04 Apr 2025
04 Apr 2025

2025 ATS Vocational Retreat for Midcareer Faculty

  • Price: FREE

Overview

By application; Wondering how your professional “second half” will be different? Feeling untethered now that tenure (or its equivalent) is behind you? Overwhelmed by organizational changes taking place in theological education and in need of a “recharge”? Then this experiential vocational retreat is for you!

Moving into your professional "second half" comes with questions about changes that theological education and your school are facing and the impacts you will have in these spaces. Having reached a halfway point in your career, you are in the position to review and perhaps reshape your vocation as a theological educator. In this vocational season, you might consider engaging broader publics as a theological educator. In this vocational season, you may also be asked to help lead the changes that need to come and to mentor the next generation of theological educators.

After successfully shifting from roundtable gathering to vocational retreat for the last Midcareer Faculty event, we will again lean into experiential pedagogies, with the understanding that activity, expression, and rest will coax new kinds of reflection and imagination in participants’ understanding of vocation.

In this time of significant changes within the world, the church, and theological education, how will you take on the responsibility of guiding important changes in your institution? How might your gifts best be used to serve the mission of your institution? How should your vocation develop within the context of the mission? Explore these questions and your next vocational chapter this April!

A letter from your dean will be required to apply. Apply early—participation is limited.

Additionally, this year ATS will offer a pilot program—a half-day post-conference on Exploring Senior Leadership—as part of a broader effort to support the effectiveness and longevity of those new to senior leadership. Following the Midcareer Faculty event, the 2025 ATS Chief Academic Officers' Conference will take place. Several academic deans will arrive early to connect with a selected group of midcareer faculty who are seriously considering taking on senior leadership. Participants will hear reflections from the journeys of current academic deans and will share in small groups their hopes and concerns about such a transition. As a pilot year, there will be no additional fee for the post-conference.

Agenda
Goals of the Retreat:
  1. Foster a clearer understanding of the vocation of "theological educator," including the connection between individual and collective vocations.
  2. Explore shifts in living out the theological educator's professional "second half.”
  3. Promote the enhancement of professional relationships.
FRIDAY, APRIL 4

→ Bring your artifact/metaphor for your vocational journey (e.g., icon, object, something written).

1:30 p.m.     
Registration

2:00 p.m.     
Welcome and Assumptions about the Retreat
Deborah H. C. Gin, Director of Research and Faculty Development, The Association of Theological Schools

2:30 p.m.     
Opening Ritual
Lakisha R. Lockhart, Assistant Professor of Christian Education, Union Presbyterian Seminary

Framing about Theological Education
Deborah H. C. Gin, Director of Research and Faculty Development, The Association of Theological Schools

Framing about Vocation
TBD

5:30 p.m
Break                                                                                                                                           

6:00 p.m.     
Dinner                                                                         

SATURDAY, APRIL 5

8:00 a.m.     
Breakfast buffet                                                                                               

8:45 a.m.     
Morning Prayer

9:00 a.m.     
Experiential Workshops I (your workshop will be listed on the back of your name tag)

Contemplative Photography
Audrey Shaw, Paralegal, Scarpone Law Offices, LLC

Movement/Play
Lakisha R. Lockhart, Assistant Professor of Christian Education, Union Presbyterian Seminary      

Visual/Tactile Art
Chung-Yan (Joyce) Chan, Principal, Canadian Chinese School of Theology Vancouver

11:00 a.m.    Break                                                                                                                                  

12:00 p.m.   
Lunch                                                                                                        

1:00 p.m.     
Experiential Workshops II (your workshop will be listed on the back of your name tag)

Contemplative Photography
Audrey Shaw, Paralegal, Scarpone Law Offices, LLC

Movement/Play
Lakisha R. Lockhart, Assistant Professor of Christian Education, Union Presbyterian Seminary

Visual/Tactile Art
Chung-Yan (Joyce) Chan, Principal, Canadian Chinese School of Theology Vancouver

3:30 p.m.     
Space for Reflection and Additional Conversation

Dinner on your own

SUNDAY, APRIL 6

8:00 a.m.
Breakfast buffet                                                                                                      

8:45 a.m.     
Morning Prayer

9:00 a.m.     
Retreat Reflections, Revelations, and Closing Ritual
Deborah H. C. Gin, Director of Research and Faculty Development, The Association of Theological Schools
Lakisha R. Lockhart, Assistant Professor of Christian Education, Union Presbyterian Seminary

11:30 a.m.   
Adjournment

POST-CONFERENCE FOR FACULTY AT PATHWAYS SCHOOLS

2:00 p.m.     
Post-conference check-in

2:30 p.m.     
TBD

6:00 p.m.     
Dinner

Workshops
Accommodations

Hyatt Regency Newport Beach is located at 1107 Jamboree Road, Newport Beach, CA 92660, approximately 11 minutes from John Wayne-Orange County Airport (SNA).

ATS will make reservations for your stay and provide a breakfast buffet daily. Guest rooms include complimentary Wi-Fi; there is complimentary Wi-Fi in the meeting rooms.

A 24-hour cancellation policy or a cancellation fee will apply.

Check-in: 4 p.m.
Check-out: 12 p.m.

Any attendee wishing special consideration for late check-out should inquire at the front desk on the day of departure.

Parking
Overnight self-parking: $40
Day self-parking: $25

Transportation Information
We recommend Lyft or Uber (cost is approximately $10–25 one way).

Presenters
Other

A grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. will cover the cost of overnight rooms and meals. Participants are responsible for the costs of programming and travel to/from California.

Application deadline (with your dean’s letter of support): Monday, January 6, 2025
Apply here.

Registration deadline: Friday, February 7, 2025

Guest fee: $75 (adults only; includes meals but not program participation)

Dress is business casual.

Event Contact
Monica Laughery

Date & Time
Fri, Apr 04, 2025 , 1:30 p.m. PT —
Sun, Apr 06, 2025 , 11:30 a.m. PT

Location
Hyatt Regency Newport Beach | Newport Beach, CA

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