April 2024 Bulletin

3 April 2024

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Upcoming Deadlines
2024 Seedcorn Grants
Student Survey
Curriculum Updates
TEI Invoices
TEI Forum - April 2024
Boards of Examiners
Annual Conference for Theological Educators 2024
Webinar Series
Study Path Update
Further Information

1. Upcoming Deadlines

8^th April - TEIs to ask Common Awards students to send any feedback for the Management Board to the CAMB student representatives

15^th April – launch of the Common Awards Student Survey 2024

26^th April - Student Event: in-person day conference with N.T Wright, St Paul's Cathedral

TBC - TEI Forum

7th May - Knowledge is Power: Justice and Theologising in the "Global South" Webinar

2. 2024 Seedcorn Grants

We are currently open for applications to the 2024 round of Seedcorn Grant Applications. The deadline is Friday 3rd May 2024. Please read our Seedcorn Grant-Call for applications, and use our Seedcorn Grant-application form.

Funding is available for research or development projects in any relevant area – any kind of conversation, investigation or experiment that can help us explore together the future of ministry and mission, and the forms of theological education that will best serve them.

This year, we will give priority to projects in two areas.

Theological education and ministry among children; and
Theological education and ministry among young people

These are our new Common Awards research themes. Each year we pick a new theme, and you can read about past themes, and about what we do to pursue each theme here.

In relation to these two areas, we are interested in projects that focus on

the ways in which theological education or any aspect of it might respond to a renewed focus on ministry among children and young people;
the social, cultural and religious worlds of children and young people in the church and in wider society;
issues and opportunities related to equality, diversity and inclusion ministry among children and young people;
the ecclesial dimensions of ministry among children and young people;
the theological and practical implications of issues around abuse and safeguarding in youth and children’s ministry.

We continue to have an ongoing commitment to diversity, inclusion, and belonging. In relation to that wider agenda, we continue to look for projects that

address critical gaps in our understanding of the present state of inclusion and diversity in theological education;
explore and help overcome the multiple barriers faced by students in theological education as a result of their social and political identities – including class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and disability;
experiment with creative pedagogies and forms of assessment that might help with overcoming these barriers; or
investigate the opportunities for overcoming these barriers presented by different modes and forms of training.

3. Common Awards Student Survey 2024

The 2023/24 Common Awards Student Survey will run from Monday 15th April – Friday 31st May 2024. The survey will be managed and analysed by Durham, with TEI-specific results shared with each TEI over the summer. The survey will be available to all students registered on Common Awards programmes in 2023/24.

4. Curriculum Updates

Eight new modules have been approved for delivery from September 2024. They are:

Code	Level	Title
TMM2807	5	Growing Faith
TMM3921	6	Global Theologies
TMM3931	6	Intersectional Theologies: Identities, Power and Praxis
TMM3941	6	Theological Perspectives: Empire, Bible and Mission
TMM3951	6	Leadership and the Future Church
TMM3961	6	Mission and Ministry in Marginalised Contexts
TMM48220	7	The Law of Ministry
TMM48320	7	The Law of Rites and Sacraments

Which category each module fulfils can be found here: Level 5 Modules - Durham University, Level 6 Modules - Durham University Level 7 Modules - Durham University

The T5 Core Mapping Document (a core list of modules and the programme learning outcomes they meet) and the Excluded Combinations Pre-Co-Requisite document have been updated to include these new modules. They can be found in the Templates and Forms section of the website.

If a TEI wishes to deliver any of these modules from 2024-25, please submit a Curriculum Development request for this by the May 2024 deadline.

TMM2627 has had some minor amendments;

Content section:

the 5th statement has been amended with the addition of the bold text below;

Consideration of key topics from confirmation, marriage, religious vows, ordination, penance, deliverance, anointing and sacramentals.

SSK learning outcomes section:

Statements 1 and 2 have been amended as below;

Give a detailed account of a number of one or more models for understanding the Church, analysing their relationships to Scripture and Tradition.

Discuss intelligently a variety of one or more theological accounts of the sacraments, baptism and Eucharist in particular.

TEIs who currently use the module will not be required to make any changes to their teaching or assessment if they do not wish to do so.

5. TEI Invoices

All TEIs should have received invoices at the beginning of March. The invoices are based on a snapshot of student records data from 1st December; all changes communicated to us before 1st December have been reflected in the invoices. A gentle reminder that payments are expected within 30 days.

If there are any questions or queries regarding invoices, please contact the team as soon as possible.

6. TEI Forum

The next TEI Forum will be taking place in April. TEI Forum members are reminded to please contact Lucy Dallas (Chair) directly with any agenda items. Forum members will be sent a registration form shortly.

7. Boards of Examiners

The Overarching Board of Examiners are due to be held on September 3rd (Summer) and December 3rd (Winter), 2024. We therefore ask that TEIs hold their own Board of Examiners no later than 7th August 2024 (Summer) and 30th October 2024 (Winter). This allows the Common Awards Team enough time to process the data received from TEIs, and resolve any queries, before the Overarching Board of Examiners. However, please do let us know if these dates present any problems for your TEI. We would be grateful if you could let us know you Exam Board dates once they have been scheduled.
TEIs are reminded that they are very welcome to send a representative from their TEI Board of Examiners (normally the Chair) to the meetings of the overarching Board. Up to three TEI BoE representatives may attend each board. This can be a good way for TEIs to discover more about how the overarching Board works, and to see how we handle decisions about their students. The next meeting of the Board is due to be held online, on 3rd September 2024 from 1pm – 4pm. Please contact the team if a representative from your TEI Board of Examiners wishes to attend this meeting.

8. The Annual Conference for Theological Educators 2024

The 2024 Annual Conference for Theological Educators will be taking place on July 10th – 12th.

Bookings are now open. Please use this link to book your place: Event Booking Details (durham.ac.uk) The booking form will remain open until 14th June.

The conference will be taking place at Durham University, and the theme of the conference will be: 'Theological Education and Mental Health’

This three-day two-night conference is FREE* to all Common Awards staff (all core and associate staff who are or expect to be involved in teaching, assessing or administering Common Awards programmes in the designated Common Awards TEIs). In theological education and the ministry settings, issues of mental health are unavoidable. Each year, 1 in 4 people in the UK experience a mental health problem of some kind. This conference covers a variety of topics to support theological educators in their teaching and formational responsibilities, including:

how psychology can inform subjects across the curriculum; theological and clinical understandings of depression and of hearing voices;
the role of societal factors in the diversity of mental health experiences;
and positive approaches to mental health in educational settings.

*Travel expenses not included.

Speakers will include:

Rev’d Prof. John Swinton, Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies (Aberdeen), RMN (registered Mental Nurse), and ordained in the Church of Scotland.

Rev’d Prof. Chris Cook, former Director of the Centre for Spirituality, Theology & Health (retired in 2022), qualified doctor, former Professor of Psychology, and ordained in the Church of England.

Rev’d Dr Joanna Collicutt, fellow at Harris Manchester College of Oxford University, a chartered clinical psychologist, and ordained in the Church of England.

Dr Tasia Scrutton, Associate Professor in the School Philosophy, Religion, and History of Science at Leeds University and author of Christianity and Depression.

Rev’d Jarel Robinson, ordained in the Church of England, co-chair of One Body One Faith, formerly a Methodist minister, and author of Black, Gay, British, Christian, Queer.

Dr Eve Parker, lecturer in Modern Christian Theology at the University of Manchester and author of Trust in Theological Education.

Rev’d Luke Larner, ordained in the Church of England and editor of Confounding the Mighty: Stories of Church, Social Class and Solidarity.

With worship led by Rev Prof Maggi Dawn, Professor of Theology at Durham University, advisor to the Royal School of Church Music, and former Dean of Marquand Chapel at Yale Divinity School.

For more information, please visit the Common Awards website conference page

9. Webinar series

Knowledge is Power: Justice and Theologising in the "Global South"

07 May 2024 1:30 - 3:00pm

Tickets are available here

Dr Selina Stone (Durham/Common Awards) is joined by Rev Dr Carlton Turner and Dr Eve Parker to discuss theologies from India and the Bahamas.

Dr Eve Parker is Lecturer in Modern Christian Theology at the University of Manchester. She also researches abuse in religious contexts as part of an AHRC-funded project through the University of Kent. Her recent publications include: Trust in Theological Education: Deconstructing ‘Trustworthiness’ for a Pedagogy of Liberation (London: SCM, 2022) and Theologising with the Sacred ‘Prostitutes’ of South India: Towards an Indecent Dalit Theology (Brill: 2021)
Rev Dr Carlton Turner is a Caribbean Contextual and Practical Theologian working at the Queen's Foundation, Birmingham. He is the author of the upcoming book Introduction to Caribbean Contextual Theology (SCM, January 2024) and Overcoming `Self-negation: The Church and Junkanoo in Contemporary Bahamian Society (2020).
Dr Selina Stone is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Theological Education at Durham University with the Common Awards team. She is the author of the upcoming book The Spirit and the Body: Towards a Womanist Pentecostal Social Justice Ethic (Brill/Schöningh: 2023).

10. Study Path Update

Further to the information provided at the Moodle Administration Update sessions, which took place in the summer 2023, and updates in the recent Bulletins, the University’s student records system (Banner) was unavailable from 8-18^th March to allow the system to be updated for Study Path.

The implementation of Study Path will bring about changes to the structure of our student records within Banner from this academic year (2023/24) onwards. Students will have only one Banner ID, which will include a record of the all the programmes of study/qualifications they take during their time with Durham University under separate Study Path numbers.

The Common Awards Team is in the process of checking records and will liaise with TEIs separately over the coming weeks in relation to any students whose Banner ID will change as a result of this process. The IT Service Desk at the University is currently working to replace campus cards for any affected students (those whose Banner ID will change as a result of this process) who received a campus card in the autumn term. Further details will be discussed with TEIs individually once we have an idea of timescales.

11. Further Information

The full 2023/2024 academic calendar is available here.

With thanks,

The Common Awards Team