|
|
The ML Checklist
An Update on Work at Meadville Lombard Theological School
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Greetings!
I hope that you had a great Independence Day weekend! Heading into the holiday, I was still thinking about the General Assembly we concluded during the previous weekend, as well as the many announcements I was privileged to make at GA on behalf of Meadville Lombard Theological School. My themes for this newsletter are generosity and gratitude. As you will read in detail here, Meadville Lombard is the recipient of many recent acts of generosity. For these gifts, and for all the gifts that you have given through your participation in the school - be it as a student, a colleague, a donor, or a friend - everyone in the Meadville Lombard wider community has much to be thankful. Let me start by expressing gratitude for the many personal connections that many of us on the school's faculty and staff were able to make with alumni/ae, donors, friends, colleagues, and students during the General Assembly that concluded ten days ago in Charlotte. Our booth in the exhibit hall was among the finest there. It was busy with prospective students, alumni/ae, friends, and people who were simply curious about the school. I am grateful for having a space in which so many people could receive information about Meadville Lombard. Our faculty was everywhere, with participation in a number of important workshops and speaking platforms. Students, alumni/ae, and many staff members were everywhere, too, of course.  | | Martha Atherton, DHL '11, speaks with The Rev. Jeanne Pupke, MDiv '04, of Richmond, Va., a member of the UUA Board of Trustees, during the Friends of Meadville Lombard breakfast at GA in Charlotte, N.C. |
We also were able to gather large and attentive crowds at our Friends of Meadville Lombard breakfast and our Meadville Lombard Alumni/ae Association dinner to talk about the school as it is today, and talk further about what's happening to shape the future. I am grateful for all the faculty and staff who put so many hours into planning our work at General Assembly, and for all the people who interacted with us in so many different forums while we were all in North Carolina. While in Charlotte, it filled me with joy to be able to announce $4,185,000 in gifts, grants, and pledges to the school to fund new programs and initiatives. I'm going to spend the rest of this issue of The ML Checklist reviewing these gifts with you. As faithful readers know, I break up the rest of The Checklist into bite-sized topical discussions. I could lump all these gifts under the topic of "Finance," total that big bottom-line number of more than $4 million, and be done. Doing so, however, would defeat the purpose of these gifts to fund the work of our school to prepare the next generation of Unitarian Universalist and liberal religious ministers and professional leaders. So I'm going to discuss the gifts under the topics of the program aspects of the school in which they'll be used. It's quite a list! A note before I specify the exciting details. At Charlotte, we also made some private disclosures about our new home in Chicago's downtown Loop. I am still not at liberty to discuss the new home publicly because the lease remains under negotiation. If you are an alumni or alumna of the school, or a donor or friend of the school, however, and you did not attend our events at General Assembly, please contact the head of our development team, Denise Davidoff, for important and interesting information. Her contact info is below. Whether you take up that opportunity or not, please know that I will send an issue of The Checklist as soon as that public announcement can be made. Keep reading for more details ...
|
ML Checklist's News Summary
- Meadville Lombard had a large presence at General Assembly in Charlotte, North Carolina. See "Special Events and Occasions" below.
- Meadville Lombard is receiving $4.185 million in gifts, grants, and pledges for the new initiatives detailed in this newsletter. See "Finances" below.
- Martha Atherton of Countryside Church Unitarian Universalist in Palatine, Illinois, is supporting Meadville Lombard's long-term lease on its new home in the Chicago Loop. See "Facilities" below.
- The Henry Luce Foundation is making a multi-year grant to support Meadville Lombard's final implementation and assessment of the new curriculum for the master of divinity degree. Also, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock in Manhasset, New York, is supporting the work of the Liberal Religious Educators Association (LREDA) to enhance the Sophia Lyon Fahs Center for Religious Education at Meadville Lombard. See "Curriculum" below.
- The Meadville Lombard Board of Trustees has committed considerable proceeds from the sale of the school's Hyde Park campus to join funds contributed by the late Rev. Dr. J. Frank Schulman, minister emeritus of Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, Texas, and his wife, Alice Southworth Schulman, to support the Frank and Alice Schulman Chair in Unitarian Universalist History at Meadville Lombard. See "Faculty" below.
- Finally, contributors support the students at our school in very direct ways. H. DeForest Ralph of Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church in Houston, Texas; Marion and Joe Wertheim of the The Unitarian Church in Westport, Connecticut; and, in second gifts, Martha Atherton of Countryside Church Unitarian Universalist in Palatine, Illinois, and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock in Manhasset, New York, are all making donations to support different groups of students. See "Students" below.
|
Special Events and Occasions
Meadville Lombard Events at General Assembly, June 2011 - More than 200 friends and donors attended Meadville Lombard's annual development presentation, conducted over breakfast on Friday.
- More than 100 alumni and spouses/partners attended the annual alumni/ae dinner, again underwritten by members of our board of trustees.
- Faculty led many workshops and seminars.
- A steady stream of visitors stopped by the Meadville Lombard booth in the exhibit hall.
- Two Meadville Lombard alumni, The Rev. Erik David Carlson, MDiv '09, and The Rev. Dr. Michael Tino, MDiv '07, were installed as trustees of the UUA from the Central Midwest and Metropolitan New York districts, respectively. An alumna, The Rev. Lynne Garner, MDiv '10, was installed as a member of the Commission on Appraisal, which is in the middle of a long-term study on the relationship between ministry and authority.
- Two quick notes about that item just above: First, Lynne was just called to serve as minister of Unitarian Universalists of Coastal Georgia, located in Brunswick, so she is moving to the South from her longtime home in Chicago. Second, the work of the COA was covered extensively in UU World's special GA blog by The Rev. Dan Harper, MDiv '03, who signed onto UU World as a utility blogger for GA. You can read Dan's GA blog posts here.
|
Facilities
In the last issue, I announced we are moving from Hyde Park on the South Side of Chicago to a new location in the Loop, which is Chicago's downtown district. At General Assembly, I was thrilled and grateful to announce that Martha Atherton of Countryside Church Unitarian Universalist in suburban Palatine, Illinois, is donating $1.8 million during the next ten years to defray the cost of our new lease. This $1.8 million gift is one of two gifts Ms. Atherton is making to the school. It is a transformational gift that will fundamentally change our seminary.
|
| Curriculum
The theology program of the Henry Luce Foundation is granting Meadville Lombard $200,000 for full implementation and assessment of the Meadville Lombard Educational Model, now also known as TouchPoint Theological Education. This is the school's new experiential and service-based learning model, which has been so successful in bringing new students to the school and shows such promise for ministerial formation. Luce is making a multi-year commitment to Meadville Lombard on a scale not often seen for seminaries. I am grateful for the foundation's confidence and interest in our work.
The Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock in Manhasset, New York, is granting $100,000 to the Liberal Religious Educators Association (LREDA), which is joining with Meadville Lombard to revitalize and expand the Sophia Lyon Fahs Center for Religious Education at Meadville Lombard. Dr. Mark Hicks, the Angus MacLean professor of religious education at Meadville Lombard, directs activities the center, which was founded to provide leadership for and direction to religious education. The grant will "initiate and maintain projects that challenge conventional thinking and practice within religious education while sparking educational innovation to encourage the professional development of lay and ordained leadership." I am grateful for our partnership with LREDA, the direction Mark is taking the Fahs Center since joining our faculty, and the generosity of the Shelter Rock congregation.
|
Faculty
The Meadville Lombard Board of Trustees voted to allocate $500,000 from the sale of the school's Hyde Park campus to augment the $1.5 million previously committed by the late Rev. Dr. J. Frank Schulman, DMin '74, DD '06, minister emeritus of Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church in Houston, Texas, and his wife, Alice Southworth Schulman, to fund the Frank and Alice Schulman Chair in Unitarian Universalist History. A search to find a historian to fill the chair will begin later this year. I am grateful to Frank and Alice for their generosity. And I am grateful for the work of the Unitarian Universalist Association, with leadership by The Rev. Terry Sweetser, UUA vice president for stewardship and development, which joined with Meadville Lombard to create the necessary planning to realize for this landmark development in our school and its potential for all of Unitarian Universalism. Today, the value of the Schulman fund is $2.3 million.
|
Students
I am glad to report that H. deForest Ralph of Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church in Houston, Texas, established the Martha Austine Ralph Fund at Meadville Lombard in honor of his wife and pledged $25,000 to it. The fund will cover costs so the Transylvanian Unitarian minister chosen annually to study at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California, under that school's Francis Balázs Scholars Program can come to Meadville Lombard every January for our annual intensive courses. This helps Meadville Lombard maintain ties to the Unitarians in Transylvania in addition to our ongoing English language instruction for seminarians there.
Also choosing to help our students, Marion and Joe Wertheim of the Unitarian Church in Westport, Connecticut, are donating $25,000 to fund living expenses in 2011-12 of second-year and third-year students who are fulfilling their 20-hour weekly responsibilities as congregational intern ministers. The internships are a requirement of the school's yearlong signature courses in congregational studies (for second-year students) and leadership (for third-year students). In this way, the Wertheims are also supporting the growing relationship between teaching pastors and students at Meadville Lombard, pioneering a new way to form ministers for the 21st Century.
In her second gift to the school, Martha Atherton of Countryside Church Unitarian Universalist in Palatine, Illinois, is donating $20,000 in each of the next ten years -- or $200,000 in total -- to fund studies at Meadville Lombard by students from other faith traditions and from other countries. Preference will be given to women applicants. Marty has a strong interest in religion and international studies. I am grateful she is supporting studies congruent with her interests at Meadville Lombard.
Also making a second gift, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock voted to contribute a total of $40,000 in gifts from the congregation and its members for a new Barry M. Andrews Award at Meadville Lombard. Named for the Rev. Dr. Barry M. Andrews, DMin '76, DD '04, who is retiring from Shelter Rock as minister of religious education, the award will encourage students to take additional course work in religious education. The award supports Meadville Lombard's dedication to religious education as a discipline in seminary education, and pays honor to a congregation and a minister deeply dedicated to the best in lifelong religious education for Unitarian Universalists.
|
|
Archives for This Newsletter
|
Finally...
Please let us know what questions you have and what reactions you have. Please email me at lbarker@meadville.edu, or contact Denny Davidoff, our senior consultant for development and alumni/ae affairs, via her mobile phone, (203) 984-7038, or via email at ddavidoff@meadville.edu. Also, take a moment to contact Denny if you want information about our new campus in the Loop. | |
Sincerely,
 Rev. Dr. Lee Barker, DMin '78, DD '01 President and Professor of Ministry Meadville Lombard Theological School |
|
|
|
|
Academically Rigorous | Spiritually Grounded | Unapologetically Progressive
|
|
|
