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Religious Studies News and Notes

What's happening in religious studies? Where have our alums gone? What are our faculty doing? Whatever happened to whoever that was who wrote that great paper on?
Inquiring minds want to know!

Religious Studies Alumni
Former Faculty Updates
Recent News and Upcoming Events

Alumni News and Contact Information

This is in order to receiving it, so do read down to catch up on all sorts of people! For folks who wish to add something, please contact Susan Henking.

Lakisha Williams was a major in the department who completed her Masters in Divinity and is now in her first year of the doctoral program in systematic theology. Her advisor is James Cone (a major figure in black theology) and she's working on womanist theology with such people as Emilie Townes, Delores Williams and Christopher Morse. She loves what she is doing!

Gabe Mendes is Associate Director of the Higher Education Opportunity Program at Bard College and teaching his first course this year! The theme of the course is "Education and Its Discontents" and two of the books (The Autobiography of Malcom X and Paulo Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed) are ones Gabe knows well from his years working with Doc Heaton in the Department of Religious Studies at Hobart and William Smith!

Ruth Monette (WS '99) moved up from intern to regular employee. She is now the "Lay Minister/Administrator" at the Episcopal Campus Ministry at the University of Southern California.

Clara Kroetsch (WS '93 with majors in Psychology and in Religious Studies) is living in New York City and working for the state of New York as an addictions program specialist. She finished her Masters in Counseling in 1997 and is considering a Ph.D.

Becky Neri has been accepted to Syracuse University law school!

Katie Campbell ('97) is in DC working with a volunteer corps sponsored by Trinity Episcopal Church, Takoma Park, Washington. She is working with the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington which brings together eight different faiths (Baha'i, Hindu-Jain, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, Protestant, Roman Catholic and Sikh) to increase understanding and social justice. When her year of service ends August 13, she is off to Boston.

Patricia Richmond, WS '92, is living in Atlanta and working as Program Development Coordinator for All Kids Count, a national program sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in support of immunization registry development. She has been taking classes part-time towards a Masters in Public Health at Emory University. Patricia married a New Zealander and recently celebrated her first anniversary.

Brian Leib lives in Boston and is working at a law firm.

Ellen Parker who did Honors with Susan Henking in 1989 (??!??!) is living in Seattle. She is working for a "really cool" company called PhotoDisc which produces and sells royalty free photography and illustrations on the web and on CD's. She's been traveling a lot as well -- off to Europe for five weeks, for example. She says: "I must say, I thank my lucky stars very often that I ended up at HWS in the RS department with such cool mentors. . . " Wiley is well represented in the newest edition of MUTTLUV!

Sighted at the 1999 Folk Fest: Spencer Foote (see below); "Skippy" Annette Smith; and Ashley MacLean. Annette is in Ithaca working at Cornell and is off to Providence, Rhode Island as of September 1. Ashley is teaching pre-school age kids. Life after graduation seems to be smiling on them all.

Kristen Ratcliffe graduated with a religious studies major (and an English major) in June 1999!

Spencer Foote graduated (with Honors) with a major in Religious Studies and went off to Washington DC. He plans to enter St. Xavier University in the Fall of 1999 to pursue a Masters in Secondary Education.

Lindsey Green is studying for a Masters in Divinity at Duke University's Divinity School. In the summer of 1999, she is doing an internship at Holden Beach. She graduated with a major in Religious Studies in 1998 and wrote an honors thesis entitled "Ecumenism: A Template."

Rebekah Conrad graduated in 1997 with a double major in Religious Studies and Political Science and is currently applying to graduate schools in Religious Studies and Political Science. Immediately after graduation, she went to Spain where she skied and traveled around. Bekah then settled in Portland, Oregon where she has been working for the past year as a Project Manager for a small software and hardware company. On the volunteer side, she has coached a 5^th grade basketball team and worked with Easter Seals in various capacities.

Alison Propeck graduated with a Religious Studies minor and is in graduate school at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.

Peter McGlynn graduated with a Religious Studies minor and a Political Science major in 1990. He went to Geneva, Switzerland with Doc Heaton in 1988. Currently the managing director of Equity Trading at Hanifen Imhoff, Inc. in Denver, CO. He and his wife (Ethel Katherine McGlynn) have a son, William, and a daughter, Maisie.

Sara A Jones I work at Alternative Youth Adventures--Camp Winding Stairs which is a camp for female youth offenders in the state of SC, ages 13-17.

I'm a wilderness instructor and take up to 12 girls at a time (with 3-4 other staff members) low impact hiking and camping on various trails in NC, SC and GA. We allow the girls to identify the behaviors that allowed themselves to become incarcerated and ventually ended up at our facility. They then (most of them at least) change their old survival skills with new positive ones and develop better relationships with their families, friends and communities.

It is a really great job and so rewarding to see a girl graduate the program in 6-8 months and then go out and not recommit. I basically live in the woods for over half of the month and then get the rest of my time off...we work 8 days on and then get 6 off..

Oh yeah...I can be reached at the following address:
172 Sawtooth Oak Lane Easley, SC 29640
864-855-6550
sjones54@hotmail.com
if there is any interest in what I'm doing now by current students at HWS.

Picture caption: picture of me at work in the woods of upstate South Carolina

For folks who wish to submit something for News and Notes, please contact Susan Henking.

Former Faculty News and Information

For folks who wish to submit updated information, please contact Susan Henking.

Carol Anderson taught in our Religious Studies Department in the area of History of Religions. She currently teaches in Religious Studies at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. In fact, she received tenure in 1999! Congratulations, Carol, you deserve it!

Lisa Boccia taught in our department for the Fall term of 1998. She has recently finished her Ph.D.!

Jeffrey Burke taught courses on Islam for the Winter and Spring terms of 1999 for the Department. After a visit to Montreal to pick up his family, Jeff moved on to a post at Hollins College in Roanoke, Virginia. His address is Department of Philosophy, Religion and Classics, P.O. Box 9664, Hollins University, Roanoke, VA 24020. His phone number is 540-362-6665.

Jay Eidelman is at work at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. He gave a paper on campus at the Eastern International Region of the American Academy of Religion on April 23 and 24, 1999. The paper was on food and Judaism, a topic linked to a course he offered when he taught at Hobart and William Smith.

Julia Hardy has been teaching English and American Studies in Japan as an exchange professor in Kobe Shoin Women's University. She has traveled all over Japan and also to Hong King, Taibei, Beijing, and Shanghai. As Julia says: "I especially love visiting Japanese Buddhist temples in Kyoto and Nara." She now teaches Religious Studies at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania! She would love to hear from former students. Currently without e-mail, her address at Muhlenberg will be 2400 Chew Street, Muhlenberg, PA 18104. She taught in our department as well as the Women's Studies Program.

One of 1998/99's saddest events was the loss of Professor Emeritus Richard "Doc" Heaton who passed away suddenly. To read the Colleges' tribute to Doc, see the Pulteney Street Survey article, "Beloved."

Darby Ray has been teaching in the Religious Studies Department at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississipi since leaving Hobart and William Smith in 1996. Professionally, she's doing well -- she says she enjoys her students and colleagues and even published a book entitled Deceiving the Devil in 1998. Personally, her life was completely transformed in May of 1998 when she gave birth to Chandler Kathleen, a high energy, happy baby who rarely sleeps (go figure!). Darby and her partner, Ray Clothier, continue to enjoy hiking, camping, and canoeing in their free time. Darby's email address is raydk@millsaps.edu and her webpage address is www.millsaps.edu/~raydk/

Fabian Udoh is teaching at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. In a recent e-mail he described his first year there as fruitful and hectic. Teaching in the "Great Books Program" is going well. Also, Fabian's dissertation manuscript has been accepted for publication in the Brown University "Judaic Studies" series and he is at work with Mary Gerhart on an edited collection of textual sources for the study of Christianity to be published by the University of Chicago. Francesca was appointed Executive Director of Nursing Services at the Nursing Home where she has been working since their arrival in South Bend. And, of course, Unyime has a little brother! Fabian taught with us in the area of Christian traditions and biblical studies.

Recent News and Upcoming Events

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