Crossings Spring 2016

SPRING 2016

“and you visited me” Training chaplains for a changing church

A revised curriculum Teaching ancient practices, new skills

“This will keep you sane” The centrality of spiritual formation at CDSP

Letter from the Dean Change is constant in our world and in our church, but sometimes it presses upon us in ways we can’t ignore. Springtime at a seminary is one such time. We are extending offers of admission and financial aid to an exciting new class, even as we prepare for the graduations of students who have been part of our daily lives during the last few years. Archbishop Paul Kwong, the primate of Hong Kong, will be our commencement speaker, and we look forward to welcoming him and the family and friends of our graduates to campus on May 20.

Responding productively to change is the theme of this issue of Crossings. You’ll read about the fruitful culmination of our curriculum revision efforts (page 8), which have refocused CDSP’s Master of Divinity Program on the three core areas of mission, discipleship and evangelism, while committing us to educating our students in the skills of critical reflection, contextual analysis and public conversation. We have also made our new spiritual formation program (page 12) a requirement for MDiv students. The program, which includes participation in worship, spiritual direction, retreats and dialog with a prayer partner, incorporates online discussions and meetings, which means residential and low-residency students can participate together.

Our determination to prepare students to lead the church that is rapidly coming into being unsurprisingly has led us to focus on the rich wisdom of our past. Chaplaincy is a venerable calling, and the customs and practices of good chaplains are becoming more broadly relevant as our clergy increasingly face the challenge of ministering in environments other than the parish church. Three of

Cover photo of Tim Yanni, the Rev. Spencer Hatcher and Kelly Aughenbaugh at San Quentin State Prison

by Thomas Minczeski

our students prepared for that challenge by ministering this semester in a very different environment: San Quentin State Prison, home of the largest death row in the western hemisphere. In our cover story (page 2), graduating seniors Kelly Aughenbaugh, Spencer Hatcher and Tim Yanni discuss how the lessons they learned in studying prison chaplaincy have challenged them and caused them to reflect on the nature of their vocations.

In this issue you will also find a profile of Professor John Kater (page 15), who recently had a scholarship fund named in his honor, and a reminder of the exciting news we shared several weeks ago that former Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori (page 16) will be joining us for the fall semester as our third St. Margaret’s Visiting Professor of Women in Ministry.

I hope you enjoy Crossings. I was especially glad to come across this quote in the chaplaincy story from the Rt. Rev. Jay Magness, suffragan bishop for the armed services and federal ministries, who is a regular visitor to our campus: “CDSP has accepted the fact that there are a variety of missional ministries that are going to have to go on where there are men and women who go into places where they have not gone before, where they may not get a good reception, where people may not be familiar with elements of the Christian faith, and they are going to have to care for these people just as you would for someone in a parish at the corner, only in different ways.”

Not only have we accepted this fact, but we are responding to it with all the energy and purpose we can muster. Bishop Magness, thanks for noticing!

— T he V ery R ev . W. M ark R ichardson , P h D President and Dean

Photo by Thomas Minczeski

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Hope in hard places

Gibbs Society grows

CDSP students are no strangers to challenging environments, like San Quentin prison, where they listen, learn and minister.

New members have remembered CDSP in their wills or with planned gifts.

You can join them.

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8

Faculty News

Core concepts in sharp focus

George Emblom leads a choir at San Quentin prison. Scott MacDougall teams up with Homebrewed Christianity.

A revised curriculum places renewed emphasis on mission, discipleship and evangelism in a post-Christian culture.

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“Digging deep”

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Crossings SPRING 2016

A student’s voice Senior Spencer Hatcher reflects with gratitude on her tenure on the Board of Trustees

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Honoring John Kater

16

Primates past and present Bishop Jefferts Schori is named new St. Margaret’s professor.

Archbishop Kwong will deliver May 20th commencement address.

Gary Commins and Bonnie Ring publish books, and others receive new calls.

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An innovative spiritual formation program cultivates prayer practices and relationships on campus and online.

A new scholarship started by a long-lost friend honors a much-loved professor.

Active Alums

The Very Rev. W. Mark Richardson, Dean and President Editorial: Canticle Communications Photography: Thomas Minczeski Design: Barbara Nishi Graphic Design Crossings is published by Church Divinity School of the Pacific 2451 Ridge Road, Berkeley, CA 94709-1211 © Church Divinity School of the Pacific, all rights reserved.

For additional print copies, e-mail communications@cdsp.edu.

Crossings also is published as a pdf online, at www.cdsp.edu/news/crossings, with archive copies available.

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Following Jesus into frighteni

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by

Jim Naughton

When Tim Yanni enrolled in the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, he thought he was taking the first step toward becoming a parish priest. But last summer, while he was fulfilling his clinical and pastoral education (CPE) requirement at St. Mark’s Hospital in his home diocese of Utah, he had a change of heart.

“While I was in that unit, it was kind of emotionally jarring, which is the idea, but at the same time, I was able to realize that I had gifts that people were respond­ ing to. People responded very well to me as a pastoral presence,” he says.

When a supervisor took him aside and asked whether he’d be interested in returning to the hospital for a year-long residency after graduation, Yanni, a senior, said yes.

While Yanni’s journey is uniquely his own, seminarians around the Episcopal Church are increasingly considering priestly ministries outside the parish setting, and CDSP is emerging as a school that is especially well-suited to preparing its students to help lead a rapidly changing church.

“CDSP has accepted the fact that there are a variety of missional ministries that are going to have to go on where there are men and women who go into places where they have not gone before, where they may not get a good reception, where people may not be familiar with elements of the Christian faith, and they are going to have to care for these people just as you would for someone C R O S S I N G S Spring 2016 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

Class at San Quentin prepares students to take risks, work on margins

Photo by Thomas Minczeski

ning places

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in a parish at the corner, only in different ways,” says the Rt. Rev. James B. (Jay) Magness, the Episcopal Church’s suffragan bishop for armed services and federal ministries.

“When I step onto CDSP’s campus and start meeting with people, it is obvious that they get that,” says Magness, who oversees the work of military chaplains and chaplains in federal prisons and visits the seminary at least once a year. “Mark Richardson [CDSP’s dean and president] and his faculty are framing theological education so it embraces a variety of possibilities. I am one of their biggest fans.”

Those possibilities include ministering in one of the most feared prisons in the country.

This semester, Yanni and two other seniors— Kelly Aughenbaugh, a Bishop’s Scholar from the Diocese of Ohio, and the Rev. Spencer Hatcher, a transitional deacon from the Diocese of Maryland—are enrolled in perhaps the most challenging “Mark Richardson and his faculty chaplaincy course that are framing theological education CDSP students can take: the prison minso it embraces a variety of istry course taught by possibilities. I am one of their the Rev. George Williams, a Jesuit who is biggest fans.” the Catholic chaplain at San Quentin State — The Rt. Rev. James B. Magness Prison in nearby Marin County. The class,

Photo by Thomas Minczeski

which includes weekly two-hour visits to the prison, is offered to CDSP students through the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), of which CDSP is a founding member.

San Quentin’s reputation is based more on the prison it was in the 1970s and 80s than the place it is today, say chaplains who have worked there. Nonetheless, the prison houses the largest death row population in the western hemisphere—home to more than 730 condemned men.

The course teaches students to work in what Williams calls “a traumatizing environment” and to discern whether they feel called to prison ministry.

“The first few class sessions were background on the history of prisons, in the United States especially, dating back to colonial times and even before that,” Yanni says.

“And also preparing us emotionally for what we were going to experience by spending time at the prison.”

The emotional preparation is essential, Williams says. “It’s an intense environment, and it can be very disturbing,” he adds. “It isn’t for everyone. There are people who, as soon as the door slams behind them, they feel claustrophobic and horrible.”

Many prison inmates suffer from mental illness, Williams says. Many are uneducated, and their lives have been scarred by racism and violence. “The real work of a chaplain,” he says, “is “showing up every day, showing

“It was a very physical and visceral experience.”

— K e l ly A u g h e n b a u g h

people you can be relied upon.

Because these are people who have been let down a lot in their lives.”

After two weeks of classwork, the class of 16 students made the first of their Wednesday evening visits to the prison. They were instructed to bring nothing in, not even pens and notebooks, and take nothing out.

“It kind of becomes a survival mechanism for people in prison to acquire things or information,” Yanni says. “Anything that they don’t normally have access to has value.”

Their initial visit left impressions the seminarians were still processing days later. “It was a very physical and visceral experience,” Aughenbaugh says. “There were people who had to be escorted by two officers because they were on death row and needed extra security.” The word “prisoner,” she noticed, was printed on inmates’ pant legs. “So you see that label be­­ fore learning their names,” she says.

Yanni was struck by how quickly the class was immersed in the life of the prison. “When you go on a ministry trip you have access to walk around the yard,” he says. “You are just interacting with people in an open environment.” The challenges of prison life are not hidden. “There’s very obvious racism,” he says. There’s violence. They showed us the weapons that have been confiscated at the prison. They showed us the door to the execution chamber.”

Not long before he left, Yanni spoke with an inmate who asked him to pray for him “because I am a sinner.” Yanni said he would, and asked the man to pray for him for the same reason. “He had a physical reaction in his face,” Yanni remembers. “He was surprised. He said he would pray for me, but the reaction was like he was bewildered that I would say that.”

Hatcher found it “heartbreaking” to see the conditions that prevailed in the prison. “The racial self-segregation, the 4-by-9 cells. And to know two grown men might spend a lifetime in that tiny little cell. It was hard, it was hard to see.”

Yet, in that bleak place she heard eloquent accounts of the role faith has played in some inmates’ lives. “It

was beautiful to hear some of these men’s stories of transformation,” Hatcher says. “They can articulate so impressively where God is in their lives, even though they have been in really dark places.

“So often the way we talk about prison ministry is to say that we want to take God to prison, bring the light of God to this place. It was evident that the Spirit was very active and present already; there’s no ‘taking’ God there.”

The group passed much of their tour in silence. “It wasn’t until afterwards that some of us said, ‘Wow that was really heavy and we were really affected by it,’” Aughenbaugh says.

On the ride back to the seminary, she says, they began to discuss what they had seen. One of their conclusions: “The system itself … puts people who are having to work through their problems into an even harder place.”

Prison ministry is “a calling within a calling,” Williams says, and it requires special skills. “I spend a lot of time talking about boundaries,” he says. “It takes a certain level of selfawareness and maturity to do prison work. It requires people who are able to examine themselves and examine their own motives. There is a fine line

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Photo by Thomas Minczeski

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“The GTU really prepares people for what effective chaplaincy looks like.”

— The Rev. Andrew Hybl ’12

between curiosity to learn about prison life and a voyeuristic interest in it, which is probably more common.”

A prison is a unique environment, as different from a hospital as a hospital is from a military base. Yet certain elements are common to all chaplaincies. “These are places where people are having really big life events, so being able to listen well to people and not impose your own beliefs is so important,” Aughenbaugh says. “You encounter people who are not just Christians, and even if they are Christians, they aren’t in your denomination. It calls you to have a bigger and maybe more open mindset. The work is all about the needs of the other person. It’s all about actively listening.”

Seminarians across the Episcopal Church have traditionally gotten a taste of a chaplain’s life in the clinical and pastoral education courses that most dioceses require for ordination to the priesthood. In recent years, C R O S S I N G S Spring 2016 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

however, church leaders have begun to emphasize the importance of “following Jesus into the neighborhood, traveling lightly,” as the report that the Taskforce for Reimagining the Episcopal Church presented to the church’s General Convention last summer put it, and skills long cultivated by chaplains have taken on a new relevance.

“The Episcopal Church is a little bit differ­ ent out here on the west side of the country out of necessity,” Yanni says. “We aren’t really the established church as we were on the east coast. Speaking from my own experience in Utah, where we have 5,000 people in the dio­ cese, I think Episcopal clergy have to redefine themselves, and we have to be open to ministering to people who are not Episcopalians.”

“The church has to look different,” Hatcher says. “But what does different look like? What kind of examples do we have to go by? You get back to what Jesus’ ministry looked like and you have visiting the sick, visiting prisoners, advocacy ministries.”

CDSP’s faculty, in their personal ministries, have long made chaplaincy a priority.

The Rev. Linda Clader, professor emerita of homiletics, ministered at Solano State Prison in Vacaville, California, during several periods in the late 1980s and early 90s. The Rev. Ruth Meyers, academic dean and Hodges-Haynes Professor of Liturgics, participates in interfaith vigils outside the West County Detention Facility that advocate for a more just immigration policy. Working with Chaplain Williams, George Emblom, assistant professor of church music and director of chapel music, recently brought the choir of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley to San Quentin where they sang at a Sunday morning service with the prison choir and performed a motet by Palestrina after the Communion.

The Rev. Andrew Hybl CAS ’12, CDSP director of admissions, credits a chaplain with helping him discover his vocation. “I was on active duty in Iraq in 2004–05,” the Navy veteran remembers. “It was right after the second battle of Fallujah, which was ugly.

I had all these existential questions floating around in my head. And there was a Catholic chaplain there.

“You have all the time in the world when you are sitting in the desert, so I just started talking to him about the questions I was struggling with. At the time, I didn’t have any plans for ordination. I just wanted to go and wrestle with some of these questions about

religion and violence.”

The wrestling that Hybl began under the guidance of the Rev. Robert Spencer, a former Marine infantry officer, led him first to the Pacific School of Religion, and then to CDSP, where he earned his Certificate of Anglican Studies in 2012. After two years in his home Diocese of Arkansas, Hybl returned to CDSP, which now strikes him, coincidentally, as the perfect environment in which to train for chaplaincy.

“If you are wanting to be an Epis­copal chaplain, you’ve got to know your Anglican stuff well,” he says. “You need a good, solid theological education in the Anglican tradition. But if you are in the military, you may run across five other Episcopalians in your career. And if you are in a hospital, 99 percent of the people you meet are not going to be Episcopalians.” The Graduate Theological Union, in which CDSP students can select elective courses that broaden their ecumenical and interfaith understanding, gives students the opportunity “to interact across denomination lines,” he says. “The GTU really prepares people for what effective chaplaincy looks like.”

The Rev. Andrea Baker, who returned in 2014 from a deployment in Afghanistan, is among the most recent CDSP alumni on active duty, but the seminary has been training people in its distinctive way for decades. “CDSP had an identity that reached out and was ecumenical,” says the Rev. Norman Cram, who graduated from CDSP in 1962 and went on to a career as a Navy

chaplain. “Our job was to facilitate and enable all faith group expressions. We were aware of our identity within the total spirituality of the planet. That was a huge part of CDSP’s identity at that time.”

The irony of a seminary in Berkeley being hospitable to military chaplains is not lost on Magness. Some of the earliest student demonstrations broke out at the University of California, just a block from CDSP’s campus, and the city was a hotbed of activism against the war in Vietnam.

“I hope CDSP never loses its Berkeley character,” Magness says.

“But what they’ve done is to reach

“They can articulate so impressively where God is in their lives, even though they have been in really dark places.”

— T h e R e v . S p e n c e r H at c h e r

beyond that and build some bridges into other venues of ministry where it doesn’t matter whether you are conservative or liberal or orthodox or progressive, as long as you realize that God’s people who live and work and move and have their being in those venues need the care of God, and people who have been educated to do that in a missional way will play the crucial role in those situations.”

Yanni and Hatcher are drawn to the kind of ministry that Magness de­­­ scribes. After graduation, Hatcher hopes to run a camp for children whose parents are incarcerated. Her father was in prison during her child­­ hood. “I feel called to figure out what that means to me,” she says. “What I can say is that I feel called to recognize that prison ministry is an important thing.”

Yanni, meanwhile, is contemplating military chaplaincy after his residency at St. Mark’s. The idea came to him while he was having dinner with Magness during one of the bishop’s visits to CDSP. “I have always had an issue with weight, and I thought that would keep me from becoming a military chaplain,” he says. “But during winter break last year, I kind of started a weight loss program, and as the weight started to fall off it kind of became a possibility, so that is when I started pursuing military chaplaincy a little more closely. I’ve lost 70 pounds over the last year. I still have some weight to lose, but I have time to make that weight goal.

“Part of my thinking about the course at San Quentin was that this course would give me a different perspective on chaplaincy,” he adds.

“The more experiences I can have, the better able I will be to be present with someone in difficult times. I don’t think there are any two situations that are identical in providing pastoral care, so the more situations I have experienced, the more effective a pastor I will be.”

Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2016 C R O S S I N G S

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As the academic year comes to a close, Dean and President Mark Richardson is ebullient.

“These are exciting times at CDSP,” he says. “We’re experiencing growth in program, in student body, and in institutional strength, and our students are becoming the leaders our church needs to thrive in the 21st century.”

This year, CDSP introduced a new spiritual formation program for both residential and low-residence students, and in June, a new

MDiv curriculum, two years in the making, kicks off.

In the stories that follow, you’ll read about students whose lives are already being enriched by the new approach to spiritual formation, which Richardson says “undergirds everything we teach,” and you’ll hear from faculty who have worked collaboratively to develop the new curriculum centered on new approaches to the Christian practices of mission, discipleship and evangelism.

Photo by Thomas Minczeski

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2016 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

FRESH POLISH on ancient touchstones

Revised curriculum emphasizes mission, discipleship, evangelism by

Rebecca Wilson

Two years ago, when the Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers began to think about CDSP’s new Master of Divinity curriculum, William Temple was on her mind.

Temple, archbishop of Canterbury from 1942–1944, reportedly said, “The church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.”

“Here on Holy Hill, we’re preparing students for vital, sustained and thoroughly Anglican engagement with the world outside church doors.

They’re getting ready to lead the church that’s coming into being, and it’s thrilling to experience.”

— The Very Rev. Mark Richardson

“Today we recognize even more clearly that we must articulate and embody the good news of God in Christ not only within the church but especially in our pluralistic world,” says Meyers, CDSP’s academic dean

and Hodges-Haynes Professor of Liturgics.

“Our revised curriculum is organized to form students who learn to do that by studying the core Christian concepts of mission, discipleship and evangelism, and practicing the core leadership skills of contextual awareness, critical reflection and public conversation.”

CDSP’s faculty began designing the new curriculum in 2014 with the initial assistance of the Lilly Endowment’s Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion. From the outset, says the Very Rev. Mark Richardson, CDSP’s dean and president, the goal was to build on CDSP’s historic strengths.

“As founding members of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), CDSP has always provided rigorous academic and spiritual formation to leaders who understand the distinctive gifts that the Episcopal Church offers to a diverse world,” Richardson says. “The West has always been rich with religious and cultural pluralism, and so in some ways, we have had a head start in preparing people for Anglican ministry in a post-Christian culture. Our new curriculum builds on that historic strength by focusing on the ancient features of mission, discipleship and evangelism interpreted for Christian life today.”

The GTU is a consortium of eight Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2016 C R O S S I N G S

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Photo by Thomas Minczeski

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Above: Prof. Susanna Singer.

Opposite, Prof. Jennifer Snow, right, with Mary McChesney-Young

theological schools and eleven centers and affiliates that includes Lutheran, American Baptist, Roman Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish institutions. CDSP’s membership in the GTU allows students to cross-register for a much wider variety of electives than are typically available to seminary students. The opportunity to seek theological breadth, however, is matched by a requirement to study deeply in the Anglican tradition. CDSP’s residential and low-residence Master of Divinity students take most or all of the courses covering the six canonically required areas of study for

“… from the very beginning of their academic preparation for ministry, they’re learning to articulate Anglican perspectives and explain Anglican traditions to people who come from other contexts …”

— The Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers

ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church at CDSP. Those areas are Holy Scriptures, history of the Christian church, Christian theology, Christian ethics and moral theology, Christian worship, and the practice of ministry.

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2016 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

“They’re learning in a thoroughly Anglican environment,” Meyers says. “However, it’s not unusual to have GTU students from different faith traditions in those classes. So from the very beginning of their academic preparation for ministry, they’re learning to articulate Anglican perspectives and explain Anglican traditions to people who come from other contexts, just as they’ll need to do in the congregations and ministries they serve after graduation.”

The Rev. Dr. Susanna Singer, associate professor of ministry development, helped develop the new curriculum and is enthused by its focus.

“For me as a teacher, centering on mission, discipleship and evangelism is really exciting, because I can see how I can make my course design more effective. It helps me sort the wood from the trees. There are lots of things I can teach, but this helps me narrow it down and helps me assess my courses’ effectiveness.”

The new MDiv curriculum will be insti­ tuted during the June intensive session that includes low-residence students. The curriculum includes a new cornerstone class for students in the low-residence program.

Residential MDiv students will take the same class during their first semester on campus.

This summer, Singer and Jennifer Snow, assistant professor of practical theology, will teach the cornerstone class, in which Singer says students will “learn how to think like an Episcopal ministry leader.”

The reading and writing intensive class is designed to introduce students to spiritual practices and traditions from across the Anglican Communion and help them to articulate where their own ministry fits into the Anglican landscape. Along the way, students will undergo something of a boot camp experience in academic writing, systems theory, critical theory and core community organizing concepts.

“We’re putting it all in the context of developing yourself as a leader,” Singer says. “There’s tons of writing, spiritual practice, hymnody and prayer.”

Singer has also piloted CDSP’s community organizing course, which has been taught as an elective in partnership with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF)

since 2013 and is now required for all MDiv students. Faculty will rotate teaching the course in collaboration with Joaquin Sanchez, lead organizer at the Bay Area Industrial Areas Foundation. Snow taught the course last winter.

“Part of the community organizing course is to go see an action,” Snow says.

“An action is a very well-planned event by a group of people who are already committed. When I taught the class last January, the action was full of people who were eager to be there. It was full of people who had relationships and wanted to go deeper.

I compared that to so many of our congregations, where people don’t sit together and don’t have a clear sense of why they are there.

“Community organizing training isn’t just for outreach or community work. It is to build those kinds of relationships— that kind of relational power—that can be part of the entire institutional structure,” Snow says. “It’s about building power with instead of power over.”

The new curriculum’s focus on mission and contextual awareness is particularly well-suited to Snow, who studies 19th and early 20th century missionaries in Asia and Africa. In spring 2017, she will teach a class on missionaries and the Anglican Communion.

“I want people to understand how our contemporary global Christian context has been shaped by missions and the work of missionaries,” she says. “When we don’t understand it, we can be blind to the ways that our history has shaped the debates we’re having now in the Anglican Communion.”

In particular, Snow hopes to help students understand the complicated role of colonial missionaries, who are sometimes regarded more as agents of empire than servants of Christ. They shaped Anglican churches in many parts of the Global South where today Episcopalians strive to nurture partnerships across vast theological and cultural differences and inequities.

“There’s a tendency to blame mission­ aries for our dominant society’s complicity in colonialism and imperialism. I want stu­­­ dents to begin to grasp that while mission-

“Community organizing training isn’t just for outreach or community work. It is to build those kinds of relationships … that can be part of the entire institutional structure.”

— dr. jennifer snow

a­­­­ ries have often been implicated in structures of oppression, they frequently struggled against them as well. Students are having similar experiences today as they discern how to teach, talk and share about Christianity in a society that is very aware of the colonial and imperialist past,” she says.

Richardson thinks that the new curriculum, with its focus on ministry in a world of pluralism, will help CDSP continue recruiting energetic students who will build the church of the 21st century.

“Christians today have to invent practices of ministry that meet the world on its own terms with a distinct voice,” says Richardson. “But invention can only succeed over time if it is borne out of deep and faithful grounding in the tradition. Our new curriculum will help students become the inventors of the church of tomorrow.”

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Photo by Thomas Minczeski

Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2016 C R O S S I N G S

Photo by Thomas Minczeski

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Dean of Students L. Ann Hallisey, left, with Prof. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, developed CDSP’s innovative spiritual formation program.

Taking SPIRITUAL

FORMATION seriously

by

L u S ta n t o n L e ó n

There’s nothing elective about a new on-campus, online program C R O S S I N G S Spring 2016 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

Nearly any priest or bishop will tell you that helping future clergy become spiritually mature people is as essential to their seminary training as education about church history, theology and other academic topics. But how does that process, often called spiritual formation, work? And what steps can a seminary take to foster this formation?

This year, a new pilot program at CDSP aims to answer those questions for students pursuing the Master of Divinity degree and the Certificate of Anglican Studies in either the on-campus or low-residence programs.

“Nothing else quite like this is happening at other seminaries,” said the Rev. Ann Hallisey, CDSP’s dean of students and the primary architect of the new formation program.

The new spiritual formation program is a graduation requirement and includes students’ participation in online discussions, online meetings with advisors who also track their chapel practices, and attendance at class retreats. Each student is assigned a prayer partner and everyone is required to be in spiritual direction.

“By requiring this and insisting that students don’t just deal with their own formation as a suggestion but as an intentional part of their training to be priests, what we’re saying is this matters in your curriculum, this matters in your life, and this will help keep you sane when you’re a priest,” Hallisey said.

On campus and low-residence students participate together in the new program, which Hallisey developed using ideas drawn from the James E. Annand Program for Spiritual Formation at Berkley Divinity School at Yale and from Ripon College Cuddesdon, an Anglican seminary with which CDSP has a longstanding partnership. The program also draws on a class about spiritual practices and praying being taught this spring by visiting professor Suzanne Guthrie.

“We cooked up a hybrid option for the formation groups in which people can

participate either on campus or via WebEx,” Hallisey said. “We have a lot of commuters, and given our new low-residency program, we are constantly looking for ways to build community among all our students pursuing their studies in a variety of ways.”

Michael Coburn, an electronics engineer who began his low-residence MDiv in June 2015, is an enthusiastic participant.

“I’m not really sure what I expected other than academic schoolwork and some

“When we showed up for class on campus, we automatically had this deep connection with each other that just exploded after that. It’s hard to describe; it’s closer than family.”

— Michael Coburn

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sense of community, but the community part has definitely exceeded my expectations,” said Coburn, who is on the vestry at the Cathedral of St. John in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Working in Moodle, a platform for creating interactive online courses, Hallisey initiates discussion with a prompt.

“She’ll say, ‘Post a picture of something that means something to you and tell us why, and also post a picture of yourself,’” Coburn said. “So we got faces with names, but we’re also sharing our journeys and sharing our spirituality with each other.

When we showed up for class on campus, we automatically had this deep connection with each other that just exploded after that. It’s hard to describe; it’s closer than family. On top of that, someone started a closed Facebook page for our class, so we are constantly sharing with each other on a day-to-day basis.”

Hallisey said faculty advisors host online meetings, offered at a variety of times, and students sign up for a time that works for them. The students, if on campus, are in the room with the faculty

Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2016 C R O S S I N G S

member; others attend online.

“The reason we’re asking the faculty to do this is that we are underlining the fact that this is a seminary, not a university,” Hallisey said. “It is built into the curriculum that faculty need to talk to the students about how their spiritual formation is going.”

Low-residence MDiv student Nicola Bowler, a tenured professor in engineering at Iowa State University, has found the combination of online and on-campus learning works well for her.

“The on-campus June intensive [when low-residence students spend two weeks on campus] was a good way to kick off the program because we could form those relationships, which is really important when you’re learning online,” said Bowler, who is a vestry

“We really asked a lot of 14

questions about our own prejudices or assumptions. I think formation is interwoven in a number of the classes that we have.”

— Nicola Bowler

member at St. John’s by the Campus in Ames, Iowa, and began at CDSP in June 2015. “In January we were on campus again, which was just wonderful. Everyone was looking forward to getting back together and really enjoyed it.”

Bowler said formation often occurs in unexpected places.

“I was very surprised in the June intensive last year,” she said. “One of our classes was on Anglicanism, and, approaching it, I thought, well, history.

But it was incredibly forming, actually.

We really asked a lot of questions about our own prejudices or assumptions. I think formation is interwoven in a number of the classes that we have. All of

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2016 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

“ … this matters in your curriculum, this matters in your life, and this will help keep you sane when you’re a priest.”

— T h e R e v. A n n H a l l i s e y

them, to some extent.”

The desire to be “formed for a particular calling or role within the church” is part of what led Bowler to seminary. She wanted, she said, “to ask those deep questions about relationships between individuals and relationship with God and how that plays out in society. It is so fundamental to how people behave.”

For Coburn, formation is a matter of “digging deep into my soul and looking for the divine that has been planted within me, figuring out how to allow that light out and do the work that God has in mind, not just for me, but to facilitate the work that everyone else has to do as well. It is growing and becoming all that I’m supposed to be, as much as that is possible this side of the kingdom.”

Hallisey said the formation program is very much a work in progress, one that has attracted inquiries from other seminary deans.

“This whole thing is a beta test, so we’re trying it and modifying it, and we’ll adapt as it evolves,” she said.

“This is dealing with people’s inner lives. We’re not going to impose things from on high. We want it to be helpful and life-giving.”

Fanfare

for a modest man Scholarship honors a professor with global vision by

K at h l e e n M o o r e

Not every faculty member’s first impulse, when a donor creates a scholarship in his honor, is to keep that news a secret. But the Rev. John Kater is not just any faculty member.

Kater, professor emeritus of ministry development, is moving from the Bay Area to Virginia this summer and will no longer be a fixture on campus, but he will still be teaching in CDSP’s low-residency programs.

To mark Kater’s 75th birthday, Lillian Woo, whose friendship with Kater began when both were in college, has recently established the John Kater Scholarship with a $100,000 gift.

“I mean, I really was just stunned,” Kater says. “We’d never talked about the possibility. I am conscious of the fact there are other people who are not being honored in this way that certainly deserve to be, so my first reaction was, ‘Oh well we really don’t want to publicize this very much.’”

Woo, an economist, public policy specialist and political consultant, persuaded Kater that speaking about the scholarship and his career at CDSP might help to raise more money to help students attend CDSP. “I think it’s fair to say that what I’m known best for in the 25 years that I’ve been teaching at CDSP is my focus on Anglicanism as a global reality,” Kater says. “One of the primary reasons that I came to CDSP in 1990 was because I was persuaded that the seminary takes very seriously its location on the Pacific Rim and was committed to doing theological education in a global context that points both toward the south and toward the west. And so those two focal points for me— one being Latin America, the other being Asia—really shaped why I came to CDSP. “I’ve ‘troubled the seminary’ to make sure

that we always pay attention to the international dimension of our school and encourage people to travel to other parts of the world, and I encourage students from other parts of the world to come and study at CDSP,” says Kater, who served as education officer in the Diocese of Panama before coming to CDSP. Kater coordinated the Panama Project, which, since 1986, has given up to four students from Episcopal seminaries the opportunity to spend three summer weeks in Panama. Kater also established and served as director for the ­Center for Anglican Learning and Leadership (CALL), which offers con­­tinuing education online courses and on-campus events that are open to all. “Establishing CALL is probably the most significant thing I’ve done at CDSP,” Kater says. “And I think it’s even more important now than ever. CALL’s reason for being is to make the resources of the seminary available to people in a wide variety of contexts.

And we still do that, especially now through our online courses.”

Kater was also the instrumental influence behind CDSP’s growing relationship with Ming Hua Theological College in Hong Kong, where he has spent time teaching every year since 2008. CDSP and Ming Hua frequently play host to one another’s students, and a number of CDSP alumni play important roles in the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui (Anglican Church in Hong Kong). Chief among them is Archbishop Paul Kwong, the church’s primate, who will deliver this year’s commencement address at CDSP. “There is just so much that we can learn from being exposed to Christianity and Anglican Christianity in that part of the world,” says Kater. “There’s a kind of energy about the church in Hong Kong that I think is infectious. The Archbishop of Hong Kong bap­­tized 60 adults on an Easter eve—I

If you would like to honor John with a contribution to the Kater Scholarship Fund, please contact Wesley Capps at wcapps@cdsp.edu or 510-204-0712. You may contribute online at ssl.charityweb. net/cdsp. Please choose the Kater Scholarship Fund as the designation for your gift. Thank you!

Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2016 C R O S S I N G S

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don’t know any place in the US where you get that kind of experience.”

Kater met Woo in a Chinese lan­guage class at Columbia University.

“It was 5 days a week for a whole year,” Kater says. “We became friends and we discovered that we were both Episcopalians.” Years later, Kater was coincidentally called to serve as curate at Christ Episcopal Church in Poughkeepsie, New York, where Woo and her family worshipped. In 1970, he left the parish to attend graduate school at McGill University, and he and Woo eventually lost touch.

“When I started going to Hong Kong, I remembered Lillian because I was trying to recover my Chinese,” Kater says. In 2014, thanks to a Google search and a hand-written letter, he was able to obtain Woo’s email address, and the two started corresponding. “Lillian and I just kept emailing with great frequency,” Kater says. “And finally she came to the Bay Area, and we were able to spend several days getting caught up. I also got to meet her daughter, Beadsie, whom I last saw when she was about 6!”

As he prepares to leave campus, Kater remains excited about the future of CDSP and his involvement in the low-residency program. “If you want to look at something that’s really exciting and new, the low-residency program is it,” he says. “And I’m thrilled to be having a part in that because I think it’s really a wonderful, innovative blending of ministry in your own context and experiencing the community of CDSP in short periods, but of high intensity. The temptation in seminary education is always to train people for the church that was. As long as I’ve been connected to it, CDSP has been committed to figuring out what the church of the future is going to look like and how we prepare people to be effective ministers in that church.”

Former PB to teach fall course

The Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori (MDiv ’94, DD ’01), former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, has been named the third St. Margaret’s Visiting Professor of Women in Ministry at CDSP. Jefferts Schori, who has a doctorate in oceanography, will teach a course in the fall semester on the role of religious leaders in public conversation on issues including scientific discovery, technological development, artistic creativity and public policy.

“We’ll consider how to encourage constructive and elevated public dialogue that is at once civil and

earnest, evangelical and thoughtfully critical, and energetically focused on a vision of the beloved community—God’s peaceable kindom of all creation,” she said.

“We are delighted to welcome Bishop Jefferts Schori back to her alma mater,” Richardson said. “Her courage as a leader has been an inspiration to the church, but that is only one facet of her ministry. We’re eager to have her among us as a scientist, a teacher, a public intellectual and a neighbor.”

Jefferts Schori will be in residence on CDSP’s campus regularly during the fall. “I am very much looking forward to teaching at CDSP and rediscovering the remarkable creativity to be found in a classroom of passionate and curious people!” she said. “I expect that the resources and opportunities in Berkeley and the Bay Area will be constructive partners in our mutual exploration.

And I look forward to being in residence in a community focused on loving God and neighbor with all we are and all we have.”

COMMENCEMENT 2016 The Most Rev. Dr. Paul Kwong ‘82, archbishop and primate of Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui and bishop of the Diocese of Hong Kong Island, will speak at CDSP’s 122nd commencement on May 20. The event will take place in the chapel at the Pacific School of Religion.

Kwong, who was ordained a priest in 1983 and became bishop in 2007, was brought up in an Anglican family in Hong Kong. His greatgrandfather was one of the first Chinese Anglican priests in the 19th century.

Kwong holds a bachelor degree from Lingnan College, an MDiv from CDSP, and a PhD in theology from the University of Birmingham.

At the ceremony, Dr. Donn F. Morgan, professor emeritus of Old Testament, and the Rev Dr. Linda L. Clader, professor emerita of homiletics, will receive honorary degrees. Morgan, who served as CDSP’s dean and president from 1995–2010, taught at CDSP from 1972 until 2013. Clader was professor of homiletics from 1991 to 2013 and also served as dean of academic affairs for a decade.

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2016 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

Gibbs Society The work of CDSP continues and thrives thanks in part to the bequests and estate gifts of many alumni and friends. The George and Augusta Gibbs Society recognizes and honors all those who provide support for CDSP in their wills, trusts, life income gifts, retirement plans, life insurance designations, and other planned gifts. These individuals, who share a common bond of philanthropy, are recognized on the Gibbs Society donor wall in Denniston Commons, and we thank our current members here for their generosity.

If you let us know about your intended bequest or other planned gift, you will be invited to enjoy special events and be recognized as a member of the Gibbs Society.

To learn more, please contact the Development Office at 510-204-0712 or wcapps@cdsp.edu.

Mr. Peter D. Adams and Mrs. Rebecca B. Adams Mrs. Anne K. Affleck and Dr. Allan D. Affleck ’11 The Rev. Harry R. Allagree, ObJN ’93 The Rev. Mary L. Allen ’86 The Rev. John M. Allen ’02 and Mrs. Georgene D. Allen Mrs. Evelyn McKinley-Andresen The Rev. Michael P. Arase-Barham ’12 and Jiro Arase- Barham Mr. Paul H. Atwood and Mrs. Mabel Atwood The Rev. Mary H. Atwood ’80 The Rev. Dr. William H. Aulenbach ’60 Mrs. Anne Avery Mrs. Dorothy W. Banks Sheila G. Barton The Rev. Canon Lance K. Beizer ’05 The Rev. Richard G. Belliss ’56 Ms. Dolores V. Bennett ’57 The Rev. James T. Bethell, D.D. ’67 and Mrs. Anne Bethell Mrs. Alberta W. Beveridge and The Rev. Robert H. Beveridge ’69 The Rev. Thomas S. Bigelow ’63 Ms. Kay E. Bishop The Rev. Machrina Blasdell ’84 and The Very Rev. Michael Munro ’83 Dr. Richard A. Bohannon and Dr. Nancy J. Bohannon

Mrs. Caroline H. Booth Dr. Barbara S. Borsch ’08 and The Rt. Rev. Frederick H. Borsch, D.D. ’81 Mrs. Lois J. Brasfield Ms. Mollyanne Brewer Mrs. Carol Anne Brown ’05 and The Very Rev. Dr. Donald G. Brown ’98 Mrs. Mary S. Buck Mr. John W. Buffington and Mrs. Jane F. Buffington The Rev. Dr. Jeffrey L. Bullock ’80 Frederick Butcher The Rev. Canon Grant S. Carey, D.D. ’57 The Rev. Brenton H. Carey ’93 Mrs. Eleanor S. Chang Mr. Thomas N. Chapman Mrs. Sam Choat The Rev. C. Robbins Clark ’81 Mrs. Annelle Clute The Rev. Ann S. Coburn ’77 Ms. Ginny McCormick The Rev. Michael E. Corrigan The Rev. Christopher D. Creed ’92 and Mrs. Barbara B. Creed The Rev. Susan Creighton ’79 The Rev. Dr. Lisa K. Cressman ’92 and Dr. Erik N. Cressman The Rev. William E. Crews ’58 and Mrs. Ann H. Crews The Rev. Ronald D. Culmer ’94 Mr. David C. Cunningham and Mrs. Claire Cunningham The Rev. Canon Dorothy R. Curry ’82 The Rev. Rodney Davis ’09 and Sue Davis Mr. Charles H. Dick, Jr. and Mrs. Anne Dick Dorothy Dickey Mr. William Dickson The Rev. Canon Thomas R. Doyle ’76 The Rev. Dr. Robert E. Droste ’00 and Mrs. Karla Droste The Rev. Paul D. Edwards The Rev. Dwight W. Edwards, D.D. ’54 and Mrs. Rosi Edwards The Rev. Canon Joan Butler Ford, Ph.D., D.D. Mr. Robert F. Gaines ’80 The Rev. Canon Randal B. Gardner ’84 and Mrs. Cathy Gardner The Rev. Mary L. Goshert ’79 The Rev. Richard L. Green ’91 and The Rev. Kathleen Patton ’90 Mrs. Carol Hall Ms. Sheila A. Hard Ms. Marie Antoinette Harris The Rev. Dr. Ardith Hayes ’06 Mrs. Reta K. Haynes The Very Rev. Cn. Peter D. Haynes, Ph.D. The Rev. Patricia D. Hendrickson ’02 and The Rev. Katherine A. Lewis ’02 The Rev. Polly H. Hilsabeck ’85 and Mr. David M. Hilsabeck

Janet W. Hilton The Very Rev. Allan H. Hohlt ’66 and Dr. Winifred L. Hohlt The Rt. Rev. Mark Hollingsworth, Jr. ’81 and Mrs. Susan H. Hollingsworth Mr. Stephen P. Huffman and Mrs. Sally Huffman The Rev. Dr. Lawrence S. Hunter ’92 and The Rev. Janet M. Holland The Rev. Andrew D. Hybl ’12 Charles M. Ingram The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, D.D. ’94 The Rev. Debora L. Jennings ’93 The Rev. Lucretia A. Jevne ’96 and The Rev. Walter E. Phelps The Rev. Donald A. Jones ’63 and Mrs. Margaret S. Jones Nancy O. Kaehr, M.D. ’99 and The Rev. Canon Michael G. Kaehr The Rev. Dr. John L. Kater, Jr. ’10 Dr. Georgene T. Keeler ’08 The Rev. Preston T. Kelsey, D.D. ’61 and Mrs. Virginia R. Kelsey Mr. Daniel W. King The Rev. Kathryn L. King ’95 The Rev. Harry B. Kraft ’70 Gerald C. Kratz The Rev. Craig C. Kuehn ’93 The Rev. Alvin P. Lafon ’54 Ms. Sally J. Lash Mr. N. David Lawson The Rev. Eliza Linley ’90 The Rev. Harriet Burton Linville ’81 Mr. Morey R. Lloyd and Ms. Cynthia Lloyd Mrs. Kate H. MacArthur Mr. Emmett E. Maloof and Mrs. Sandra E. Maloof The Rev. Canon Caryl A. Marsh ’77 Mrs. Elizabeth Maupin The Rev. Dr. Jane F. Maynard ’92 and Mr. James C. Treyens Mrs. Margaret W. Mealy The Rt. Rev. G. R. Millard Dr. Donn F. Morgan and Dr. Alda M. Morgan ’64 The Rev. Richard N. Morrison The Rev. Mary K. Morrison ’00 and The Rev. Claudia Jo Weber ’00 The Rev. Heather M. Mueller ’78 Dr. Edward Murphy Mr. Theodore J. Nicou Mr. Roy N. Ordway Mrs. Joy Perry The Very Rev. Dr. William H. Petersen ’66, ’76, ’97 and Mrs. Priscilla E. Petersen The Rev. Nathaniel W. Pierce ’72 Mrs. Robert Poland Ms. Elizabeth H. Purdy Mrs. Ardeen Russell Quinn The Rev. Charles L. Ramsden ’74 Dr. Nigel A. Renton ’09

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Mr. James E. Rice and Mrs. Patricia J. Rice The Rev. Dr. W. Mark Richardson ’91 and Mrs. Brenda Richardson The Rev. James D. Richardson ’00 and Mrs. Lori Korleski Mrs. Ray Riess Mrs. Elsie E. Ryan The Rev. Cn. Charles W. Sacquety, Jr. ’65

CDSP’s annual fund makes seminary affordable for many students

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Aaron Klinefelter, an MDiv student from the Diocese of Southern Ohio finishing his first year, is one of those students. He writes, “A most heartfelt thank you to those of you who have given to the CDSP Annual Fund. You provide CDSP with the ability to make seminary education more affordable for many students.”

Continuing support from alumni and friends is essential to maintaining a strong and thriving seminary. To make a gift to the CDSP annual fund, please send a check, made payable to CDSP, to the Advancement Office, 2451 Ridge Road, Berkeley, CA 94709-1211.

To give online, visit cdsp.edu/giving/annual-fund.

Through your Annual Fund gift, you show your belief in CDSP and its students, programs and future. Thank you for your support.

Mr. Mark J. Sally and Mrs. Suzanna Sally The Rev. Carol W. Sanford ’05 Beverly J. Sarjeant The Rev. Richard L. Schaper The Rev. Stuart A. Schlegel ’60 Mrs. Kathleen Seabury Mr. Terrence Sempowski Mrs. Charlaine M. Shackelford The Rev. Sallie Shippen ’82 Ms. J. Suzanne Siebert The Rev. Dr. Peter W. Sipple ’69 and Dr. Margaret E. Sipple ’69 Mr. Donald H. Smith Mrs. Nancy C. Swearengen Mr. William Swindells Dr. James D. Van Tassel ’71 Dr. Lavette C. Teague, Jr. ’79 The Rev. Canon Lee B. Teed ’90 The Rev. Margaret L. Thomas ’95 Mr. Robert W. Thomas, Jr. and Mrs. Marion R. Thomas Catherine A. Thompson The Rev. Dennis S. Tierney, Ph.D. ’02 and Dr. Grace E. Grant The Rev. Frances C. Tornquist, D.D. ’89 and Mr. John W. Tornquist The Rev. Dr. Fran Toy ’84 and Mr. Arthur C. Toy

The Very Rev. Murray L. Trelease ’59 and Mrs. Mariette G. Trelease Mrs. Martha J. True May Hobson Ferguson Trust Frank C. Hagyard Marital Trust Frank E. Leaphart Trust Mrs. Joan Vance Mrs. Anne S. Vance ’97 The Rev. William L. Wallace, Ph.D. ’65 and Mrs. Sarah M. Wallace, Ph.D. The Rev. Dr. Katherine L. Ward ’94 Dr. Rock Warner and Mrs. Marni Warner Mrs. Laura P. Waste Ms. Margo Webster The Rev. Dr. Louis Weil The Rev. Ben Wells ’11 and The Rev. Arthur Villarreal The Rev. Robert B. Williams Mrs. Ruth H. Wilson ’52 and The Rev. Howard L. Wilson, D.D. ’53 Mary Jane Wood The Rev. Roger H. Wood ’57 Dexter Woods The Rev. William K. Young ’78 and Mrs. Katharine W. Young ’77 The Rev. Cn. Curtis R. Zimmerman ’74

at

Easton Hall is a unique guest house with a serene retreat-like environment.

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2016 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

One block from the UC Berkeley north gate, you can walk to nearby arts district, shopping, restaurants and cafes and BART. Views of San Francisco and Berkeley hills Complimentary Wi-Fi, coffee & parking Computer and printer in lobby Full kitchen on main floor Wood paneled Great Hall with lodge-style fireplace Historic building with modern renovations Conference center

2401 Ridge Road, Berkeley, CA 94709 510.204.0732 | Web: eastonhall.cdsp.edu | Email: eastonhall@cdsp.edu

In January, Assistant Professor George Emblom directed choral performances of Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms” with the St. Mark’s, Berkeley choir and the Temple Sinai, Oakland choir. The performances took place during Shabbat services at Temple Sinai and evensong at St. Mark’s. On February 28, Emblom led members of the St. Mark’s choir in their first visit to sing during worship at San Quentin prison.

Assistant Professor Julián González presented a paper titled “The Mark of Cain: an Agambenian Reading” at the annual meeting of the American Acade­my of Religion in November 2015. He has been chosen for the 2016–17 Teaching and Learning Workshop for Early Career Theological School Faculty at the Wabash Center and was part of a panel discussion on changes in the field of biblical studies during “Navigating Crosscurrents: Looking Back. Looking Forward,” a conference to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Graduate Program in Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University.

Visiting Assistant Professor Scott MacDougall published a commissioned review of Markus Mühling’s “T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Eschatology” in the most recent issue of the journal Theology. He also recorded three episodes of Homebrewed Christianity’s LectioCast podcast during Lent, and his interview with Tripp Fuller, host of the Homebrewed Christianity podcast, was #3 on the program’s Top Ten Episodes of 2015. In December, he taught two classes at All Souls Parish in Berkeley on faith and politics.

Professor Cynthia Moe-Lobeda gave the 2016 Luther Lecture at Pacific Lutheran School of Theology on April 6. She discussed climate change and the religious traditions that can inspire ecologically sound and socially just ways of living. Last fall, she gave a presentation titled “Global Perspectives on the Reformation: Interactions

between Theology, Politics and Economics” at the Lutheran World Federation conference in Windhoek, Namibia. At the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature, she gave a presentation titled “Teaching and Public Engagement” and a paper titled “Teaching Climate Change and Climate Justice in Religion/Religious Studies Classrooms” for the Transformative Scholarship and Pedagogy Group and the Religion and Ecology Group. Her essay, “Climate Debt, White Privilege and Christian Ethics as Political Theology,” has been published in “Common Good(s): Economy, Ecology, Political Theology” from Fordham Press.

Faculty News

President Mark Richardson preached at Grace Cathedral on March 6 and led a forum titled “Climate Change: Science, Religion, or Both?”

Academic Dean Ruth Meyers taught a five-week Sunday series on the baptismal promises at All Souls Episcopal Parish in Berkeley, preached at the Christmas Carol service at the San Francisco Mar Thoma Church in December, and attended the annual meeting of the North American Academy of Liturgy in Houston in early January.

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Associate Professor Susanna Singer and Assistant Professor Jennifer Snow have each been awarded a Conant Grant for research from the Episcopal Church. Snow will travel to Geneva this summer for research into the World Council of Churches and Lutheran World Federation archives.

Singer will travel this summer to the Center for Theology and Community in East London, where she will visit the summer Urban Leadership School.

Professor Susanna Singer has been named chair of the General ­Convention Task Force on Clergy Leadership in Small Churches.

Photo by Thomas Minczeski

Our Active Alums

The Rev. Gary Commins ’80 has written a new book, “If Only We Could See: Mystical Vision and Social Transformation,” published by Cascade Books.

The Rev. Peter Fones ’05 has been called to serve as the interim vicar at St. Luke’s, Waldport, and St. Stephen’s, Newport, California.

The Rev. Peter L. Fritsch ’92 is canonically resident in Oregon, but is now living in Pecs, Hungary.

The Rev. Fred Heard ’03 is the new vicar of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Dallas, Oregon.

The Rev. Sam Dessordi Leite DMin ’13 will be the new senior priest of Saint Stephen and the Incarnation in ­Washington, D.C. The Rev. Barbara Miller ’14 has been called as rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Paso Robles, California.

The Rev. Darren Miner ’06 is the new priest-in-charge of the Church of the Incarnation, San Francisco.

The Rev. Bonnie Ring ’89 has published a new book, “Women Who Knew Jesus.”

In Memoriam The Rev. Barry Bloom ’63 died on January 1. He served in east Oakland after ordination and then joined the Peace Corps in Tanzania. He lived in that country for many years before returning to the Bay Area and finally settling in Portland, Oregon.

The Rev. Charles Tarleton Crane ’57 died in December. He served for more than 30 years in the Diocese of Hawai’i.

The Rev. Ralph Edwin Parks ’62 died on November 5. He retired as vicar of St. George’s Episcopal Church in Hawthorne, California, and was a founding member of the Lady Bird Johnson National Wildflower Foundation.

The Rev. Canon Alfred “Al” Smith ’59, retired rector of St. Columba’s Church, Camarillo, California, died on December 26. He most recently was chaplain to retired clergy of the diocese of San Diego— a ministry he shared with his wife, Stephanie—and priest-in-residence at St. Bartholomew’s Church, Poway, California.

May light perpetual shine upon them.

Student News

Photo by Thomas Minczeski

Teresa Wakeen ’16 has been awarded a United Thank Offering seminarian grant to develop a new congregation in an underserved area of Detroit in partnership with Crossroads of Michigan and several Episcopal organizations.

Seeking to be partners in the work of the Spirit by

T h e R e v . S p e n c e r H at c h e r

I’ve watched CDSP change since arriving here in the fall of 2013.

Buildings have been repurposed, refurbished and renovated.

Faculty searches have been conducted. New staff have joined the community. The Student Information Systems were brought in-house. Even my student ID has changed since my first year!

Yet somehow, there has been a consistency that is hard to describe, a heart that has continued to beat in the midst of the many changes around it. This year, I have had the opportunity to get a glimpse into one major reason for that consistency, that heart, as a student member of the Board of Trustees.

In truth, I had no idea what to expect when I attended the first board meeting of this academic year.

I knew that things had been changing, but I didn’t know what that meant. Were they changes, ultimately, for the better? Were they decisions made of necessity? Did I really want to find out the answer in the first place? As I entered Easton Hall and took my seat around the circular board table, I wondered what I might learn that I could never unlearn about the “behind the scenes” action of my seminary.

The meeting began with a check-in: what has everyone been doing since the last meeting in May? I listened as member after member— bishops, priests, business people, alums, area-delegates, teachers and community leaders—energetically updated one another on their summer plans. There was a palpable

energy in the room. We proceeded with business from there, but the entire meeting was informed by that opening question, or perhaps better stated, by the relationships manifest in people’s answers. It has been a privilege to sit in that room for the past two board meetings; to hear the wisdom, the wonderings, the dreams, and the transparency of an institution in transition. To see a room full

“It has been a privilege … to hear the wisdom, the wonderings, the dreams, and the transparency of an institution in transition.”

— T h e R e v . S p e n c e r H at c h e r

of movers and shakers admit to past blunders but recognize a hopeful and Spirit-centered future, has been an amazing experience for a student preparing for ordained ministry in the church.

And it has also been a challenge.

Part of my role is to reach out and be present to students’ concerns, questions, feelings, and the overall condition of the student body in the seminary. Especially in this time of huge institutional transition, that hasn’t always been simple. But it has always been transformative. I have been invited to hear students’ big questions, their anxieties, their thanksgivings, and their stories—about why they came to CDSP in the first place, about what their hope for CDSP is moving forward and about what their hope for themselves is moving forward. Because of my role, I have had to be intentional about listening to these stories, and I can say without question, that I am better for hearing them and better for the whole experience. I have been overwhelmingly impressed by the mission-focused approach to seminary governance; to the recognition that we are, in every simple and overwhelming way, partnering with the work the Spirit is already doing in the Church and in the world. I’m grateful to have been one small part of that faithful work.

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