Tag: education


There and Back Again: A Grad’s Tale

there and back again a grads tale

What can you do with a degree in Religious Studies or the humanities? Have questions about what happens after graduation? Come find out from a successful REL graduate. Join us on Wednesday, September 26 for our Grad Tales event! Jennifer Alfano Nelson is a Religious Studies graduate who will be discussing her undergraduate degrees (English and Religious Studies) earned from UA in 2007.   Jennifer went on to earn a M.A. in Education at UAB and taught middle school English from 2010-2017, […]

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The Individual, the Organization, or the System? Teach for America and Blame in American Education

Liz Long graduated from the University of Alabama in May 2016 with degrees in Religious Studies and Psychology. She then moved to Indianapolis with Teach for America and taught second grade and preschool for three months total before leaving the program. She now works for the Indiana Department of Child Services. In the spring of this past year, I was getting ready to graduate, and desperately searching for a job. I wound up applying (and getting in to) Teach For […]

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The Difficult Art

“What we labor at together in college is the production of individuals who know not only that the world is far more complex than it first appears, but also that, therefore, interpretative decisions must be made, decisions of judgment which entail real consequences for which one must take responsibility, from which one may not flee by the dodge of disclaiming expertise. This ultimately political quest for paradigms, for the acquisition of the powers and skills of informed judgment, for the […]

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Living on a (Deconstructed) Prayer

Geoff Davidson earned his B.A. in Religious Studies and Political Science in 2009. He went on to earn his M.Div. from Baylor University in 2012. He is currently employed at Habitat for Humanity of Waco, Texas, while also working as a supply preacher. Last week a state representative in the Alabama Legislature lit up social media by proposing a bill requiring public school classrooms to begin each day with the examination of a text. The politician in question is Rep. […]

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Who Gets to Think?

Think New Thoughts! A recent tagline promoting the Department of Religious Studies is not simply highlighting our desire to challenge student preconceptions but emphasizing our department’s effort to develop important intellectual skills. While public discourse often emphasizes education as the means to gain economically and overcome poverty, some evidence suggests that economic privilege breeds economic success and that education for the children of the 1% may differ from education for children of the lower rungs of society. […]

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“You Just Watch Me!”

My undergraduate degree was in what my university (Queen’s University) called Life Sciences–what others might have once called pre-med. Many of us wrote the MCAT (as I did) but not all of us got into medicine (as I didn’t, but as my roommate did). In our first year, we predictably took courses in Chemistry, Biology, Physics (each of which had its own three hour lab too, of course), Calculus, and Psychology–the last being an elective but everyone pretty much took […]

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Not Just for a Job…

Our new University President, Dr. Guy Bailey–who, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, earned his own B.A. and M.A. at the University of Alabama (in English)–arrived on campus about a month or so ago, and in a recent interview, had this to say in reply to the following question: “Q. What did UA give to you as a student that you want current students to receive? A. Our students should have the highest quality education at the best possible value. […]

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