Master's degree students teaching theology

Friday, Sep. 05, 2014

For the next two years, theology classes at Juan Diego Catholic High School in Draper and Saint Joseph Catholic High School in Ogden will be taught by three young Catholics who are working on master’s degrees through the Echo Faith Formation Leadership Program at University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Church Life.

Each teacher holds an undergraduate degree in theology; they also have completed 14 credits of their master’s degree.

Having the three teach in Utah Catholic schools is “a tremendous opportunity for us because of their skill level,” said Susan Northway, director of the Diocese of Salt Lake City’s Office of Religious Education, adding that it can be difficult to find qualified theology teachers.

Rob Goodale and Jenny Klejeski are at Juan Diego CHS; Tom Tulp is at St. Joseph CHS, where he teaches journalism and communications as well as theology. All three were attracted to the Echo program because of its service component in addition to the academics, they said; upon completion of the program each will have earned a master’s degree in theology.

“We’re being prepared for something after our graduation … in the sense that Echo is intended for people who want to spend their entire life in the Church in positions of catechesis,” Goodale said.

Both Goodale and Klejeski received their undergraduate degrees from the University of Notre Dame; Tulp graduated from Marquette University, a Catholic institution in Wisconsin. Being accustomed to areas where “the assumption is that everyone is at least culturally Catholic,” as Goodale described it, the three have experienced something of culture shock in Utah, where they are in the religious minority.

Still, they have found numerous reasons to enjoy their new surroundings.

“I drive to work every day and see the sun rise behind the mountains, and that’s surreal,” said Tulp, who has never before been in the western United States. He added that he was excited to learn about Mormon culture; he also has realized among his own students “how much of a yearning there is for the love of God,” he said.

Since they have arrived, “the hospitality of the diocese is overwhelming,” Klejeski said, adding that “the intentionality of the Catholics in Utah is eye-opening and beautiful.”

Her goal as a theology teacher is to help students encounter Christ personally “but even more basic than that, I hope that my students will come to appreciate theology as an academic discipline,” she said.

Tulp, who attended a Jesuit high school, said he is enjoying the opportunity at a diocesan high school to draw on a variety of charisms rather than that of just one religious order. In addition to helping his students form their identities, he hopes to aid the school in building connections with the local community that will persist even after he has gone, he said.

Their students see them as role models, Goodale said. “Our presence in these high schools as young adults who have chosen to take two years of our lives to further the cause of the Church, and to enter into this cause and make it our own, has been sort of jarring for the teenagers,” he said, adding that local high school students don’t seem to know many young adult Catholics who are passionate about the faith. 

As one of the Echo program’s requirements, the three live in community; they share an apartment in Salt Lake City, a relationship that is affirming personally as well as professionally, they said.

“I continually am surprised by each of these people in the ways in which they can be Christ to me,” Goodale said of Klejeski and Tulp.

“I feel incredibly blessed to have two people that I’m living with who are doing the exact same thing that I am,” Klejeski agreed, saying that the three of them are able to trouble-shoot classroom problems, plan lessons together, share resources, and most of all, pray together.