The Impact of Intentional Learning Experiences for Personal Spiritual Formation on Seminary Students

Problem. Many seminary students describe their time in seminary as a spiritual desert. Most Protestant seminaries do not provide spiritual formation classes for their students, thinking that such measures are unnecessary or inappropriate for theological education, or assuming that the church is the place for spiritual formation to take place. Nevertheless, pastors are expected to be spiritual leaders, and the pastor’s spirituality is ranked by laity as the highest priority needed by seminary graduates for effective church ministry. A literature survey of theological education shows that, in the last 150 years, students have consistently recognized their need for help with personal spirituality, yet these needs remain largely unmet, with faculty feeling ill-equipped and uncertain about how to offer personal help for the spiritual life. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a 10-week required class in personal spiritual formation for pastors in training. Method. More than 2,100 pages of data were collected from 120 students (40 nationalities) over a period of 2 years. Pre-course questionnaires, field notes, weekly journals and reading reports, transcribed focus groups and interviews, reflection papers, and follow-up questionnaires revealed the impact of the four major intentional learning experiences in the class: the day-retreat, the learning about spiritual disciplines, the required 4 hours (weekly) of practicing spiritual disciplines, and the weekly accountability small groups. Results. The retreat was the catalyst for increasing honesty and openness with God, self, * and others. Learning about different spiritual disciplines through lectures and reading brought increased enthusiasm and variety to personal devotional times, while cultivating habits of consistency increased appreciation for God’s love and character. The small groups brought many benefits including accountability and mutual encouragement. The positive impact of the class extended to family members, church members, future ministry plans, and the unchurched. The uniqueness of impact on individuals was portrayed in student vignettes. Conclusion. Students grew personally and spiritually in diverse yet beneficial ways, and were grateful for life-changing attitudes, perceptions, and habits, regarding spiritual formation as a highlight in their seminary experience. The teacher’s own authenticity and commitment to personal spirituality were seen as crucial factors

Narrating self-identity in bisexual motherhood

Our qualitative study investigated the ways in which bisexual mothers came to identify as such and how their identity interconnected with their personal relationship and parenting histories within the social contexts they experienced. Eight women (ages 28 to 56 years old) who had experienced sexual relationships with both women and men over their life span were interviewed. At the time of their interview the participants were mothers to children of various ages from infancy to adulthood. A Labovian narrative analysis was conducted to highlight key points in their understanding of their sense of self in relation to particular social contexts and their story of how they came to identify as a bisexual mother or not. Our findings pointed to involvement in various self-identity projects that were variously integrated and resolved within their life course story, namely, the construction of a positive sexual identity and the development of a romantic relationship and the desire to parent. Our life course development study emphasized sexual self-identity as providing a source of agency and organization with respect to personal development in embracing or sidelining opportunities as these occurred or did not occur within changing social contexts over time

Design of Marine Protected Areas on high seas and territorial waters of rockall bank

Fisheries closures are rapidly being developed to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems worldwide. Satellite monitoring of fishing vessel activity indicates that these closures can work effectively with good compliance by international fleets even in remote areas. Here we summarise how remote fisheries closures were designed to protect Lophelia pertusa habitat in a region of the NE Atlantic that straddles the EU fishing zone and the high seas. We show how scientific records, fishers' knowledge and surveillance data on fishing activity can be combined to provide a powerful tool for the design of Marine Protected Areas. © Inter-Research 2009

Magnetism and half-metallicity at the O surfaces of ceramic oxides

The occurence of spin-polarization at ZrO$_{2}$, Al$_{2}$O$_{3}$ and MgO surfaces is proved by means of \textit{ab-initio} calculations within the density functional theory. Large spin moments, as high as 1.56 $\mu_B$, develop at O-ended polar terminations, transforming the non-magnetic insulator into a half-metal. The magnetic moments mainly reside in the surface oxygen atoms and their origin is related to the existence of $2p$ holes of well-defined spin polarization at the valence band of the ionic oxide. The direct relation between magnetization and local loss of donor charge makes possible to extend the magnetization mechanism beyond surface properties

Star formation and ISM morphology in tidally induced spiral structures

Tidal encounters are believed to be one of the key drivers of galactic spiral structure in the Universe. Such spirals are expected to produce different morphological and kinematic features compared to density wave and dynamic spiral arms. In this work we present high resolution simulations of a tidal encounter of a small mass companion with a disc galaxy. Included are the effects of gas cooling and heating, star formation and stellar feedback. The structure of the perturbed disc differs greatly from the isolated galaxy, showing clear spiral features that act as sites of new star formation, and displaying interarm spurs. The two arms of the galaxy, the bridge and tail, appear to behave differently; with different star formation histories and structure. Specific attention is focused on offsets between gas and stellar spiral features which can be directly compared to observations. We find some offsets do exist between different media, with gaseous arms appearing mostly on the convex side of the stellar arms, though the exact locations appear highly time dependent. These results further highlight the differences between tidal spirals and other theories of arm structure.Comment: 17 pages, 19 colour figures, accepted for publication in MNRA