Problem-based seminary education

I love Mark C. Taylor's bracing and imaginative proposal for changing higher education in today's NYT.  and it has obvious parallels to theological education.  What if, as he proposes, we abolished departments and instead focused our work around the challenges we face in this time of contested faith? Mission, and not matainence then comes to the fore. The actual leadership needs of our students, and not our academic disciplines then come to the fore. Hmm.  It connects deeply to the conversations I've been trying to start about how practical theology ought to learn from and work alongside what Paul Rabinow and others are doing in the anthropology of the contemporary.
Here is Paul Rabinow giving a lecture on this topic at Oxford last year.

Anon and peace,
Chris

Comments

[Tyler]

Lots of questions:

At what level is this change likely to happen? Does it have to come from an institutional level more generally? Or would it happen at a departmental level, with new department hires being more interdisciplinary, with redrawing degree requirements, and teachers choosing to teach classes that blur those departmental lines as well (to some extent, this is already happening). Can we do what Taylor suggests without getting rid of departments altogether? What would a challenge-based degree look like? What challenges would a Lutheran seminary set up for its degrees?

[Custom term papers]

I really admire this, I mean it really looks interesting! I'm actually glad to see all this stuff, to see that this world offers creativity and ideas other than what my lonesome small town provides.