Insight Studies Roundtable
See Below for Program and Contact Information
Facilitating an Entry into Interiority
Co-Hosted by Insight Today and the Lonergan Institute at Boston College
Saturday, April 6, 2024, 10 am – 4:30 ET
Join Zoom Meeting
https://bccte.zoom.us/j/98563375040
Meeting ID: 985 6337 5040
Join us in reflection on some of the most effective ways of introducing students, professionals, and lay audiences to self-presence and self-appropriation. The roundtable is an open conversation prompted by what we ourselves have experienced and have heard from others about the joys and challenges of introducing students to interiority in various disciplines and professions. The focus of the day’s discussions will be on providing an entry into the world of interiority and on issuing an invitation to deliberate cooperation with the dynamics of personal development.
Our goal is to work toward identifying what might be best practices in the realm of interiority. In this roundtable discussion we will highlight the efforts by Ken Melchin, Richard Grallo and Jamie Price. Presenters will provide an overview and illustration of their ways of introducing self-appropriation in the mode: “Here’s what we have come up with; what do you think?” Participants are invited to bring their own experiences and strategies to the conversation.
Format: Four distinct conversations in which there will be:
· 20 minutes for presentation/demonstration
· 15 minutes for breakout conversations
· 25 minutes for large group conversation
Schedule
10:00 Session 1: Discussion on the Current Situation & Importance of a renewed approach (Panel Conversation) How well/to what extent has it been working? How can we account for the success and failures? What can we do better/different?
Break 15 minutes
11:15 Session 2: Ken Melchin discussing his practice-based approach to self-appropriation. Ken has put together a workbook he is provisionally calling Insight Studies, to be published by University of Toronto Press and is currently working on its sequel.
12:00 Lunch
1:00 Session 3: Richard Grallo discussing problem-solving as mindful practice which he describes in Question and Insight in Everyday Life: A Blueprint for Transformative Problem Solving.
Break 15 minutes
2:15 Session 4: Jamie Price giving a demonstration of the model of conversation structured around targeted curiosity from The Call: The Spiritual Realism of Sargent Shriver.
Break 15 minutes
3:30 Closing: Roberto DeLaNoval will wrap up the day by leading a discussion on what we might do next to further the Lonergan project beyond the contexts of philosophy and theology and how we might create instruments for helping the Lonergan community to develop best practices.
Biographies and Contact Information
Kenneth Melchin, PhD (kmelchin@ustpaul.ca) is Emeritus Professor at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, and Senior Research Associate at the Lonergan Centre of Saint Paul U. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Lonergan Research Institute at the University of Toronto and authored five books, including Spiritualizing Politics without Politicizing Religion (with Jamie Price), Transforming Conflict through Insight (with Cheryl Picard) and Living with Other People (also published in French and Spanish). Ken has published numerous articles, directed a good number of doctoral theses, and directed or co-directed various research projects. His research focuses on the work Bernard Lonergan and develops applications in the fields of transformative learning, religion and politics, conflict studies, ethics, business and economics, philosophy, theology, and the social sciences.
Richard Grallo, PhD (problemquest@usa.net) is emeritus professor of human services at Metropolitan College of New York. He began teaching at the College in 1983. He has taught undergraduate courses in applied psychology and statistics and graduate courses in research methods and organizational behavior. During this time, he also taught undergraduate and graduate-level courses in counseling, measurement, and research methodology in other university locations in New York. He is a Fellow and Lifetime Member of the Albert Ellis Institute, a Past President of the Association for the Advancement of Educational Research, a member Phi Delta Kappa and other scientific and professional organizations. His research interests include problem solving, decision-making, self-regulation of learning and the application of mathematical models and multivariate methods to social science problems. He also serves as a psycho-educational consultant to individuals and organizations and is currently an advisor on assessment to the MCNY academic vice-president.
Dr. Grallo’s most recent book is Question and Insight in Everyday Life: A Blueprint for Transformative Problem-Solving, published by Lexington Press.
Jamie Price, PhD (pricejamie@icloud.com) is the founding director of the Sargent Shriver Peace Institute. He has held faculty positions at Georgia State University, The Catholic University of America, George Mason University, and the University of Chicago. He has been working on Lonergan and the issues of conflict resolution, peace building, and the functional relationship of spirit, consciousness, and action for a long time - beginning with his studies at the Divinity School at U Chicago where I studied with David Tracy and Bernie McGinn.
Rob De La Noval, PhD (robertdln@gmail.com) is assistant professor of theology at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He spent a semester in residence at the Lonergan Institute in Boston College in 2022, and he runs several Lonergan reading groups at his home university. He is also a translator of Russian religious thought, and his last book was Serius Bulgakov: Spiritual Diary, which he translated with his co-translator Fr. Mark Roosien. His interests are in systematic theology, especially in the field of eschatology, and in theological and philosophical pedagogy.
Mike Stebbins, PhD (mikestebbins55@gmail.com) completed his doctorate in Theology from Boston College. He has served as a Senior Fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center, located at Georgetown University; the director of the Gonzaga Institute of Ethics at Gonzaga University; the Executive Vice President of Mission at Avera Health, a four-state Catholic healthcare system headquartered in Sioux Falls, SD; and, most recently, the Toth/Lonergan Visiting Professor at Seton Hall University. He is the author of The Divine Initiative: Grace, World-Order, and Human Freedom in the Early Work of Bernard Lonergan.
Paul LaChance, PhD (pjlachance@outlook.com 1.908.235.8489) is an adjunct professor of Theology at DeSales University in Center Valley, PA and psychotherapist. As researcher, teacher and counselor, his main focus is on the mediation of interiority and promotion of responsible cooperation with the dynamics of human growth and development. He places a high value on couple counseling firmly believing that personal authenticity is the achievement of individuals nurtured in loving relationships. We are loved into our full humanity in good conversations. Paul also holds a master degree in Counseling Psychology and is licensed to practice mental health counseling in NJ, PA and RI.