Introducing our January Intersession and Spring semester course offerings! Check out the full line-up of courses below.
Early registration opens November 4.
While exploring Starr King, you can take any of these classes as a Special Student before you are fully enrolled. If you successfully complete the class and decide to enroll in one of our certificate or degree programs, this Special Student course will transfer. Spots for Special Students are limited and on an as-available basis. Learn more about registering as a Special Student here.
Use code “TrySKSM” to waive the Special Student enrollment fee.
Scroll down to learn more about each course!
In this combined synchronous and asynchronous online intensive, students will learn about the mental, emotional, and spiritual impacts of climate change; develop an understanding of climate emotions, particularly climate grief and anxiety; reflect on how climate change is transforming the chaplain’s role and response; and begin thinking about how to provide culturally competent climate pastoral care that is a reflection of their identities and capacities. Learn more!
This online synchronous course will introduce basic meditation techniques with an emphasis on self-care. Participants will learn foundational elements of sitting meditation, including correct posture and body alignment, followed by methods for progressive relaxation and mindfulness of the breath. The series will also offer tools for setting up a daily practice and a brief introduction to moving meditation. Learn more!
This online synchronous intensive focuses on embodying multi-religiosity in personal practice, tending multi-religiosity in spiritual leadership and public worship, and engaging multi-religiosity toward countering oppression and cultural (mis)appropriation. The intensive also engages embodied practice around ancestor reverence and healing – in spiritual lineage and family / blood lineage – as a way of anchoring multi-religious expression, countering oppression, and aligning to blessing. Learn more!
This online synchronous course is designed to prepare you for the most common needs of congregational ministries. Topics covered will include expectations of ministry in congregations of differing sizes and contexts; the tasks of ministry and time management; congregational governance and ministry; mission, vision, and covenant; fundraising; budgets and the nurturance of strategic thinking; staffing; membership growth and pastoral care; conflict identification and management; issues in community engagement and social justice; and safety and security practices. Learn more!
This week-long synchronous online intensive will approach the subject of spiritual counseling in addiction and how to apply different modalities to individuals suffering from substance abuse or addictive disorders. Student will discuss different philosophical approaches and principles that align with addiction treatment, including: holistic vs. 12-step model, discussing grief and loss, exploring identity through personality test application, implementing ritual and ceremony, and seeking purpose and meaning. The goal is to educate and enhance the application of current ideals to the consistently saturated substance-abuse treatment field. Learn more!
This hybrid interdisciplinary course is designed to equip students with a comprehensive suite of analytical tools, enabling them to navigate and comprehend the diverse realities elucidated by critical theories. It extensively explores multifaceted dimensions, including identity, gender, race/ethnicity, class, intersectionality, and the nuanced construction of meaning within the realm of faith. Learn more!
This synchronous online course will present an overview of developing a counter-oppressive popular media and technology framework that includes films, TV shows, comic books, video games, music, weblogs, streaming services, social network platforms, and other forms of content. It will serve as a container for student work on creating and disseminating content that counters oppression is its various forms. Learn more!
This course is a peer group seminar for students seeking deeper engagement with specific dharmic texts and/or leadership theories & practices. Two or three required synchronous group sessions and two or three required one-on-one sessions with the instructor, for a total of four to six synchronous online meetings, are required, times TBD with the students. Like a SKIL, students develop unique learning arcs and outcomes in partnership with and approved by the instructor. Learn more!
This online synchronous course will build upon the basic foundations of meditation and introduce methods for developing concentration, encouraging self-care, and taking one’s practice into the workplace to be of best benefit to one’s self and others. The series will offer tools for strengthening an existing daily practice and resources for further learning and discovery. Learn more!
This seminar style course will be developed in collaboration with the research interests and ministry goals of the participants. Possible topics include but are not limited to multigenerational worship and congregation-wide learning, dismantling white supremacy and positive racial identity formation in multicultural congregations, alternatives to Sunday School, safer congregation policies and practices, using technology and virtual/distance methods in religious education and faith development programs. Learn more!
This course will provide a historical survey of Christianity from the close of the New Testament period to the present with the goals of identifying diverse theological convictions and spiritual practices, attending to underrepresented and “heretical” perspectives, and analyzing the role of Christian faith(s) in justifying oppression or seeking liberation. Learn more!
In this synchronous online course, students work together to form a framework for counter-oppressive spiritual leadership. Drawing on Unitarian Universalist and multi-religious sources, we will explore how in the midst of a world marked by tragedy, sorrow and injustice, there remain abiding resources of beauty and grace that nourish resistance, offer healing, and call us to accountability and community building. Learn more!
This synchronous online course (open to all interested students) introduces ecowomanism, the study of theology, spirituality, and ethics that centers the Black woman’s lived experience globally. An exploration of emerging themes and issues in environmental justice, focusing on those intersecting with race, sexuality, gender, ethnicity, class, culture, religious expression, Mother Earth, and non-human species. Learn more!
This seminar style three-credit course will provide students with a facilitated space to engage various approaches to and modalities for educating to counter oppression and create just and sustainable communities (ECO) in a multireligious, spiritually grounded context. Different SKSM faculty offer synchronous and/or asynchronous weekly lessons and experiences that demonstrate the school’s educational philosophy in action, within an integrated curricular container. Learn more!
This online synchronous course will present a framework for the practice of multi-religious dialogue, drawing upon contemporary texts and student experiences to understand interfaith engagement as non-binary and non-exclusive. Students will be encouraged to share their multi-religious perspectives to foster discussion about ways in which to engage in interfaith work among and between different traditions and understand dialogue from a variety of perspectives. Learn more!
The rationale of this synchronous, online course is to engage the interdependence of internal and collective power in contributing to organizations, movements, regeneration, and liberation. The course will explore specific approaches to social change through various perspectives of power, organization, and movement. This includes the phenomena that contribute to and are perpetuated by interlocking patterns of domination. Learn more!
This course will focus on the entrepreneurship of our students and the development of new ministerial methods that are firmly rooted in their own spiritual/religious identity, personal practices that mentally/emotionally/spiritually sustain them, the needs of the community(ies) they want to serve (especially when it comes to BIPOC needs), and the skill set needed to facilitate group or individual sessions. Learn more!
In this asynchronous online course, students will explore, develop and/or deepen their spiritual practice and support others in doing the same. The class will be experiential and multi-religious, drawing on some of the wisdom and practices of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Earth-based traditions, as well as neuroscience, poetry, and Ecopsychology. Learn more!
This asynchronous course with optional weekly discussion sessions will interrogate our understanding of justice. What theories, paradigms, and practices are we considering, where do they come from, and what is their history? Who do they benefit? What other paradigms and experiences exist within our and other communities and contexts? How do they affect our ability to imagine, ritualize, and co-create a better world? How do they understand human beings in the context of the world and other beings? Learn more!
This course integrates theology, theory, and practice from trauma-informed studies, liberation and community psychology, and restorative and transformative justice approaches to conflict engagement, harm, and healing in community systems. It invites participants to a rigorous personal engagement with what conflict transformation can mean for them. Learn more!
This asynchronous online course will explore the history of Unitarian Universalist Prophetic Witness since the Merger in 1961, as expressed in activism and voted on by the annual Unitarian Universalist General Assembly. It will combine historical investigation of social justice actions and witness with deep analysis of Unitarian Universalist polity and how congregations transform affirmation into action. Learn more!
The purpose of this asynchonous course is to introduce the student to the distinctive theological heritage and theological perspectives present within Unitarian Universalist traditions and congregations, and to equip students to begin to think and write theologically in the context of post-modern religious communities. Especially oriented to students who identify as Unitarian Universalists, this course will encourage participants to form a practice of engaged theological thinking within the context of Unitarian Universalism’s particular perspectives, resources, limits, and possibilities. Learn more!
About our graduate programs
Each student’s course of study is individually designed.
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