Yale Divinity School

Notes from 2008

George Anastos ’80 M.Div. serves as Senior Minister of First Plymouth Congregational Church (UCC), Englewood, CO (a suburb of Denver).  George writes: “I was blessed with this position after having served for 14 years as co-pastor (with my wife Andrea) at the First Church of Deerfield (MA), and after working for five years as a Project Manager for Corporate Learning and Organizational Development at Yankee Candle Company. We have one daughter (Philippa) who is a senior at Macalester College.

Jamie Campbel ’80 M.A.R. is a real estate attorney in Pensacola, FL specializing in resort development.  He and his wife, Nina, married in 1982, and have three children.  Strouse recently graduated from Duke and is teaching in Durham, NC.  Wesley, their daughter, is a third year student at Rhodes College in Memphis, and is currently studying in Perth, Australia.  Their youngest son, Blake, is a sophomore in the IB program, studying this summer at Yale, and enjoys basketball.  Jamie’s e-mail address is: jsc@beggslane.com.

Karen Johnson ’80 M.Div. writes, “Twenty-eight years! Some highs - first woman Rector in Diocese of Washington, D.C., President of Washington Episcopal Clergy Association, one of top ten ECUSA preachers twice; some lows - a traumatic dissolution ending one ministry, starting another out of fear instead of call; and pure blessing - doing Ignatian exercises, foregoing high profile ministries and becoming a chaplain, pastoral provider, and spiritual director, last 15 years part of Church of the Saviour's Dayspring Community.”

Delores Lewis ’80 M.A.R. is retired from the Department of Education and says she is looking forward to spending more time with family and friends.  Dee writes: “Yard work and container gardening keep me thankful for life itself!” For the past couple of years, she has given several speeches on the values and vision of the Tikkun Community/Network of Spiritual Progressives.

Harold H. Schnedler ’80 S.T.M. serves as Pastor of the Congregational United Church of Christ in Keosauqua, Iowa since 2003 and also teaches religion and ethics courses as adjunct faculty at Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, IA, and at other nearby colleges.  He is married to Lisa W. Schnedler, and is father of Christian, Adena, and Leighton Schnedler.

John Shuler ’80 M.A.R. writes, “Debra and I continue our teaching in history, literature, and language arts.  Nashville area public schools remain full of challenges, a true mission field.  As for the children, daughter Kennedy traveled to Italy and Ireland this year.  Son Richard continues his work as a TV station master controller.  Daughter Beth, who's great at mechanical engineering, got married, and son Grant is about to wrap up his studies in graphic design.  Their budding futures add to our happiness . . . and might just ease our pocketbooks!  We're doing fine and pray for everyone's well-being.”

Paul Wood ’80 M.Div. and his wife, Kay and live in Cheraw, SC, where Paul serves the First United Methodist Church. Their children are Jane, a Furman University grad who teaches 1st grade in Spartanburg, SC, and Paul Wood III who has recently finished Wofford College and plans to spend a year in China before pursuing a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Paul writes: “It's great serving in the same Conference with YDS alums Robert ’82 M.Div. and Carol R. Cannon ’82 M.Div.”

Notes from 2007

Greetings are sent from Talitha J. Arnold ’80 M.Div., who has been serving the United Church of Santa Fe since l987.  She writes "Despite the distance between northern New Mexico and any place else, YDS people come through on a fairly regular basis. A year ago March, Dean Attridge gave his DaVinci Code presentation and also one on "Can We Trust the Bible?" to packed audiences. Barbara Lundblad ’79 M.Div. preached and Jerry Henry ’80 M.Div. and Joan Forsberg ’53 B.D. participated in my 25th Ordination Anniversary Service, also a great celebration thanks to them." Other visitors have included John Lindner; Detra MacDougal; Peter Hawkins ’68 M.A., ’75 Ph.D.; Jeffery Rowthorn; and Dee Brown who, Talitha notes, "got lost on the Old Santa Fe Trail and literally wandered into United!"

The Rev. Katherine Cunningham ’80 M.Div. is a founder and co-executive director of New Horizons Associates, a church-related pastoral psychotherapy and non-profit consultation center in Ridgewood, NJ.  Her work includes consulting with churches and judicatories in transition and strategic planning and one of her specialties is assisting congregations in after-care following pastoral misconduct or termination. After serving Presbyterian parishes in northern metro-NJ, she received her certification as a psychoanalyst and has been in practice since 1990. She serves on the Board of the national Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, a credential and advocacy organization. Katherine has served in various General Assembly committees of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and is involved in helping in the assessment of mission-based and servant/learner travel opportunities for retiring Baby Boomers in the wider church. She and her husband, Kurt Kaboth, have a child who is a Ph.D. candidate in high energy physics at MIT.

After YDS, Vanessa Falgoust ’80 M.Div. served a term as a missionary in Zaire (DR Congo). Upon her return to the US, she earned a Masters in Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute and had her work shown in San Francisco, New York, Louisiana, Belgium, and England. Vanessa says "My goal as an artist is to create a visual metaphor of the spiritual journey from darkness to the light of Christ." In 2004, she and her husband, Alan Cox, moved to Virginia where he serves on the music faculty of the University of Virginia.  She will be ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) soon and lead the adult fall retreat, "Seeing Spiritually," for the Virginia Region of the Christian Church.

Taking the "mommy track" out of YDS, Debra Given ’80 M.Div. worked as part-time Associate Pastor for 20 years, first in Mt. Vernon, NY, and then in Manhattan. Since 2000, she has been full-time solo pastor in a small multicultural Presbyterian church in Leonia, NJ. This congregation represents 11 different countries with over one third of its members born outside of the US. (www.leoniapres.org) Within the past five years, she has spent a week at the Taize community in France, and has traveled to Ugana to volunteer in an orphanage. She lives in Manhattan with her husband of 28 years, Tom Phillips, and has three daughters, the eldest of which will be a middler at San Francisco Theological Seminary. She also has 3 step-children and 5 step-grandchildren. Debra still plays the guitar, "but not very often or well...."

Holly Hamlett ’80 M.Div. is the Manager of Care Coordination Department at Shriners Hospital for Children Los Angeles. Before beginning work at Shriners Hospitals for Children – Los Angeles, Hamlett served as the Manager of Clinical Social Work at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.  She also worked as the Director of Clinical Social Work and coordinator of Palliative Care Services at California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles. Hamlett earned her Master of Social Work from the University of Connecticut, in West Hartford, CT and Her Master of Divinity from Yale University in New Haven Connecticut, and her B.A. in Psychology and theology from Emmanuel College in Boston MA. Throughout her career she has focused on women and children’s healthcare, feeling that this population needs a strong voice. She recently commented for a press release, “It is a privilege for me to be a part of a family’s life during a time of crisis while their child is hospitalized or receiving care in our clinics and to walk with them during part of their journey.  For me – it is a very humbling experience and I am grateful every day to be a social worker.”

Jerry Henry ’80 M.Div. serves as Partner with Alexander Haas Martin & Partners, a fundraising consulting firm in Atlanta (www.ahmp.com). He works as a consultant to non-profit organizations around the country focusing primarily in the Southeast. Following YDS, he was ordained in the United Methodist Church serving in one congregation before accepting an appointment as the national Executive Director of The Fellowship of United Methodists in Worship, Music and Other Arts. In 1991, he was confirmed in the Episcopal Church and is an active member of the Cathedral of St. Philip (where Sam Candler, '82 M.Div. is the Dean and Bruce Neswick '80 M.M. is Canon for Music). He serves on the YDS Alumnal Board.

Since graduating from YDS, Oli (David) Jenkins ’80 M.Div., has pastored a United Methodist Church in eastern North Carolina, lived in London in a L'Arche community, completed a Ph. D. in ethics at Duke, was a campus minister, directed a non-profit working with homeless folks and refugees, and now is on the faculty at the Candler School of Theology at Emory "teaching all the funky courses." Oli's life is "made all the richer" by his work on the national board of L'Arche, the international organization of communities for people with developmental disabilities. "Henri [Nouwen] helped make L'Arche known in North America through his writings from L'Arche Daybreak in Toronto."  Oli writes that he has been blessed to be in a ten-year relationship with his true love and that he is "lucky enough to live only a few blocks from Jerry Henry in midtown Atlanta, even if we don't see each other as often as we'd like! Come visit us in Atlanta!"

"Well, when I was at dear old YDS, I was not even considering ordination - and chose a non-denominational school so I wouldn't have to take a preaching course - which proves that God has a sense of humor!" writes Heidi Joos ’80 M.Div.  She was ultimately ordained a deacon and then an elder in the United Methodist Church in central Pennsylvania.  Then, "overcome with strong desire to be an Episcopalian," she was ordained a deacon and then a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota. (Heidi says, "My partner, Ivy, says that's four ordination parties, and that's all I get!")  She is the Director of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry in a Minneapolis hospital, and serves as priest associate at St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church.  She says "I'm not retired yet – not thinking about it - having too much fun doing what I do!"

Lee Karker ’80 M.Div. served in Associate and Senior Minister positions in the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches for thirteen and a half years. Since 1994, he has worked for a United Methodist-related agency that provides housing, transportation, meals and other services for seniors and people with disabilities in Mid Coast Maine.  He is a licensed EMT-Basic working as a volunteer with the local ambulance service. In May, he was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church and is assisting at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Rockland, ME.  He has two children: Dan, a senior at Hampshire College and a daughter, Leah, a junior at Wesleyan University.

Andrew McMillan ’80 M.Div. has been in ministry in Colombia for 21 years.  He writes that his ministry involves a church planted there 13 years ago and he gives most of his time to training leadership and beginning new churches. He leads meetings every two months in Medellin's bullring "where about 10,000 get pumped about Christ, [and we] are seeing on any given Sunday about 6,000 show up to worship the Father." Married to Kathy for 21 years, their sons, Andrew (16) and Christian (15) run their television program.  They have a dog, "not Yellow like the Yale graduate, but white. Not quite as bright!"

Now in her 12th year as the chaplain for Monroe Village (a retirement community with 400 senior aged adults in Jamesburg, NJ), Terry Thomas Primer ’80 M.Div. recently received a D.Min. from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC, in the "Story and Spirituality" track. Her thesis, "God's Oldest Friends: Spirituality and Aging" examined the sources of hope and meaning in late life through interviews with 50 diverse individuals whose average age was 85.  She still experiments with art and spirituality.  This past year, she completed a 9' x 6' quilted mural of the Holy Trinity Icon for the annual convocation of the Alliance of Baptists. Its future home will (hopefully) be Sheide Hall at Princeton Theological Seminary which houses the seminary music practice rooms as well as the counseling offices.

John Shuler ’80 M.A.R. writes that after leaving YDS, he "had two careers, but one life in ministry." For the first 13 years, he worked with various ecumenical and interfaith non-profits including a summer camp and peace education program in Lynchburg, VA, followed by development work in pastoral counseling in Nashville, TN.  He served congregations in interim and supply work or regional consultation with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Having received an M.Ed. along the way, he has spent the past 14 years teaching in the metro Nashville public schools where he is currently a K-4 literacy specialist.  By his own admission, "now there's a mission field!"  He writes, "The pride of my life are my two children, Kennedy and Grant, and my wife, Debra, and her children, Richard and Beth. Life is a journey and restores us with love and hope, for those who remain open to it!"

Peter Strimer ’80 M.Div. celebrated his 26th anniversary of priesthood this year with the acceptance of a call to become the new rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Seattle, WA.  Peter had moved to Seattle in 1995 to become the Canon Missioner at St. Mark's Cathedral, where he served until 2003 when he began as the Communications Missioner for the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia.  After YDS, Peter served in the Diocese of Southern Ohio for 15 years. Over those years he was associate rector of Trinity Church, Columbus, director of the Hunger Network in Ohio, and was founding pastor of the 3rd Avenue Community Church. Peter writes, "3rd Avenue was an alternative congregation based on the principles of Liberation Theology and Letty Russell's work on the principles of Partnership."  He has been married to El McFarland since 1995, and he writes that he remembers "the night in Hopkins when Jim Reisner came up with the name 'Fatted Café" for the new student hang out in the basement of Porter Hall. The party continues!"

Margie Todd Van Duzer ’80 M.A.R. has lived in Seattle, WA, since her YDS days and is involved in the ministry of spiritual direction. She is an adjunct instructor at Seattle Pacific University in the School of Theology and an elder at Bethany Presbyterian Church where she preaches occasionally.  She has been married "over 30 years" and has two twenty-something year old sons.

Duff Watkins ’80 M.Div. has lived in Australia for 26 years and is the Director of the Asia/Pacific division of Cornerstone International Group (www.execsearch.com.au).  Following graduation from YDS, Watkins moved to Australia, spent three years in a parish, worked five years in psychiatric hospitals in Sydney (earning his doctorate in psychotherapy), joined a Human Resources consulting firm as a commercial psychotherapist, started his own executive search firm in 1992, and then joined Cornerstone International Group. He married ("for the first time!" he writes) in July in Sao Paulo, Brazil and now lives "a bi-continental life -- my wife is Brazilian."  Watkins serves as a Board member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia and is the President of the Yale Club of Sydney.

Still teaching Reformation theology and serving as Director of the Masters of Theological Studies Program at the University of Notre Dame, Randall Zachman ’80 M.Div. was promoted to Full Professor this past spring.  He published two new books this past year: John Calvin as Teacher, Pastor and Theologian (Baker Academic 2006), and Image and Word in the Theology of John Calvin (University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). His first book, The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin, was reissued in 2005 by Westminster John Knox Press. This past fall, Randall taught in London for the Notre Dame London Program, led a seminar on John Calvin for the divinity faculty of Cambridge University, and, as an additional surprise, got to meet the Edge and Bono at a book signing at Waterstones on Picadilly! Since 2003, he has been a member of the International Theology Conference of Jewish, Muslim and Christian theologians meeting for a week each February at the Shalom Harman Institute in Jerusalem. He has been married for 5 years to Carolyne Call and his son, Johnny, is a junior at Notre Dame.