Yale Divinity School

Attending YDS Prospective Student Day, or, How I Met My Spouse

 

By Jan Fournier '06 M.A.R.

Who needs match.com when you can attend the YDS Prospective Student Day and meet your future husband?

First-year M.Div. student Adele Crawford could not have imagined that the paths to true love and vocational preparation would converge in Marquand Chapel on that fateful day in November, 2004.

Married this last summer to Kurt Shaffert '05 M.Div., Adele has a story to tell her future grandchildren that reads like a fairy tale. She vividly remembers that at the end of the Marquand worship service on Prospective Student Day 2004 Kurt approached her with a question: “UCC?” to which she replied “No, Presbyterian,” and an inter-faith dialogue was born!

When Adele came back to spend another day of exploration the following week, it was inevitable that Kurt, then a third-year M.Div. student, would appear in the Common Room for Coffee Hour where more conversation ensued; in the Refectory, where Adele noticed Kurt but he didn't acknowledge her; and in the class she was visiting where Kurt most definitely noticed her.

Following an exchange of e-mail addresses and several phone conversations later, Adele recalled, with a grin, that she and Kurt then met in New York where they attended an exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum.

Quickly they both discovered they had friends in common: Kurt's friend, James Ebert '97 M.Div. YDS '97, and former Alumni Director at YDS, was married to Adele's friend Allison Read '97 M.A.R., '03 M.Div.

When Adele began her studies last year at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary last year, Kurt followed her to Kentucky to pursue a CPE clinical pastoral education residency. The rest, as they say, is history.

Adele, a gifted soprano and former member of the New York Metropolitan Opera Company, reveals that she felt a sense of call even at the age of 19 but discerned a need to find her own voice first—both literally and figuratively—before committing to ordained ministry.

Now on the path to ordination, she will be the fourth generation of her family, and but the first woman in her family, to enter the Presbyterian ministry. After her experience last year as worship co-coordinator at Louisville and working closely this year with the Marquand Chapel team, gracing Marquand with her splendid gift of music making, she is looking ahead to re-envisioning the worship life of the church.

Kurt, meanwhile, has just begun his ministry as a chaplain at Masonic Healthcare in nearby Wallingford, CT. He says that attending the Before the Fall Orientation this year as the spouse of an incoming student as well as an alumnus was a unique experience.