Alumni News
BUSTH MDiv Student Laura Ellis (’21) Opinion Article Published in Baptist News Global
This original opinion article written by STH student Laura Ellis (MDiv'21) was published by Baptist News Global on March 24, 2021. The following is an excerpt only. Please click here to read the original article.
Mourning the end of an era at Logsdon, rummaging through my father’s books
By Laura Ellis
As we rummaged through rooms of old books, I couldn’t help but mourn a bit. My dad, giving away his library. It felt like the end of an era.
My dad always seems at home when surrounded by books. I remember when we were in Cambridge bursting into the dimly lit room where he was writing in the small strip in the middle of a desk since the edges were occupied with stacks and stacks of books. Over the years, he’s always been the early riser in the house. And on the rare occasions that I was the second person awake, I often found him sitting on the couch accompanied by a book or two.
“Impactful Black Women in Boston” features alumna Rev. Mariama White-Hammond (STH ’17)
The following video was originally published by WCBV 5 on March 14, 2021. Click here to find the original video.
CityLine is celebrating women and highlighting their success. Among the Get Konnected “150 Most Impactful Black Women in Boston 2021,” Dr. Yndia Lorick-Wilmot, author, sociologist, educator, and Rev. Mariama White-Hammond (STH'17), Pastor of New Roots AME Church discuss ancestry, activism, and womanhood.
Rev. Mary Scifres (STH’91) and Rev. B.J. Beu (STH’90) publish “Planning Your Wedding” and “Planning Your LGBTQ Wedding”
Planning Your Wedding and Planning Your LGBTQ Wedding contain all the elements in standard marriage ceremonies, but so much more. You will find poems of passionate love, Rituals of Union (unity candle ceremonies, sand ceremonies, wine ceremonies, even Celtic rituals like “Tying the Knot”), Blessing of the Hands and more. But above all, you will understand what each element represents and how to use this knowledge to create a beautiful service that is uniquely your own. These wedding planning resources will draw you and your partner closer together as you discove
r what you hold sacred and how to express this in a way that truly celebrates and solemnizes your marriage.
Click here to purchase Planning Your Wedding and here to purchase Planning Your LGBTQ Wedding on Amazon.
“Worship at Home” series published by Rev. Mary Scifres (STH’91) and Rev. B.J. Beu (STH’90)
In the midst of a global pandemic, we find ourselves worshiping at home. In the Worship at Home series, you will find resources to create and claim new traditions and rituals for yourself and your loved ones. Each volume provides words, songs, rituals, and activities to help map 
a personalized spiritual journey for each season of the Christian year. Use these services for communal worship with family and friends, or for personal devotion and spiritual growth. Christ will be with you as these resources strengthen your spirit and sustain your soul during these difficult times.
Click here to purchase Worship at Home: Easter 2021 on Amazon.
BU Center for Antiracist Research Names PhD Student shaunesse’ a. jacobs to Affiliate Program
The original article was published on the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research website on March 24, 2021. The following is an excerpt only. Please click here to read the full article.
The Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University is assembling one of the largest networks of scholars and aspiring scholars studying racism and antiracism in the world. This interdisciplinary network of faculty and graduate students from Boston University and colleges and universities around New England bring their expertise and unique disciplinary perspectives towards the goal of investigating and dismantling racism at multiple levels, from the structural to the interpersonal.
Introducing the Affiliates Program which is foundational to the Center for Antiracist Research, that launched on July 1, 2020 with Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, at its helm. The Center is working to effect real change upon the lingering problem of racial inequity and injustice, through four pillars of work: Research, Policy, Narrative, and Advocacy. The Center affiliates will be plugged into each of these pillars based on their area of study, interests, and expertise.
“I was excited to get involved with the Center as an affiliate once reading how interdisciplinary the scope of anti-racism research is,” said Shaunesse’ Jacobs, a doctoral student at Boston University’s School of Theology. “As an affiliate, I feel encouraged to find an additional community from which to learn and participate in world-changing conversations.” Ms. Jacobs’ research focuses on healthcare equity for Black birthing people, and ways that Black religious institutions can engage in that fight for equity, and she hopes her affiliation with the Center will provide her with “more tools to approach the fight for Black birthing people’s lives and wellbeing.”
BUSTH STM Student Jere Schulz (’21) Wins Innovate@BU Sustainability Innovation Grant
The original story was published by the Daily Free Press on March 23, 2021. The following is an excerpt only and features Jere Schulz (STM'21). Please click here to read the full article.
BU students win sustainability innovation grants, tackle climate change from new angles
By Divya Sood
Our world faces numerous barriers regarding sustainability. But at Boston University, there is hope. From first-year students to graduating master’s students, Terriers are making substantial inroads in addressing environmental issues.
BU Sustainability and Innovate@BU awarded seven Sustainability Innovation grants earlier this month to student-led projects for the BU community and beyond.
With the $500 grant, teams of students can bring their ideas to fruition and launch high-impact projects centered around carbon, curriculum, connection and more.
The Queer Art of Sustainability
Jere Schulz, a master’s student in BU’s School of Theology, co-founded The Queer Art of Sustainability to empower gender and sexually diverse people advocating for environmental justice.
“I’m really very passionate about queer culture, queer content, I think that you can never have enough,” Schulz said. “I was thinking, what about the sustainability of people, particularly queer people?”
After first thinking about investigating the impact of sex products on the environment, Schulz pivoted to look at the “sustainability of queerness” and drag performers, many of whom he said have been performing on “TheServeNetwork” on Twitch, a video live streaming platform, since the pandemic.
The project will culminate in a Twitch event featuring multiple performers recycling materials from past shows in their performance, sharing stories about their work and “how drag sustains them as people,” Schulz said.
They said missions like this are especially important because studies have shown that climate change can disproportionately affect the LGBTQ+ community — queer people are more likely to be excluded from disaster relief, become homeless and have less access to health care, and environmental changes can further negatively impact those existing threats.
“We really want to emphasize that sustainability goes beyond the things that you typically think of,” Schulz said. “Queer life … and I would especially name that trans life is something that is not talked about as being sustainable in America, and so we wanted to uplift that reality, that people and communities should also be really involved in the conversations around sustainability.”
Schulz said creating more queer content, at BU specifically, is very important. Schulz said she hopes the University’s support for this project leads to further efforts to amplify queer voices.
Schulz said he hopes the event and ones like it help preserve this “really important cultural phenomenon,” during the pandemic, while allowing more people to engage with and learn about queer culture.
BUSTH Library Archivist Kara Jackman Quoted in Daily Free Press Article
The original story was published by the Daily Free Press on March 22, 2021. The following is an excerpt only. Please click here to read the full article.
Online learning poses new challenges, advantages for faculty with disabilities, those in the Deaf community
By Emily Stevenson
Boston University faculty and staff members who have disabilities and those in the Deaf and Hard of hearing community have had varied experiences throughout the pandemic — some have enjoyed increased flexibility, while others have found new restraints with online learning.
Kara Jackman, archivist and preservation librarian at the School of Theology library, said the pandemic has had a variety of positive effects for her.
The ability to work from home more often has decreased stress around her disabilities and helped her feel calmer about contracting COVID-19.
Jackman said the changes BU has instituted in regard to working from home has proved the possibility of these accommodations that people, such as herself, wanted prior to the pandemic.
“I like the flexibility,” Jackman said, “I like that I’m being treated like a human for once because of the pandemic.”
Jackman is also chair of the Staff and Faculty Extend Boston University Disability Support, or SAFEBUDS, which seeks to create a confidential space and community where faculty and staff with disabilities can share their experiences.
“Discuss how their work affects their disability,” she said, “and their disability affects their work.”
Jackson said SAFEBUDS is hosting events focused on building resilience for leaders across campus and providing tools to calm the stress of new workloads and fears that come with the pandemic.
“It’s stressful for everyone,” Jackman said, “but I feel like [for] folks with disabilities, it’s been that much more stressful.”
Prof. Nicolette Manglos-Weber Quoted in Washington Post Article
The original story was published by the Washington Post on March 16, 2021. The following is an excerpt only. Please click here to read the full article.
Regarding same-sex unions, Pope Francis must navigate a divided church
By Ruby Mellen
When the pope traveled to Africa in 2019, his fourth visit to the continent — which has the fastest-growing Catholic population in the world — since becoming pontiff in 2013, he preached awareness of poverty, climate change and compassion for refugees. Adoring crowds welcomed him in Madagascar, Mauritius and Mozambique.
“I think Africa is where the future is really” for the Catholic Church, Nicolette Manglos-Weber, assistant professor of religion and society at Boston University’s School of Theology, told the BBC. She added that the church provides “a social institution that provides a lot of support and security in places where precarious living is very common and widespread.”
BUSTH Announces Faculty Publications for March 2021
The School of Theology is pleased to announce the following faculty publications for the month of March 2021:
- Nicolette Manglos-Weber
- Luis Menéndez-Antuña
- Editorial Review, “The Fags and the Cha-Ching.” A review of Sexual Hegemony: Statecraft, Sodomy, and Capital in the Rise of the World System
- Steven Sandage
Dean Pak Featured in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education
The original story was published on the Diverse: Issues in Higher Education website on March 15, 2021. The following is an excerpt only. Please click here to read the full article.
Dean Brings Clear Convictions During Divisive Time in Methodist Church
By Jessica Ruf
It’s a momentous time for Dr. Sujin Pak to take the helm as dean of Boston University’s School of Theology, the oldest Methodist seminary in the U.S.
That’s because the United Methodist Church — the second-largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. — is currently splintering over LGBTQ rights. And, following years of heated dispute, it is likely the church, along with its 13 million members, will formally split come its annual general conference in August.
But if anyone’s equipped to deal with conflict, it’s Pak — a theologian and LGBTQ advocate, whose personal and academic life share a common theme: reconciliation.
Raised in a deeply Methodist family, Pak never shied from addressing the darkest parts of Christian history and its treatment of non-Christians. In fact, she says it felt like her duty that she contend with those difficult histories, which is why, for her undergraduate honors thesis, she chose to explore Jewish-Christian dialogue.
“I was devastated by the oppressive history of Christianity towards Jews,” says Pak, who has also researched ways in which Christian scripture has been used against Muslims and women. “That oppressive history translated out to many other bodies and persons across Christian history, so it was very much an exploration of recognizing those terrible histories and how do I reconcile those.”