Taiga Guterres, M.S.W./M.A.’22.
Taiga Guterres has only just begun Boston College’s doctoral program in formative education, which will prepare him to address complex, normative questions about human transformation.
But he’s already mapped out a career plan to parlay his forthcoming degree into a position as a thought leader in higher education.
“Whether I’m doing research or helping to form the next generation of social work students, I don’t know yet,” says Guterres. “But I think I want to be in the educational space as someone who cares about formative education, not just instruction.”
Guterres was drawn to BC’s commitment to formative education—a guided process that helps students find purpose, live fulfilling lives, and understand the world around them—as soon as he enrolled in the University’s M.S.W/M.A. dual degree program in social work and theology and ministry in 2018.
He says that self-reflection—a pillar of formative education at BC and the key component of the latest theme for the School of Social Work’s Equity, Justice, and Inclusion Initiative—helped him understand who he is, what he wants to be, and how he can best guide the people he works with.
“In my internships, I sometimes found myself asking ‘What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to say? What are the evidence-based practices I should use?’” says Guterres, M.S.W./M.A.’22, who belonged to BCSSW’s Latinx Leadership Initiative, a cohort-based program that prepares students to work with Latinx communities to create sustainable solutions to complex problems. “During those occasions, my attentiveness to the formative aspects of the social work profession kept me grounded so that I didn’t rely on the same tool to approach every problem.”
For the past two years, Guterres has worked as the managing editor for Jesuit Educational Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal sponsored by BC’s Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies. JEQ publishes interdisciplinary scholarship and research from various fields, including history, education, and the social sciences, that explore and magnify the histories and heritage of the Jesuit educational tradition.
While combing through scholarly submissions, Guterres often finds himself relying on his education at BC, which taught him to be attentive, reflective, and caring.
“What does it mean to evaluate scholarship,” he wonders, “whether it’s to share with the scholarly community or reject a paper?”
We asked Guterres to reflect on his experiences as a student and staff member at BC, with a particular focus on how formative education has shaped his outlook on work and life.
How did you choose the M.S.W./M.A. dual degree program?
I got my undergraduate degree at Loyola Marymount University, a Jesuit school in Los Angeles, where I studied health and human sciences. Through my time there, I decided to participate in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. I ended up being placed in the town of Punta Gorda, Belize, and working with the indigenous communities there for two years.
After that, I volunteered for a year at a migrant shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, called Casa del Migrante. I lived there, I cooked, I cleaned, I ran workshops about human rights. But I also focused on fellowship. I packed up lunch for migrants so that they had food when they went to work. I sat with them and listened to their stories. The experience made me think about what I wanted to do and what I still needed to learn, and the dual degree program in social work and theology and ministry at BC really fit what I was looking for.
BCSSW’s long tradition of formative education includes classroom discussion, self-reflection, off-campus retreats, and collaboration with communities to solve complex problems. How have your experiences with formative education shaped you personally and professionally?
For me, formative education goes beyond a transfer of knowledge. It’s not just, “Let me tell you something you don’t know and impart wisdom.” It’s also taking the time to consider the ways in which we think, what tools we use, and how evidence-based practices shape us.
My experiences have inspired me to consider questions that I still wrestle with today. I do clinical work on the side, and one question that I keep coming back to is: What if therapy were more than a solution to a problem? What if it could be a journey toward becoming a whole person and leading a life of meaning and purpose?
You’re also pursuing a Ph.D. in formative education at BC. What influenced your decision to pursue this degree?
I’ve always been interested in exploring questions related to physical health, mental health, and spiritual health, and I really wanted to dedicate a bit more of my life to that pursuit through this program. It’s so interdisciplinary, encompassing psychology, anthropology, design thinking, history, and philosophy. So, for me, it’s an exciting field to pursue and one where I can apply my theology and social work knowledge.
What do you plan to do after you get your doctorate in formative education?
I’m open to seeing how I get formed and going on a bit of a quest to find out. Whether I’m doing research or helping to form the next generation of social work students, I don’t know yet. But I think I want to be in the educational space as someone who cares about formative education, not just instruction.
In the classroom, students routinely discuss the “Three Key Questions, Fr. Michael Himes’ framework for vocational discernment that has become woven into the fabric of reflection at BC. How have you experienced these three questions—What brings you joy? What are you good at? And who does the world need you to be?—at BC?
I remember being introduced to these questions at a social work retreat in my first week of the M.S.W./M.A. program. Now I’m in my seventh year at BC, and these are questions that I continue to ask myself as an exercise in imagining what my life could be or could mean.
The same experience can be revisited over time, and sometimes you realize how much you’ve grown, how much you’ve learned from your community. It’s important to reflect in this way, recognize the moment you’re in, and consider what things could look like in a year or two.
As part of BCSSW’s experiential learning program, students are required to reflect on their experiences at their field agencies. How did you approach your reflections while you were working as an intern at the Mass General Hospital Chelsea Healthcare Center?
I was able to reflect on the three key questions—What brings you joy? What are you good at? And who does the world need you to be?—while working on my clinical skills as a social worker. My supervisor was a graduate of the LLI program, so he understood where I was coming from and what I was hoping for, as well as how important it was to consider these questions outside of the bubble of the classroom experience.
In all of my internships, I sometimes found myself asking “What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to say? What are the evidence-based practices I should use?” During those occasions, I think those three key questions—and my attentiveness to the formative aspects of the social work profession—kept me grounded so that I didn’t rely on the same tool to approach every problem.
How do the ideas of reflection and formation play into your role as managing editor for the Jesuit Educational Quarterly at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies?
I think academia and scholarship can sometimes be a little ruthless—good researchers and good scholars can be hyper-critical of themselves and their peers. I try to see academia as a formative community and place myself in a position where I can collaborate with researchers and provide feedback on their scholarship even if I have to reject it for our publication. What does it mean to evaluate scholarship, whether it’s to share with the scholarly community or reject a paper?
How would you sum up the importance of self-reflection in your life?
I recently got married to a fellow BC graduate. After we got engaged, we went on a guided retreat in Plymouth, Massachusetts. At this retreat, we focused on what we wanted our lives to look like as we went forward together. We prepared questions to ask each other, some taken from resources from BC’s Church in the 21st Century Center. It was a moment that our education at BC had prepared us for.
