Seminar and Family Session days, times, and locations:

• Seminar Times: Tuesday and Thursdays 9:30 - 10:45 

  • Classroom:  TLC 023

• Family Meetings:  TBA     NOTE: allow time for regular out-of-class group meetings.

• Evening at the Movies:  TBA

Office Locations and Hours:

Go to:

• Pilgrimage Edicts - Getting Started and Assistance Along the Way

• Schedule of Topics, Assignments and Session Dates -  A Map of Our Journey

• Leaning Outcomes - Upon Reaching the Summit of Your Pilgrimage

• Learning Activities - Skills and Competencies Needed to Reach the Summit

• Grading Rubrics - Assessing How Well We're Doing - Grading criteria for Learning Activities

• Family Groups and Memberships - A Collaborative Effort

• Seminar Resources - More Assistance Along the Way, includes a Bibliography for the Projects

• Study Guide - For Exams (Learning Activity A)

Course Description:  Throughout history and in the varied communities of the world, sacred journeys within the world’s great traditions have been at the foundation at providing spiritual and cultural significance and meaning to life, and of creating and sustaining communities.  Sacred journeys go to the heart of what it means to be "human."  During this semester we will consider the sacred journeys embedded in Indigenous communities throughout the world today, with special attention to the Schitsu-umsh and Apsáalooke (Coeur d'Alene and Crow American Indian).

Sacred journeys are of many different types and serve a variety of essential roles.  In this seminar we will focus on "rites of passage," such as spiritual quests, initiations into religious and social orders or statuses, states of illness and healing, and the final rite of passage, death.  It is through the rites of passage, embedded in oral traditions, that communities facilitate access to and disseminate their quintessential teachings and truths.  While all sacred journeys travel over and through an exterior landscape, seeking to discover the divine on a mountain or some other a sacred site, all sacred journeys are fundamentally focused on the interior journeys of the soul and spirit, realizing the divine within oneself.  We will discover that all sacred journeys are essential to and shared by all human communities throughout time and throughout the world today.  

Before we begin our journey and to better equip you for it, we will develop your learning skills in "Huckleberrying" and "Eye Juggling."   The seminar will provide an academic research and learning technique (as distinguished from a theological approach) involving an integrated humanities and social sciences methodology known as Eye Juggling, that allows you to interpret religious/cultural symbols, values and stories from not only Indigenous but from all human communities.  As you consider various sacred story texts throughout this seminar, such as an oral narrative or a ritual dance, interpreting these texts will allow you to better understand the meaning embedded within them.  It is a methodology that allows you to get a little closer to seeing the world's communities from the perspectives of the community's members themselves.   As the seminar's methodology is self-reflexive, as you will “travel” (through the learning activities) into these Indigenous communities, you will at the same time explore and perhaps unveil special and revered territories within him or herself, and his or her own community.  And as a consequence, by juxtaposing what can be unique and distinct along side what is often veiled and taken for granted, one also can more clearly reveal and appreciate your own essential and cherished values and teachings.

So we will explore such questions as: what distinguishes the Indigenous from you and what do we all share in common?   What is the meaning of rites of passage and how do they influence our lives?  How is identity formed, and how are communities held together? What influences our capacities to love and to hate one another?   How are we to engage the many strangers amongst us? 

Grade Distribution: Your final grade will be based upon the total points earned from A. the three exams (90 points; 30 points for each of three exams);  B. attending seminar sessions, family group meetings, in-class discussion, and reflective writes (20 points; 1.5 points for the approximate twelve to fifteen meetings/writes/discussions/notes; repeated misses earn your "rocks" and result in points being taken away); C. family participatory project (5 points for proposal, and 55 points for project, for total of 60 points); D. library journey (20 points), and E. Common Read essay (10 points).  Only through participation can you arrive at our pilgrimage destination, the ISEM 101 Leaning Outcomes, and receive your earned and appropriate grade.  The following scale typically determines your grade: 180-200 (90%-100%) = A, 160-179 (80%-89%) = B, 140-159 (70%-79%) = C, 120-139 (60%-69%) = D