Date: December 5, 2025
For the next two months, the Dean’s Commentary will feature text by VTS & GTS faculty members writing about what they are currently teaching, reading, or writing about.
When people picture the life of a professor, they usually imagine a scholar buried in books or standing before a classroom. Today I want to shine a light on a third responsibility that is just as essential: service to the scholarly guild. Such service is especially crucial in the here and now, when higher education is facing extraordinary hostility and we are witnessing the loss or consolidation of seminaries and university humanities departments.
Several VTS faculty members have just returned from the annual meetings of our professional societies, such as ASOR, the guild of Near Eastern Archaeology, and SBL, the Society of Biblical Literature. We gathered in Boston along with nearly 8,000 other religion scholars. These gatherings are about far more than sharing ideas and enjoying the camaraderie of old friends. They are also where we tend to the health and future of our disciplines.
In our SBL board meetings (SBL “Council”) we marked the close of a remarkable term of leadership by my friend and colleague the Rev. Canon Hugh R. Page, Jr. Ph.D., of the University of Notre Dame, a distinguished Hebrew Bible scholar and Episcopal priest. Hugh is a hero to me. His service—wise, collaborative, and deeply committed to the flourishing of the academy—has been a gift to all of us navigating the precarious academic landscape of 2025. His example embodies the Bible professor’s broader calling: to build up the guild, foster biblical scholarship, and safeguard the disciplined intellectual and spiritual formation of our students. It is quiet work, but in moments like these, it matters profoundly.
Stephen L. Cook, Ph.D.
The Catherine N. McBurney Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature
Virginia Theological Seminary