By Caleb McGever | FāVS News
One recently graduated group of Gonzaga students took to the trails in a new class exploring cycling, spirituality and connection. The class, which was called “Care for the Person, Care for the Planet,” brought students beyond the classroom to explore Spokane’s new Children of the Sun trail and challenged them to reimagine what it looks like to connect with community.
The Rev. Scott Starbuck, a senior lecturer in religious studies at Gonzaga University, taught the class for the first time this semester and plans to teach it as a recurring Spring class. The class is an option for Gonzaga’s Core Integration Seminar, which means it was offered to fourth year students typically in their last semester.
Why Cycling?
Starbuck, who’s passion for cycling and community has brought him biking across the state to raise awareness and money for refugee resettlement, taught his student about not just the health benefits of cycling, but the connection and reflection benefits as well.
“They start learning the health benefits, the way in which cycling can commute, can connect together disparate communities, the way that it really helps you with religious discipline such as pilgrimage or accompaniment,” he said.
He explained that cycling, as well as other forms of non-motorized travel, are efficient ways to meet the goals of cura personalis, or care for the whole person, as well as a care for the planet.
Students from Starbuck’s class said – in a classwide Zoom interview with FāVS – that they had cheerful welcoming interactions on the trails from other walkers, joggers and cyclists. One student talked about their experience with unhoused people on the trail, noting they learned to expand their worldview.
Starbuck expected this positive growth because of his own experiences cycling through cities. Starbuck, who is also a pastor at Manito Presbyterian Church, said his experience biking has expanded his opportunities for connecting and ministering to people.
“It’s just the most humanizing thing I have discovered in my life,” he said, “both as a professor and as a pastor, and it helps me in other places, where it’s very important for me to be equally as attentive and human.”
Bicycle Maintenance
When asked if anyone in Starbuck’s class would have known how to fix a broken bike prior to Starbuck’s class, most students gave a firm thumbs down. When asked if they would know how to fix a bike now, most expressed greater confidence through a thumbs sideways and a smile.
Students gained their introductory bike mechanic knowledge in class sessions spent at Gonzaga’s recreation center, where bicycle repair technicians taught basic repair skills.
For many, the new introductory skills proved adequate for fixing issues with their tires of chains on the trails. However, mechanical knowledge also opened doors to new communities as well.
One student, who’s bike got a flat tire during a ride, took their bike to a repair shop nearby and chatted with the repair technicians. Through conversation, the student found similarities and made new connections with the repair people and others around town. This access to community became one of this student’s favorite parts of the course.
Starbuck explained that learning the art of bicycle repair also connects students to a tradition that has remained relatively stable over long periods of time.
“There really haven’t been many improvements over the last 100 years,” he said. “It’s the most efficient mechanical means of transportation, and we begin to explore how that is used in all sorts of different parts of the world.”
Focus on the trails
After spring break, the class rode the Children of the Sun trail. Starbuck chose this trail because of its proximity to Gonzaga and because of its relatively recent development.
In the class, the trail functioned as a case study for urban development and environmental justice. Starbuck said for many students, “their own impulse is to want the trail to perhaps look a little bit more suburban than it does.”
However, the class is structured to provide experiential learning as well as theoretical by balancing classroom discussion with outdoors experience on the trail.
The experiential learning the class provided stood out as a highlight to students.
Transitioning from school to the future
Because the class was meant for fourth years, many students came into the class thinking about graduation and the next steps. Gonzaga’s core integration seminar classes are themed, “Imagine the possible: what is our role in the world?” Starbuck hoped to tackle this question alongside students’ imminent life transition through the practice of community engagement via cycling.
The “intimidation factor” is often the barrier that keeps students not just from cycling, but from other forms of community participation as well. Starbuck had students learn about cycling to practice defeating this obstacle.
“Just as we want to get over the intimidation factor with cycling, we wanted to get out of sort of the intimidation factor with environmental concerns,” he said. Now, “they know how to listen. They know how to connect. They know how to sort of watch what’s emerging within a group. They know how to get a cheap but reliable bike and fix it up.”
At the very least, however, the class was about getting outside and exploring the world as a cyclist.
“Once you get on the bicycle, you start pedaling, there’s just nothing like it. The wind is in your face. You know, your hair is blowing. It’s just wonderful. And that was the experience of all of the students. They just loved it,” said Starbuck.
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