Beneath the Roar and the Tumult

How do Catholic university faculty attend to and support the prophetic imaginations of their students?

Among the treasures of the Catholic intellectual tradition, two are especially vital for contemporary Catholic education: the sacramental imagination and prophetic imagination. A sacramental imagination, as illuminated in this book’s companion Becoming Beholders, posits that God is made manifest in all the academic life. But that reality of beauty and goodness must be held in tension with the prophetic imagination—a worldview that is acutely attuned to injustices and looks with creative eyes towards a more peaceful and equitable world.

Composed of essays by faculty in Catholic higher education in various fields, Beneath the Roar and the Tumult addresses this tension, with insight into practical strategies for attending to the prophetic imagination in the classroom. In the classroom, educators are called on to create spaces for their students to grapple with inequalities and to dream of an actionable way forward while cultivating a more wholistic vision of academic life in solidarity with the world outside of it. Beneath the Roar and the Tumult offers practical guidance for fostering inclusion and belonging in college classrooms to provide a space where the prophetic imagination is embraced.

Rachel Wheeler is associate professor of spirituality at the University of Portland and secretary of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality. She has a PhD in Christian spirituality from the Graduate Theological Union, an MA in theology, specializing in monastic studies, from Saint John's School of Theology, and an MA in English from Humboldt State University. She is the author of Desert Daughters, Desert Sons: Rethinking the Christian Desert Tradition (Liturgical Press, 2020). Her most recent book is Radical Kinship: A Christian Ecospirituality (Fortress Press, 2024).

Karen E. Eifler is professor of education emerita at the University of Portland in Oregon and the director of Collegium, a consortium of more than 60 North American Catholic colleges and universities, that aims to develop the faith and intellectual life of lay educator. Eifler was also the co-director of the Garaventa Center for Catholic Intellectual Life and American Culture at the University of Portland from 2013–2024. She has been published in many journals including Catholic Education: a Journal of Inquiry and Practice, Transformational Education, Journal of Teacher Education, and The Teaching Professor.