A big welcome to our largest incoming class for many years. We welcome 57 students, of which the majority are MDiv – 35. We remain overwhelmingly Episcopalian – 47. We have students from six countries – Canada, Republic of Georgia, India, Nigeria, Tanzania, and of course the United States. We have 22 students of color […]
Tonight the Deanery hosts its first dinner. We will welcome the “Students of Color Union”. Readers of the commentary over the summer will have learned all about SOCU. SOCU is an important witness in our community. Back in the 1990s, students of color were a very small minority. As we seek to serve a changing […]
We require every faculty, every staff member, and every student to participate in Intercultural Competency Training. This requirement goes back to the early 2000s. For students, the requirement goes back at least twenty years; for faculty and staff, it goes back fifteen years. In its current form, over the last seven years, I have participated […]
Most days I walked past the sculpture “Mary the Prophet”. I pause and marvel at the intensity of the piece. One can feel the Magnificat bursting forth from the young Mary’s mouth. I am, as you can deduce, an admirer of the extraordinary work of Ms. Peggy Parker. And I am excited to share with […]
This has been a busy summer. I finished Commencement in May and then I was preaching on Bishop Channing Moore Williams at Rikkyo University in Tokyo on the Saturday afternoon. I attended the Association of Theological Schools biannual in Atlanta and then the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Louisville, KY. For our students, […]
I love the voices that emerge during the summer when different departments write the commentary. I have learned so much. From the wisdom of alumni, insights from members of the Board of Trustees, to understanding how the library works to plans for facilities, I have enjoyed them all. These commentaries form part of the archival […]
I applied to VTS after meeting Dr. Lisa Kimball at a Christian formation conference. As the only MDiv student not seeking ordination, I definitely felt out of place when I arrived. But in early December I found myself sitting in front of a roaring fire in Scott Lounge next to my classmate Maurice Dyer as […]
It may seem contradictory that the department of Lifelong Learning has more remote employees than any other department (9) and one of the most attractive, purpose-built campus spaces to anchor our work. Since the summer of 2020 we have occupied the NE corner of the lower level of the Addison Academic Building where floor to […]
“Give me a firm place to stand and a lever and I can move the Earth.” – Archimedes Over the course of my ministry, I have increasingly become convinced that the future of our Church hinges on what this generation chooses to do (or not do) when it comes to faith formation. We need formation […]
In 2022, Virginia Theological Seminary received a one million dollar, 4-year grant from the Lilly Foundation, Inc. that, along with various other grant initiatives, would be housed in the Lifelong Learning department. The purpose of this grant, which they called the Mutual Ministry Initiative (or MMi, for short), was to study models of “mutual ministry” […]