Defying the stereotypical rigid and noiseless shush-zone, the Beam Library at Oklahoma Christian University offers a third space, an intentional space where normative rules and structures are challenged by shared encounters with cultural and ideological otherness. Third spaces open possibilities for transformational education by broadening worldview, encouraging self-reflection, and enlarging the soul. Among other strategies, we generate third space experience through two, co-curricular weekly chapel events that engage the intersection of faith and culture. First, Beam Chapel offers a reflective space where participants engage gritty questions arising from the dark of film, literature, and television. Second, Safe at Home exists as a generous safe space that fosters connection and facilitates crucial conversation about gender, sexuality, and church. Chapel facilitators foster meaningful conversations among participants and demonstrate the library’s capacity as a significant space for transformative learning, as evidenced by participant survey responses mapped to specific learning outcomes for each chapel. Presentation participants will 1) hear about third space as significant for fostering transformative learning; 2) recognize strategies for taking TL to co-curricular spaces; 3) learn about co-curricular TL for empowering undergraduate research; and 4) engage in question-and-response with presenters.

Research question: Are co-curricular third spaces viable spaces for transformative learning?

Design and method: Survey feedback mapped to specific learning outcomes offers evidence for the transformative viability of two, co-curricular weekly chapel events, Beam Chapel and Safe at Home.

Defying the stereotypical rigid and noiseless shush-zone, the Beam Library at Oklahoma Christian University offers a third space, an intentional space where normative rules and structures are challenged by shared encounters with cultural and ideological otherness. Third spaces open possibilities for transformational education by broadening worldview, encouraging self-reflection, and enlarging the soul. Among other strategies, we generate third space experience through two, co-curricular weekly chapel events that engage the intersection of faith and culture.

First, Beam Chapel offers a reflective space where participants engage gritty questions arising from the dark of film, literature, and television. The chapel hollows out a space for acknowledging, questioning, celebrating, and critiquing assumptions about faith, popular culture, and our inherited tradition(s). Second, Safe at Home exists as a generous safe space that fosters connection and facilitates crucial conversation about gender, sexuality, and church. Safe at Home offers an important space for empowering students who may feel unsafe (whether because they are or affirm LGBT+ individuals) to learn to navigate existence among difference and to foster hospitable rather than fearful responses to the current, normative experience of LGBT+ students at OC.

Chapel facilitators foster meaningful conversations among participants and demonstrate the library’s capacity as a significant space for transformative learning, as evidenced by participant survey responses mapped to specific learning outcomes for each chapel. At the 2018 Transformative Learning Conference, we hope to establish the concept of third space as a provocative concept for transformative education, describe our own strategies for taking TL to co-curricular spaces, and demonstrate transformative learning in the lives of two students for whom each co-curricular chapel has fostered and enhanced undergraduate research. Presentation participants will 1) hear about third space as significant for fostering transformative learning; 2) recognize strategies for taking TL to co-curricular spaces; 3) learn about co-curricular TL for empowering undergraduate research; and 4) engage in question-and-response with presenters.

Elmborg, J. K. (2011). Libraries as the spaces between us: Recognizing and valuing the third space. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 50(4), 338-350.

Elmborg, J., Jacobs, H. L., McElroy, K., & Nelson, R. (2015). Making a third space for student voices in two academic libraries. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 55(2), 144-155.

Månsson, N., & Langmann, E. (2011). Facing ambivalence in education: A strange(r's) hope?. Ethics & Education, 6(1), 15-25.

30-Minute Roundtable Session

Launching Transformative Learning