tried to avoid mentioning he was Mormon, which resulted in him overhearing some very interesting things as people conversed with me about Mormons assuming my husband was evangelical. But for the most part people were friendly about it; I’ve only heard two rather negative comments about Mormons, and Paul was only present for one of them. He told the formation group he was Mormon, and I think some people were weirded out by it, but no one said anything rude to him about it.
    He met Woodbridge while we were in line for lunch and did not say he was Mormon; later, when I discussed it with Woodbridge, he was really fascinated by it. He’ll see Paul again at the barbecue this weekend and I’m sure he’ll have plenty of questions for him. Woodbridge spent time in France and did his dissertation in French, and Paul served his mission in France, so I actually think they’ll get along pretty well.
    BTW, I spoke with a person who was a classics major from another university, and he mentioned that he had heard that BYU has an “excellent” classics department. Our reputation precedes us!
  7. Wow, this sounds like terrific fun. I’m envious. I’m so glad you’re jumping in with both feet. Enjoy the whole experience.
    (wrote the BYU classics grad…)
  8. “I’m not sure how a total bitch like me got into this school”
    I don’t know why some of the women on these blogs are so down on themselves. I have noticed that women that say the B word about themselves are better at dealing with others due to their candidness. ;)
  9. Yesterday was interesting. I went to the Trinity Society of Women Lunch and wound up sitting at a table with the TEDS president, Craig Williford, who absolutely insists on being called “Craig.” (I explained to him that after BYU formalism, having to call professors and staff by their first names was kind of hard for me.) I also sat across from Perry Downs in the education department, who was way awesome. I mentioned being afraid that the niceness on campus would force me to stop being snarky and he was like, “Oh no, you can just consider snarkiness to be your spiritual gift.” YES! He has also adopted and served as a foster parent to a lot of children, and he gave me some information on how to plug Harley into the special education services here in Lake County. He’s a member of PCUSA and he also talked about how much he hopes the MDiv women go on to seek ordination. It made me sad that I’ll probably never have the chance to have classes from him.
    But I sensed that the purpose of TSoW is to help keep female students from being discouraged by any hard-assed male headship advocates on campus, and I think that’s pretty cool.
    Anyways, today is my first day of classes, so wish me luck.
  12. sounds pretty interesting! i do like the looks of their PhD in Theology program – a friend of mine from AGTS is in their PhD in Intercultural studies program and another just works there – hie wife is children’s pastor at a church in the area.
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