Zooming to the Scene: Higher Education Chaplaincy and Hybrid Digital Care

ABSTRACT

This essay emphasizes the demand within higher education for hybrid residential and digital care from chaplains and the growing necessity for theological education and continuing education that offer literacy of current technological training of digital platforms. While the American religious landscape is shifting away from singular religious preference and identification, for chaplaincy work, it is pivoting – in that our work has always encompassed multi-faceted ways for the human spirit to access meaning and purpose. What is changing is how we project our work and the means for connecting with our constituents. This essay ultimately argues that the digitally hybrid care responses activated by safety protocols to COVID-19 were inevitably coming due to higher education’s engagement with Gen Z and Gen Alpha; and, moreover, that theological training centers should adapt their core curriculum to include basic audio/visual production, and digital emotional intelligence display.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education chaplain
• technology
• digital space
• students
• cyber platforms
• hybrid care

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Taylor, Keynote Address at the National Association of College and University Chaplains.

2 Sampson, “Facebook”.

3 Sampson, “Digital Hush Harbors,” 45–66.

4 Bursch, “Social Media Polarization and the Ministry of Reconciliation,”291.

5 Johns, “Ethical Issues in the Study of Religion and New Media,” 238–250.

6 Goleman, Emotional Intelligence.

7 Ward and Rayasam, “Des Moines Mayor”.

8 Haelle, “Your ‘Surge Capacity’ Is Depleted — It’s Why You Feel Awful”.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

K. Monet Rice-Jalloh

K. Monet Rice-Jalloh focuses on curating spiritual well-being practices across a broad range of religious and philosophical ideologies. She joined the Wake Forest University community in July of 2012 and is vice-president of the Association for Chaplaincy and Spiritual Life in Higher Education. She specializes in spiritual well-being with a current gravitational pull towards cultivating spiritual practices for descendants of enslaved Africans. Her scholarly interests mirror her specialty as she recently completed her doctoral project, Exploring Spiritual Well-being for Descendants of Enslaved Africans at Predominately White Institutions (PWIs) of Higher Education. She populates a website dedicated to intertwining African and African-American ancestral practices with Christianity as a form of expanding and introducing chaplaincy work in the digital space (www.thechaplainchat.com).