Yale Divinity School

Notes from 2008

Alvord Beardslee ’53 B.D., ’55 S.T.M. studied at the American Friends Service in Mexico; Asian Seminar with Huston Smith; Council for Religion in Independent Schools; East Harlem Protestant Parish; Hebrew Union College and its dig at Gezer; Hollins College (Emeritus Professor of Bible, Theology, Ethics); Islam at Hartford Seminary; Lehigh (Greek); Operation Crossroads Africa (Niger); Prisons in CT, MA, VA; Salisbury CT (ordained in 1953;) Strasbourg (Fulbright); US Army of Occupation, Tokyo; Weston Jesuit School of Theology, Oblates of Mary Immaculate; Yale Alumni Board, and Preservation of Quadrangle.

Jim Boice ’55 B.D. has been retired as a United Methodist pastor for 14 years. He returned to Centenary UMC in 1997 where he had served in the 1980s. Centenary is an urban United Methodist Church in Richmond, VA. Jim is beginning his 12th year as Minister to/with Older Adults. He lives in a retirement community and chairs the residents’ council. Jim also mentors inner city children and is involved in the life of Richmond Hill, an urban ecumenical retreat center. His wife, Emily died in 2007.

Charles Cooper Jr. ’55 B.D spent seven years as pastor of Congregational and UCC congregations in California and 37 years on the national staff of the Stewardship Council and as Assistant to the President of the UCC. His wife, JoAnn, a guidance counselor and publisher of guidance material, and he, now retired, live in Sedona, AZ. Their three children (college professor, corporate engineer, and elementary teacher) and four grandchildren live in California, Texas, and Florida.

Charles Cox ’55 B.D. writes, “My years at YDS have been definitive for my whole life.” After graduate work at Vanderbilt, Charles went to the University of Texas at Austin for a thirty year career in biblical studies. His YDS experience and the involvement in biblical studies at UT re-shaped his whole view of—as H. Richard Niebuhr would say—the “nature of things.” Charles remains grateful that faculty and classmates at YDS planted the seeds for all this.

Robert Dell, ’55 B.D. writes, “Greetings to all!” His retirement ministry has been with Pathways to Promise (www.pathways2promise.org), an interfaith partnership, facilitating ministry in regard to mental illness. Currently, they are cooperating in developing local book discussion groups around the new book, Souls in the Hands of a Tender God, by Chaplain Craig Rennebohm (www.tendergod.com). Watch the Web site for news of the conference planned for Oct. 5-7, 2009. “Blessings to all, and stop by when in the area.”

Richard A. DeMott ’55 M.Div. presides at Episcopal services in the church of the Savior Newland, a Lutheran-Episcopal church and serves as adjunct clergy at St. Mary in the Hills parish, Blowing Rock. Richard is serving his second term on the Seven Devils Town Council and as Mayor Pro tempore. In addition to these positions, Richard also serves on the Executive Board of the High Country council of Governments and other related committees, chairs the Watauga River Conservation Partners Chapter, Western North Carolina Alliance, the Advisory Board for Watauga Riverkeepers, and chairs the Water Initiative Group for the town of Seven Devils, NC. His wife, Jane is in a skilled nursing facility with Alzheimer’s disease.

Having retired three times (from NCCC's Broadcasting and Film Commission 1989, from teaching at YDS in 1995, from United Theological College, Bangalore in 2001), William Fore ’55 B.D. started a website called www.religion-online.org which offers more than 6,000 articles and books. It now receives over a million hits a month. Living in San Diego, William is serving as VP of Interfaith Community Services, which last year helped 26,000 persons with programs for battered women, alcoholics, the homeless, veterans, seniors and at-risk youth.

After going to Yale Divinity School, pursuing studies in YMCA, Robert John Fries ’55 B.D. spent two years in the US Army in Germany. In 1973 he married Beverly Bundy. They have four children, Shari (a nurse), Kenneth (an arborist), Rob (a computer tech with Upromise), and Joyann (a doctor of physical therapy). For 25 years, he taught school and was a principal in the public school system in Connecticut. Robert has also been running his own company, RJ Fries Tree Service.

Eugene Haaf ’55 B.D. and wife Jacquie are entering their 17th year of retirement and 53rd year of marriage. In May he officiated in North Haven, CT at the wedding of their son David to Kristin Nute of California. It brought together Richard and his daughter Kalynda from the Netherlands, Paul and Lynette with their children Taylor and Wesley, and twin daughters Beth and Donna. Gene and Jacquie are looking to return to Connecticut.

Bob Hanson ’55 B.D. and his wife, Mary Leigh have six sons and nine grandchildren and live in Pownal, ME. They both retired in 1965 but have remained active politically and in the Portland Cathedral (Episcopal). Bob holds graduate degrees in theology (Sewanee), computer science (Columbia), counseling (St. John's University) and a doctorate in psychology (Columbia). He also holds a Certificate in Analytical Psychology from the Jungian Institute in Zurich. Since graduation he has served as director of Massachusetts Political Action for Peace, national coordinator for the A.C.L.U., director of the first urban-based Outward Bound program, and as founder and president of Hanson Silver Strong, Inc., a national consulting firm. Currently, he is a vestryman at St. Luke’s, and member of several boards and social service agencies. Bob has authored five books and a series of self-assessment instruments. Bob teaches psychology and philosophy at the University of Southern Maine, and is a faculty member of the Maine Jung Center.

James Hargett ’55 B.D. has completed the first draft of a book with the working title, Ministry and Mission in the Vineyard: A Fifty-two Year Spiritual Journey. In addition, The Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, has placed his work and the work of his father, Rev. F.A. Hargett Sr. in the archives.

Stuart Haskins ’55 B.D. is now fully retired after 26 years as Senior Minister of the First Plymouth Congregational UCC in Denver, and seven more as a part-time Associate Conference Minister of the Rocky Mountain Conference UCC. He and wife Kat have lived in the same house for 41 years. Three of their four children live in the Denver area. They enjoy their six grandchildren and find time for travel, gardening, and other activities. 

Harlan Hobgood ’55 M.Div. spent 25 years as Senior Foreign Service Officer and USAID Mission Director, and retired in 1985 to become President of Freedom from Hunger Foundation through 1988. Thereafter Harlan acted as an Independent International Consultant until 2001. With wife Catherine, to whom he has been married since 1962, he moved to Avila Beach, CA in 1993 and since has worked in local and state Democratic party and on civic boards and advisory bodies.  Harlan has been a Senior Fellow, National Academy of Public Administration, since 1981.  Their two sons are international development professionals in Haiti and Mozambique.    

Bill Longman ’55 M.Div. has been active for some years in retirement with interims and supply preaching in many congregations but also in the community directing the Institute for Mature Learning with a current study of the Immigrant Experience. He and wife Lee, who was secretary to the YDS faculty, celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary in June with family in Playa del Carmen and soon thereafter went to their latest Elderhostels: Carmel Bach Festival and Dickens Universe at Santa Cruz (their 27th). They live in Springfield, MO.

H. Newton Malony, ’55 M.Div, published Christian Counseling: An Introduction (Abingdon Press, 2006) with David W. Augsburger. Newton is Senior Professor in the Graduate School of Psychology of Fuller Theological Seminary where he has taught since 1969 after receiving the doctorate in psychology from George Peabody College of Vanderbilt.

Alan F. Mather, ’55 B.D. retired to Holderness, NH twelve years ago. Most of his career was in business after a 3-year stint as the UCC Chaplain at Yale and 10 years in the parish. Having been divorced, Alan met a woman (“in church, where else?”), and they were married six years ago. His principle involvement is with the Squam Lakes Natural Science center where he serves as a tour boat driver, a docent and a member of several committees.

Stuart McLean, ’55 B.D. retired to Albuquerque from Phillips Theological Seminary in Enid, OK and remains active in local politics. Stuart still feels cogent enough to continue refining a 20 year project named “Rites of Passage Youth Ministry: An Alternative.” He finds four Root Metaphors a fruitful way of relating theology and social issues, and is working on a book on “Covenant” as a distinctive RM, comparing the contributions of Douglas John Hall, Joseph Allen, N.T. Wright and Karl Barth.

Since retiring in 1997 from his university teaching and Elizabeth from her interim ministries in Wisconsin, Stanley ’55 B.D. and Elizabeth Anderson Moore ’55 M.R.E. have been thriving mightily at Pilgrim Place—a retirement community for retired Christian professionals in Claremont, CA. It's a community of 330 people (including some YDS grads) full of life, passion, love, music, laughter, where Stan does woodworking, plays guitar in their new Pilgrim Pickers string band, and joins in the weekly public protest (now in its 6th year) of the Iraqi War, and Liz heads up the knitting contingent, does some work with ceramics, and heads up the Hunger Kitchen operation at their church where their daughter-in-law is the pastor. 

Frank Nichols ’55 B.D. has been retired from the Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church since 1989. He keeps active in the local church, teaching at least one class a year. Last year Frank taught an introductory class on the religion of Islam. His three sons and their families live within easy driving distance. Aileen, his wife of 55 years, died in June 2007.

Since 1952 Richard Parker ’55 M.Div. has served as a pastor in the NY Conference of the United Methodist Church. He was a District Superintendent in the 1970s; and again in CT (interim year) after retirement in 1997. Richard served on three UM national agencies and the UM national governing body from 1972-2004. He’s been involved in social justice and peace issues, and now full inclusion of LGBT persons. Grace and Richard had a wonderful life together from 1951 until her death in 2005; raising three children and a fourth added later. They’ve sailed from ME to the Chesapeake, for many years on "Charisma," now docked at their home in Babylon. Richard is grateful to YDS for providing a solid foundation for ministry.

James M. Phillips ’55 B.D. lost his wife Ruth nine years ago, but has been fortunate to move into the Whitney Center, a retirement home not far from YDS. He has been able to take in YDS functions, as well as activities throughout Yale University and the nearby Overseas Ministries Study Center where he was associate director until he retired 14 years ago. Visits to several Elderhostels also help keep his grey matter active.

Since graduation, Robert Powers ’55 B.D. was ordained in the Episcopal Church (after further study in NYC: The General Seminary), and had a few years of parish experience. In the course of those years he began studying in a CE certificate program at the Alfred Adler Institute of Chicago, went on to a master’s degree at the University of Chicago Divinity School in a field then called Religion and Personality that allowed Bob to take courses in the departments of psychology, psychiatry, and human development. He passed the Illinois exams for licensure as a Clinical Psychologist, established a practice of counseling and psychotherapy, joined the faculty of the Adler Institute (now the Adler School of Professional Psychology), was elected President of the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology, traveled here and abroad to lecture and teach, and retired as Distinguished Service Professor about 10 years ago. Robert has written several texts with his wife, Jane Griffith and he continues to teach and consult here and there. Classmates are invited to visit his website. www.adlerianpsychologyassociates.com

Stuart A. Ryder II ’55 B.D. has been employed at Judson University, Elgin, IL since 1969. While at Judson, he served as Professor of Linguistics and Literature from 1969-2003 and also functioned at one point as cross-country coach and men’s athletics trainer. In addition to coaching, Stuart also worked as the Faculty Athletics Representative in the NAIA and NCCAA for more than twenty years. Since retiring from classroom teaching he has continued his involvement in the university sports program, as the first Academics/Athletics Liaison. He oversees eligibility, advises and sometimes tutors athletes experiencing academic problems, and oversees adherence to the guidelines of the national organizations. Stuart regards this as a semi-retirement that enables him to maintain contact with students and perform a useful service to the institution. In his view, he has a perfect retirement.

Leland Scott ’55 Div., a doctoral student at YDS from 1948-52, served as a pastor in Compton, CA. until 1958. While there he completed his Ph.D. (Yale '55) and taught Church History at the University of Southern California's School of Religion (1955-57) and one semester at Claremont's School of Theology. From 1958-69 Lee was the Methodist Campus Minister at the University of Arizona until joining the founding faculty of Pima Community College in Tucson, retiring in 1990 and continuing in voluntary ministry and writing.

Following his retirement from research and teaching in Ohio, Robert H. Smith ’55 B.D. and his wife Geraldine moved to Walnut Creek, CA, where they enjoy the mild climate, beautiful setting (he hikes) and cultural opportunities of the San Francisco Bay area.

Miriam and John Wagner ’55 B.D. have lived in Westerville, a suburb of Columbus, OH since John’s 1996 retirement from the faculty of United Seminary. They are involved in Faith Communities Uniting for Peace, and in public policy and theological discussions in their congregation. John and Miriam’s son John is pastor of a largely military congregation near Wright Patterson AFB, their daughter Pat is an urban pastor, and Dave is the anchor for the NBC station in Charlotte, NC.

After 25 years as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of St. Joseph, MO, John Dudley Watson ’55 B.D. retired in 1995. Since then he has served as interim pastor in 10 pastoral and administrative positions in Missouri and Kansas. John and his wife, Diane, continue to live in St. Joseph. They both are active in church and community activities. Their two sons, who were born in New Haven, are living in Denver, CO and their daughter, two grand daughters, and great granddaughter live in St. Joseph, MO.

Dick Wilke ’55 B.D. and wife Julia live in Winfield, KS where he serves as bishop in residence at Southwestern College. He teaches a workshop class on writing, recruits a few top international students and raises a little money for the college. Both he and Julia are in good health. His new book The Tie That Binds (Abingdon Press, 2008) pleads for and describes church renewal including openness to homosexuals and work in the prisons.

Adri Zevenster ’55 S.T.M retired as pastor in Groningen, The Netherlands (1975-94). He also taught Old Testament, Hebrew and Philosophy at Theological High School ‘Duta Wacana’ in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (1966-75), and did pastoral work at Amsterdam and Technical University Delft, 1957-1965. Adri is still active in teaching courses for lay people (Old Testament & Philosophy). A lifelong interest in the Jewish/German philosopher Franz Rosenzweig brought him to congresses in Kassel and Jerusalem. At home Adri is giving courses in his way of thinking and living a Jewish life. “What a great time we had at Yale!”