The Rev. A. Meigs Ross on promoting diversity in the supervisory ranks of CPE

Allowing Diversity to Influence the CPE Culture

I currently supervise a group of supervisory residents which includes the following members – male, female, Euro-American, African-American, African, Asian, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, married, single – and there are only four students in the group! The diversity represented in this small group of students is wide and deep and provides rich soil for learning.

Promoting diversity within the supervisory ranks of CPE is an essential and important task. The development of a diverse CPE student and supervisory body within Clinical Pastoral Education from a systems point of view strengthens and transforms the entire system, in this case the entire pastoral care and clinical pastoral education communities. Systems oriented thinking [1] posits that systems keep themselves healthy by discriminating and integrating differences. The primary goals of any system are to survive, develop, and transform from simple to more complex. This development and transformation requires taking in and integrating difference. Integrating difference begins as similarities are found in the apparently different, and differences are found in the apparently similar. [2]

All systems have boundaries that open and close to information and energy. Systems stay stable by managing the flow of energy and change across boundaries. If there is too little new energy and information brought into a system, the system risks becoming stagnant and dying. If there is too much new energy and information brought into a system, the system will flood and be unable to integrate the amount of difference. The system will then close its boundaries and keep the difference out, or it will split off the different parts and keep them from influencing the system as a whole. In systems thinking the system is kept healthy and growing by opening its boundaries to change and difference at the level at which the system can adapt to the change and learn and grow with the change.

As the clinical pastoral education movement matures and continues to respond to an increasingly diverse student body, our task remains to keep our boundaries open to the changes and challenges that are brought to CPE by an increasingly complex and varied CPE and supervisory education student body. Integrating supervisors and supervisory students from many cultures, traditions and religions into the culture of CPE requires more than simply opening the doors to new students. We are challenged as a CPE community to allow the diversity of our student body to influence our CPE culture and to thereby enrich it and transform it. If we keep out difference we will stagnate; yet the challenges of opening our doors to diverse students also requires us to open ourselves as CPE supervisors, students and colleagues to learning, thinking, theologizing and ministering in new ways.

My Jewish, Muslim and multidenominational Christian students and colleagues have challenged me to look at G-d with new eyes and to explore good and evil in the world with a broader understanding. My Buddhist students and colleagues have encouraged me to find ways of exploring and teaching about the world with a new cosmological lens. My Korean and African students have urged me to expand my vision of CPE and to understand the cultural aspects of community, authority and hospitality with a greater openness in the CPE supervisory training curricula. Many of our supervisory education students in ACPE are currently challenging CPE with new understandings about learning styles and new ways of thinking about building supervisory and pastoral care alliances. I look forward to the joys and struggles ahead as the diversity within the clinical pastoral education world continues to expand to include an increasing breadth of cultures, religions and traditions which in turn will transform our ministry and education.

I would appreciate hearing stories of both the joys and challenges that CPE has posed for CPE students, groups and supervisory students as they have opened their personal and group boundaries to an increasingly diverse student, peer and colleague population.

[1] Agazarian, Yvonne and Gantt, Susan. Autobiography of a Theory, Developing a Theory of Living Human Systems and its System-Centered Practice. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. London & Philadelphia. 2000 pp 245-247.

[2] Ibid., pg. 18 ( “A theory of living human systems defines a hierarchy of isomorphic systems that are energy organizing, goal directed, and self-correcting.”)

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