It is funny how anniversaries creep up on you. It is twenty years ago this week since I went to read theology at the University of St Andrews. I can remember Freshers’ Week very clearly all these years later. Inevitably, some of those whom I met in the first few days there, I have lost touch with, but some of those I met very early on in that experience have proved to be friends for life.
Going to study at St Mary’s College in St Andrews changed me more than almost anything else that I’ve done. It was whilst I was there that I joined the Episcopal Church and became an Anglican, after carefully shopping around looking at the alternatives. My three years there also taught me to think clearly for myself, and I don’t think you can ask more from a unversity experience than that.
Theology at St Andrews in those days was a little different to how it is now, I think. It was generally a liberal, progressive, enquiring theology that was being laid in front of us. It was a common experience for people like me who came with fairly conservative theological presumptions to go through an experience of feeling a little lost for a while. All that one thought was open to question. Eventually, most of us managed to reconstruct ways of thinking, living and being out of the building blocks that the course offered. That experience for me was total. It was life-changing.
I’m grateful to those who taught me and those who experienced it with me. I wish I knew where to recommend to people to have the same experience now.
Sadly, I just don’t know.
you stole my blog post.
Happy Anniversary !!
How would you describe theology at St Andrews as you see it now?
There are certainly more staff who seem to teach from a more conservative standpoint. The loss of Daphne Hampson to the college inevitably makes a difference to all the courses offered.
Also, the college is much more significantly orientated towards postgrad students from the US. When I was there, a dominating influence was the cohort of Church of Scotland candidates.
University teaching in Scotland has changed quite a lot since then. Semesterization has changed the relationship between learning and examination. (Tends towards more compartmentalised teaching). I suspect that class sizes, particularly at honours level are probably larger than I experienced.
Another significant change that has affected the university experience is the need for a greater proportion of students to work during semester. Although I worked outside term time (usually as a glamorous office temp) I couldn’t have had the experience that I had if I had needed to work during term.
Come on Kelvin, where would you recommend – there must be somewhere?
No, the awful thing is that I really don’t know where to recommend. [I note in passing that as much as I loved St Mary’s College in St Andrews, I hated New College in Edinburgh].
The calibre of both students and teachers was what marked out my time at St Andrews and I don’t know where one might find that now.
There is certainly some good teaching in Glasgow. But I’ve never known any student here describe their experience as I would describe my experience in St Andrews.
Can’t believe it is twenty years! Still you don’t look a day older….the salt air might have something to do with it.
I think of the options, I would still choose St Andrews — but having done degrees there on both sides of semesterization, I have no doubt that the new structures do not encourage depth or synthesis as effectively as the old system. It’s still possible, of course, but you have to find a way of doing it for yourself, and the exam system works against it.
Well, I only did level one courses in theology at Glasgow Yooni, but it was something of an eye-opener. Am sure those coming from a conservative background and writing an essay on,e.g., homosexuality will have their beliefs challenged by doing the relevant reading (and the library does have Gagnon et all less evangelicals complain of academia being one-sided liberal etc).
Is it wrong that your mention of being an office temp made me think of ‘9 to 5’? 😉
Tumble out of bed and stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition…
And so on.
BTW, theology wasn’t about sexuality back in my day. It was about gender. And I note the appalling gender ratio on the St Mary’s website (17:1, I think) with some sadness.