The Mid Year Conference on Religion & Spirituality
I am currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program in Pastoral Counseling at Loyola University Maryland. This past week, the department (along with Division 36 of the American Psychological Association) hosted the 8th annual Mid Year Conference on Religion and Spirituality. It is a wonderful event, and luminaries from the field attend and present and make themselves available to students who are interested in learning about this area. Students are also given opportunities to showcase their work, mainly via poster sessions.
I had the honor of presenting a content session about Web 2.0 tools and spoke about using them to enhance professional practice. I spent most of my time examining Twitter, although I also touched on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Ning and gave an overview of podcasts, wikis, and blogs. I had registered a hashtag (#myc) for the conference and explained the trend of the backchannel. In addition, I attended several sessions, including the keynotes by Dr. Harold Koenig and Dr. June Tangney.
Dr. Koenig examined the effects of religious coping and health. Empirical research exists that points to a connection between religious involvement and better health, and he made that information understandable. Dr. Tangney spoke about guilt and shame. Educators at all levels need to know about these emotions because they will play out in the classroom. I was so impressed by her presentation that I bought the Kindle version of her book. Both of the invited speakers were incredibly gracious and spent considerable time addressing questions and interacting with the participants.
My final thoughts center around the importance of nurturing graduate students. So many professors brought their students, both graduate and undergraduate, to the conference. They had encouraged them to submit proposals, and the poster sessions spotlighted some very interesting work.
My own professors at Loyola have been incredible, and I want to acknowledge my gratitude for their warmth and for their sincere interest in my professional advancement. I am currently working as a graduate assistant for Dr. Piedmont, who has given me numerous opportunities to hone my research skills. Dr. Cheston, my mentor, has also been wonderful and has gently but firmly helped me develop my clinical skills. Both have helped me with my teaching skills, and both have demonstrated the tremendous power of modeling.
Posted on March 29th, 2010 at 8:48 am under the category Thoughts. Go ahead, leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
