Pope Leo XIV’s first major writing, Magnifica Humanitatis, offers Christian wisdom for living in a world of artificial intelligence. In these sessions, we will read slowly through this work, asking what it means to live as people of faith amidst the various social, political, and moral challenges that artificial intelligence represents. 

Online Version: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html

Audio Version: 
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2026-06/audiobook-of-pope-leo-xiv-s-encyclical-now-available.html

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szx4ako8uys

Presenter: Ryan Richardson
Colleges and universities like ACU are navigating growing polarization, public skepticism, and increased scrutiny, all while students themselves often report more openness, belonging, and dialogue on campus than public narratives suggest. This session explores how we as higher education professionals can respond to that tension with clarity, resilience, and purpose. Drawing on leadership theory and real-world campus scenarios, participants will consider practical approaches for engaging disagreement, sustaining institutional values, building trust across differences, and turning moments of civic tension into opportunities for stronger communities and meaningful institutional change.
Teaching and Learning Session

Presenter: Tim Sensing

This year many of our lunches will focus on discussing the concepts, uses, and strategies of different qualitative methodologies. These will be opportunities to learn about different methodologies and hear from researchers about how they have used these methods in their work. To kick us off this year, Dr. Tim Sensing will lead a discussion about Participatory Action Research. Participatory Action Research is a collaborative qualitative methodology in which researchers and participants jointly investigate a problem, generate knowledge, and take action toward meaningful change. Dr. Sensing will discuss how he has used Participatory Action Research in his own work.

Research and Scholarship

Presenter:Tyson Alexander 
Helping others is meaningful work, but meaningful work can also take a toll. Whether we teach, mentor, counsel, lead, or care for others, helping requires us to continually offer some of our most important resources: our presence, empathy, and emotional energy. This interactive session explores the cost of caring, including burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary stress, while helping participants recognize early warning signs and distinguish temporary relief from genuine restoration. Together, we’ll consider wellbeing not simply as an individual self-care responsibility, but as something personal, relational, and organizational, and develop practical ways to protect our capacity to care deeply without carrying everything.
Spiritual Formation

In these sessions we explore themes of spiritual listening and will listen to each share about our experiences with God and/or with spiritual practices. These structured discussions will occur in 3-4 person groups. The purpose is to create space for connecting with each other and God. Over the course of five sessions, we will consider the spiritual listening themes of attention, silence, and reflection.

Led by Steve Hare
Reading Scripture in a group setting is a simple but moving practice. Join us as we read selected Pauline epistles. These sessions will offer space to slow down and relish that shared experience. Together we will read, listen, consider and regard the power, depth and beauty of Scripture. 
Spiritual Formation Session

In anticipation of a campus visit by Ruth Haley Barton in February (yes, that Ruth Haley Barton!), the Adams Center will host a book and Sabbath practice group on Barton's book Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest: From Sabbath to Sabbatical and Back Again. The journey to a meaningful Sabbath practice is slow and gradual, and it is a journey we need to take in community. Sharing her own story of practicing Sabbath for the past twenty years, Barton offers hard-won wisdom regarding the rhythms of Sabbath, exploring both weekly Sabbath-keeping as well as extended periods of sabbatical time.

In the Disengaged Teen, journalist-educator duo Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop describe four student ways of being in the classroom that reflect different engagement responses to their educational and social environment. From the passenger who just coasts along, doing just enough to pass to the achiever who constantly checks the rubric and gradebook so they can make sure they get an "A," we'll explore how different modes of engagement form, manifest, and can be supported or challenged. Each session, we'll dig into one of the engagement modes and discuss what it means for our work teaching and supporting students.