wfn.org | [ENS] Episcopal Divinity School names new academic dean (Daybook)

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

Daybook, from Episcopal News Service

May 12, 2005 - Thursday Thesis: Meeting People of Purpose

Episcopal Divinity School names new academic dean

by Daphne Mack

[ENS] -- The Rev. Dr. Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook, associate professor of
Pastoral Theology at Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, will succeed Dr. Joanna Dewey as the seminary's Academic
Dean
effective July 1.

Kujawa-Holbrook, a 1983 graduate of EDS, has been a member of the
faculty
since 1998. In September 2004 she became the first holder of the Suzanne
Radley Hiatt Professorship in Feminist Pastoral Theology.

Kujawa-Holbrook said the Suzanne Radley Hiatt Chair was a special chair
that
was instituted after Professor Hiatt -- who was one of the Philadelphia
11
women first 'irregularly' ordained to the priesthood in 1974 -- had
taught
at EDS for close to 30 years.

"Her friends, donors and a lot of the alums of the school put the Chair
together to make sure there was always a witness on the faculty for some
of
the values that Sue Hiatt's ministry was about," Kujawa-Holbrook said,
noting that Hiatt's ministry emphasized "the importance of justice, the
importance of leadership, particularly women's leadership, but also
leadership of people of color, and anti-racism."

Kujawa-Holbrook said she first knew Hiatt as her teacher and they became
colleagues for a semester when she returned to EDS to teach.

"I am very, very lucky that we overlapped a little bit and I did know
her
and I visited and talked with her several times," she said. "And now I
have
the benefit of having met with and now know her sister Jean Kramer who
is in
contact with me about any activities around the Hiatt Chair and how
we're
going to use some of Sue's legacy and keep it going."

In her new role, Kujawa-Holbrook said she will continue to teach in the
fields of pastoral theology and church history "certainly from a
feminist
perspective." She also said she has been giving thought to writing a
book on
different forms of women's leadership and there has been discussion
around
publishing Hiatt's sermons.

In addition to teaching, Kujawa-Holbrook is a published author. She
attributes the inspiration for her latest book "Deeper Joy: Lay Women
and
Vocation in the 20th Century Episcopal Church" to Dr. Fredrica Harris
Thompsett, who co-edited the book with her.

"Being a lay woman, [Fredrica] had done some work with the graduates of
Windham House, which was one of the training centers for women that
closed
in the 60s," said Kujawa-Holbrook.

She said that when women started attending seminaries, the graduate
students
of Windham House were concerned because these were very important women
in
the Episcopal Church.

"They had lots of leadership roles, many of them went into Christian
education, or into college chaplaincies, and we were concerned as we
started
to talk about this [that] the contribution of lay women in a variety of
fields...that various things were being eclipsed, at least in the
literature
for women's ordination," said Kujawa-Holbrook.

She said they sensed that women's ordination was and still is a very
important issue throughout the world. However, it is not to suggest that
only ordained women have a vocation.

"Most of the women in the church are lay women and have been exercising
their ministries for hundreds of years," she said. "So we put this book
together with a collection of people who could document that, because we
wanted to make sure those voices were raised up and were illustrated."

According to Kujawa-Holbrook, some of the material is archival, and some
based on interviews, but overall it's "from people who were justifiably
concerned that their work would not be forgotten."

Kujawa-Holbrook is also a member of the Episcopal Church Executive
Council's
Anti-Racism Committee.

"I started doing anti-racism work in the Episcopal Church when I was the
youth ministries coordinator and for 10 years we worked on institutional
racism and how we could make what we offered at the church more
inclusive of
the needs of young people of color," she said. "That grew into the
larger
work that we are doing now across age lines."

Kujawa-Holbrook said it is also an important part of the work of EDS.
"Our
seminary is committed to anti-racism which is one of the reasons I came
here
to teach and be available in that area. So the two ministries really
mesh."

--Daphne Mack is staff writer for Episcopal News Service.

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