Dr. Rodolfo R. Nolasco Jr. to Participate in the Inaugural Wabash Center/Collegeville Institute Workshop
March 5, 2021
Dr. Rodolfo R. Nolasco Jr., professor of pastoral theology and director of pastoral care and counseling at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, has been selected to participate in the inaugural Wabash Center/Collegeville Institute workshop entitled, Breaking the Academic Mold: Liberating the Powerful, Personal Voice Inside You. The inaugural workshop is by invitation only and Nolasco is one of ten scholars and teachers of religion and theology who will attend.
The inaugural workshop was made possible through a new partnership between the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion and the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research. This workshop is for academics who have written mainly for peers but long to share their knowledge or personal experience in a more innovative way with a wider audience. The week-long workshop, being held via Zoom, will be a combination of seminars, workshops, and individual instruction.
Reflecting upon the opportunity to attend the inaugural workshop, Nolasco said, “I am deeply honored to have been selected to participate in this workshop. The Wabash Center is known for its commitment to uplift and center voices that are shunned and silenced because they are too discordant and threatening, and their bodies too deviant and distressing. I look forward to connecting, conversing, and communing with my peers as we learn new ways of using our fingertips as another site of resistance and life-force.”
Nolasco is an experienced professor, trained in pastoral and counseling psychology, mindfulness and contemplative spirituality, and affective neuroscience. He is also a psychotherapist, published author, and has vast experience in cross-cultural communications from living and working across the world within varying social and cultural backgrounds. In 2019 he was awarded Exemplary Teacher by the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of The United Methodist Church and he was also awarded a 2020 Project Grant Research from the Louisville Institute.
He is the author of The Contemplative Counselor: A Way of Being (Fortress Press, 2011) and Compassionate Presence: A Radical Response to Human Suffering (Cascade Books, 2016), which seeks to affirm compassion as the pulsating heartbeat of Christian theology and praxis through the hermeneutical perspectives of brain science, psychology, and practical theology. His latest book is God’s Beloved Queer (Wipf and Stock, 2019). Nolasco is also currently working on Heart Ablaze: Awakening the Queer Spirit (Church Publishing, forthcoming), and Depression, Dark Night of the Soul, and Joy (Cascade Books, forthcoming).
The inaugural Wabash Center/Collegeville Institute workshop will be held Wednesday, July 21 through Monday, July 26, 2021. To learn more about this workshop, go to https://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/programs/workshops/wabash-collegeville-collaboration/.
The Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology supports theology and religion faculty and doctoral students reflecting on their teaching practice — in both theological education and undergraduate education, in the United States and Canada. The Center facilitates faculty conversations about the goals and processes of teaching and student learning, and their programming develops faculty skills for critical reflection on teaching practice.
The Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, rooted in Christian tradition, brings together people of diverse backgrounds and perspectives to foster the world’s healing through the power of religious ideas, insight, and practices. To learn more, go to https://collegevilleinstitute.org/.
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, a graduate school of theology related to The United Methodist Church, was founded in 1853. Located on the campus of Northwestern University, the seminary serves more than 450 students from various denominations and cultural backgrounds, fostering an atmosphere of ecumenical interaction. Garrett-Evangelical creates bold leaders through master of divinity, master of arts, master of theological studies, doctor of philosophy, and doctor of ministry degrees. Its 4,500 living alumni serve church and society around the world.