Beneath the Roar and Tumult: Promoting Radical Hospitality and Belonging in College Classrooms

2026 Catholic Media Association Second Place Award, Edited Collections – Contemporary/Modern Authors

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 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 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 assistant professor of spirituality at the University of Portland where she teaches Bible, ecospirituality, contemplative traditions, and arts as spiritual formation. Her degrees include 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 writes on desert spirituality and ecospiritual practice.

Karen E. Eifler is director of Collegium, the national colloquy of faith and intellectual life, and professor emerita of education at the University of Portland. She co-edited this book's companion volume, Becoming Beholders: Cultivating Sacramental Imagination and Actions in College Classrooms.