Teaching religion with the Saudis

My mother was on the phone, her voice revealing her concern. “Everyone at church today prayed for you and your class,” she said. Later my husband’s grandmother called—again—to ask if I was okay.

I was afraid, too. I remember my hands quivering slightly as I wrote my name on the board while students I had never seen before streamed into my classroom. My job was to teach them something about religion, asking them to critically examine not just religion in general but specifics—including their own tradition. There were 30 students, all of them Muslim. Twenty-nine of them were male.

Shortly before the spring 2013 semester, the gossip networks had exploded among Texas Wesleyan University faculty: we should expect a large influx of Saudi Arabian students. It was a welcome population boost.