Judy is the founder of Inwood Study Group, which became Proteus Coven in 1980.  She has held multiple offices with Covenant of the Goddess, and she was the first COG member to be legally registered as clergy in New York State in 1985.  She has published multiple works on Pagan topics, including the books Wicca Covens and Spiritual Mentoring.  Judy is currently the Chair Emerita of CHS's Pastoral Counseling and Chaplaincy Department.

Judy first joined the CHS community at the invitation of Kirk White and Cat Chapin-Bishop in 2000 as an instructor in what would soon become the Pagan Pastoral Counseling Department (now Pastoral Counseling & Chaplaincy).  Over the years, Judy feels most proud of the ongoing development of that department, which she chaired after the service of Cat Chapin-Bishop.  She remembers that "Our original intent for the whole thing was something that we were calling the 'barefoot physician' model.  It involves not trying to churn out professional counselors, but providing working clergy with the basic skills that all clergy need." 

Though their initial intent wasn't focused on "credentialing or licensure," an incident occurred in the early years of the department that highlighted the need for professional clergy.  A priestess was ill and in the hospital, and the hospital complied with her request to have her own spiritual leader visit her.  "But then it occurred to the priestess concerned that there will be others, other Pagan folk possibly in that same hospital who would like the spiritual guidance of their clergy, of someone who understands their path, and might not know . . . anybody by name to ask for them.  So the priestess contacted the Pastoral Care Department of the hospital and offered her services pro bono and they refused her, because she did not have a credential.  And in fact she had a master's in something called Spiritual Psychology from one of the new age institutions in California, but that wasn't good enough; it had to be a licensed counselor or ordained clergy or someone of that sort or they wouldn't even consider accepting voluntary services." 

This incident made CHS leadership realize that many Pagans who are seeking pastoral care are "those away from home, whether they're in the hospital, whether they're away at college, whether they're in the military, you know, all those kind of situations that take people away from their home communities,
. . . and in order to serve those people, we had to have the kinds of credentials that secular institutions would recognize, and that we had to go for accreditation, and that was when Cherry Hill Seminary started [to orient] our goals to become more compliant with secular standards."

Though Judy has not taught at CHS in some time, she still sits in on department meetings, and she "love[s] hearing how things are going" under the guidance of David Oringderff, whom she first hired as an instructor in 2003. Looking toward CHS's future, Judy is most anticipating CHS's accreditation.  She shares that she "was absolutely and totally thrilled when Wendy [Griffin] became Academic Dean, because she has a long experience with secular academia and is a good person to guide Cherry Hill Seminary toward full accreditation."

The Cherry Hill Seminary family offers Judy Harrow our congratulations and gratitude for her years of guidance and support!