Alumni News
Prof. Rady Roldán-Figueroa Named Incoming Director of BU Center for Latin American Studies
Associate Professor of the History of Christianity and Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Rady Roldán-Figueroa has been appointed the incoming Director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, announced on May 26, 2021.
“I am very excited about this new leadership role with Pardee School’s Center for Latin American Studies. The ensemble of core and affiliated faculty are among the finest in the country in their fields of study,” Prof. Roldán-Figueroa told the Pardee School in their announcement yesterday.
The full article and information about the appointment can be found on the Pardee School website.
Prof. Nimi Wariboko Interview Featured on KXLU 88.9FM in Los Angeles Area
Walter G. Muelder Professor of Social Ethics Nimi Wariboko was interviewed by Adam Reese of Ofiõ Media Group, and segments of the interview were aired on May 24, 2021 on KXLU.com and 88.9FM in the Los Angeles area. Prof. Wariboko discussed a wide range of topics, such as the global monetary system, Nigerian Pentecostalism, US politics, the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and its future.
"The global monetary system...is basically run by three currencies. The [US] dollar, the euro, and the yen,” Prof. Wariboko explained during the interview’s focus on global currencies. “In my book [God and Money], I went into the ethical implications involved in the exploitation of dealing with other countries...there can be a better way to organize the global monetary system that is more democratic, rather than having these three powerful currencies, and the rest of the currencies are plebeians.”
Watch the full interview or the topical clips below to hear more about global currencies or the other topics covered during this thorough interview.
Interview Clips
Full Interview
Global Currency, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies
Nigerian Kalabari History and Management Practices
Nigerian Pentecostalism and US Politics
Summer 2021 COVID-19 Procedures for BUSTH and Campus
June 2021 – Boston University has announced that graduate students who will be attending classes during the Summer 2021 sessions will be a transitionary time of protocols and procedures because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students should read the following resources for precautions, testing, and information regarding on-campus and Learn from Anywhere learning for Summer 2021.
- Graduate and Professional Students Announcement for Summer 2021
- Back2BU: Boston University’s dedicated website info on reopening campus.
- Healthway: BU’s website dedicated to COVID-19 prevention and testing for our community. It includes the daily testing dashboard which displays all the latest results from our on-campus COVID-19 testing.
- STH student intranet: Our students can find the latest STH-related updates, including recent info directly from the deans. Students will need to enter their Kerberos name and password to access the intranet.
- STH student intranet COVID-19 page
- STH Library COVID-19 information
- BU Today: Subscribe to the daily newsletter for breaking news on campus.
BUSTH Alums Ylisse Bess (STH’17) and Heidi Kugler (STH’97) Reflect on the Challenges of Prison and Hospital Chaplaincy During COVID-19
This article was originally published in focus magazine, the annual scholarly publication of the BU School of Theology, in May 2021. The full magazine is posted here and this article can be found on page 23.
Faith and Resilience in a Difficult Time: Two Alums Reflect on the Challenges of Prison and Hospital Chaplaincy During COVID-19
By Mara Sassoon
COVID-19 has so ravaged prisons— infecting inmates at a rate more than five times higher than the general population—that many states have been forced to release inmates early, slow down new convictions, or close jails altogether. The virus has also taxed hospitals in unprecedented ways, overwhelming their bed capacities, forcing them to postpone or cancel elective surgeries, and bringing patients and healthcare workers alike untold stress and grief.
In these fraught times, the work of prison and hospital chaplains, who serve as voices of comfort and hope in often-isolating environments, is of heightened importance.
“Chaplains are essential in traumatic times like this pandemic,” says Shelly Rambo, an associate professor of theology who helped design STH’s Master of Divinity chaplaincy track. “They meet people in moments of crisis or pain, and COVID has added a particular visibility to the important work that they are doing.” But it’s also added a lot of new stresses and challenges.
For Ylisse Bess, a multifaith chaplain at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, one of the toughest adjustments has been the lack of physical connection with COVID patients. With strict quarantines around COVID wards, she can only speak with them by phone. “It’s still powerful, but it’s just not the same as an in-person interaction,” she says. Bess (’17), whose role involves patient advocacy, says that these over-the-phone interactions require more prompting and deducing on her part. “If I was in person, I could see that someone looked cold and needed a blanket and I could get one for them, but patients don’t always say what is bothering them and, on the phone, I have to ask a lot of questions to figure something like that out. “Everything is different because of COVID-19,” she says.
Hospital Chaplaincy: Listening and Advocating
In March 2020, as hospitals began to admit more COVID-19 patients, Bess was forced to work remotely for two weeks while Beth Israel considered the best way to have its spiritual care team continue its work. She primarily visits cardiac patients and would normally go from room to room to check in on them. As a multifaith chaplain, she works with people of all religions, offering spiritual and emotional support. “Most of my job is listening to people,” she says. “In our everyday life, people don’t get a chance to talk about their grief and their sadness. All of us are struggling with something. I try to create a space for patients to talk about what they’re going through.”
“In our everyday life, people don’t get a chance to talk about their grief and their sadness. All of us are struggling with something.” - Ylisse Bess
Though she continues to meet with COVID-19 patients over the phone, after those two weeks were up, Bess was one of a few chaplains able to resume in-person rounds for non-COVID patients.
The pandemic has brought many changes, but it has also reinforced the importance of Bess’ role. Besides helping patients navigate their concerns and talk through their grief, Bess is an advocate for them and tries to make their visits as comfortable as possible. She often acts as a liaison between patients and other staff and medical professionals. “Patients want their healthcare professionals to ask them about their faith tradition, but that often doesn’t happen. And that’s a huge part of their life and their meaningmaking,” Bess says.
She checks that patients are getting proper meals that meet their dietary restrictions, religious or otherwise. “Another big question I ask is, ‘Is this what you want?’” she says. Sometimes patients are faced with medical procedures, such as blood transfusions, that might not be aligned with their religious beliefs. Bess works with doctors to make sure they are aware of conflicts like this and to facilitate other options. “It’s making sure that ethics are acknowledged,” she says. “It’s not just medical ethics. People have religious ethics, cultural ethics, and I make sure that’s a part of the conversation.”
COVID-19 has heightened the usual anxiety that might come from a hospital visit, and Bess works through these concerns with patients and their families. The virus has also compounded many issues of racism that Bess had been working to tackle before the pandemic. “Another inherent part of my work, as a Black woman, is supporting patients and staff of color,” says Bess. Black Americans are disproportionately affected by COVID-19, facing hospitalization rates 2.9 times higher than white Americans and a death rate 1.9 times higher, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Because of systemic racism, “people of color, especially Black people, have every reason to distrust our healthcare institutions, and my job is to help our staff understand why they have that distrust.”
She connects with patients by asking them if they feel safe and comfortable in the hospital and brings the feedback she receives to staff meetings. “I try to make sure we’re always thinking about power and privilege and how we bring that into our interactions with patients,” she says. “There are people who need to be there to encourage everyone to think about deconstructing these harmful thoughts, which inform our treatment of patients and then lead to worse healthcare outcomes. A chaplain can do that.”
COVID-19 has underscored these issues. “I heard some xenophobic and racist comments in regular times, but COVID has intensified that. It was shocking to me,” says Bess. “I heard people referring to COVID as a Chinese disease or an Asian disease, and I had to pull people aside and explain why that is unacceptable, racist, and xenophobic.”
To further support fellow staff of color, Bess is cofacilitating an affinity space where staff can meet to discuss their experiences in the hospital. “Staff of color used to pull me aside in the hallway to talk, but now we have this safe space to gather. That’s our job as chaplains—we’re supposed to be conversation partners. We uphold ethics and we make sure that conversations are happening so that staff feel safe and patients feel safe and secure enough to get adequate healthcare. It’s so important.”
Prison Chaplaincy: Adapting and Lifting
As chaplaincy administrator for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Heidi (Schulz) Kugler oversees 252 chaplains across many faiths at 122 federal prisons. In March 2020, her office began helping prison chaplains find new ways to support inmates: worship groups and faith-based programs were moved outside, broken into smaller groups within housing units and chapel areas, or shifted to other worship formats. But Kugler (’97) says that chaplains have also continued to conduct in-person daily pastoral rounds—clad in personal protective equipment—since the pandemic began.
“COVID has challenged our ability to conduct inmate congregant worship and group religious programming, just as it has in the wider community,” says Kugler. “When inmates couldn’t gather in larger groups in centralized chapel areas for their congregant worship and religious studies across faith lines, the chaplains went to them to meet their spiritual needs. We are committed to ensuring that inmates’ faith practices are protected.”
“The pandemic has increased the need to provide spiritual guidance to inmates and staff as they process the additional losses and grief.” - Heidi Kugler
She says that’s been especially important for a population further disconnected from the outside world by a deadly pandemic. Many inmates have had to go without seeing loved ones as visitations have been shut down periodically. Some might have family or friends impacted by the virus, or might be experiencing outbreaks within their facility. “The pandemic has increased the need to provide spiritual guidance to inmates and staff as they process the additional losses and grief,” says Kugler, whose office created new religious devotionals and support materials specifically tailored to the pandemic’s consequences.
The chaplains have needed extra support, too. “Chaplaincy work is rewarding, but also inherently challenging,” Kugler says. Her office has connected them with mental health resources to address compassion fatigue and offered advice for healthy leadership strategies to help them cope with pandemic-related stress. “Having wellness and stress reduction strategies and resources is vital to chaplains in correctional ministry over time.”
Also of high importance for Kugler has been ensuring that faith-based reentry programs, which help inmates prepare for life beyond prison walls, continue uninterrupted. The programs—which are open to inmates of all faiths, as well as those with no faith affiliation— guide participants in addressing issues of personal growth and life skills. They complete interactive journaling workbooks, working with the chaplains, volunteers, and mentors on topics like spirituality, goal setting, reestablishing family relationships, and conflict management. “Pandemic or not, federal offenders will continue to release back into their communities,” says Kugler. “So we want to equip inmates with practical tools and real-life strategies for reentry success so they do not return to prison.”
The pandemic, she says, has been a lesson in faith and resiliency. “Through it all, bureau chaplains have emerged stronger, with our shared values and collective resolve sharpened to best care, inspire, and transform lives for the better.”
BUSTH Announces Faculty Publications for May 2021
The School of Theology is pleased to announce the following faculty publications for the month of May 2021:
- Mary Elizabeth Moore
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Embracing Sexuality and Gender: Toward Radical Love, Religious Education, DOI: 10.1080/00344087.2021.1917851
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- Dana Robert
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Foreword to The Practice of Mission in Global Methodism: Emerging Trends from Everywhere to Everywhere, by Scott, David W., Stephens, Darryl W. Oxfordshire, England: Routledge Press, 2021.
- Foreword to Sixteenth-Century Mission: Explorations in Protestant & Roman Catholic Theology and Practice, ed. Edward L. Smither and Robert L. Gallagher (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021).
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For The Journal of Religion, July 2021, a book review of: McAlister, Melani. The Kingdom of God Has No Borders: A Global History of American Evangelicals. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018.
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- Rady Roldán-Figueroa
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“The Institutional Inner Logic of Sixteenth Century Discalced Franciscan Missions,” in Sixteenth-Century Mission: Explorations in Protestant & Roman Catholic Theology and Practice, ed. Edward L. Smither and Robert L. Gallagher (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021).
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- Nimi Wariboko
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“The Future of Du Bois: Consciousness, Citizenship, and Epistemology in Nigeria and Africa.” in Identities, Histories and Values in Postcolonial Nigeria. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2020.
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Reverend Dr. Noel Preston (STH’72)
Prominent social justice advocate, ethicist, academic, commentator and Uniting Church minister, Rev. Dr Noel Preston, died early on Thursday, October 22, after a long illness. He was 78. David Busch writes.
Noel William Preston was born on 15 December 1941 in Mareeba, North Queensland, the first of four children to Methodist minister, Rev Arthur Preston, and his wife, Clare (nee Green). Arthur Preston’s ministry at West End (1948-62)—establishing an inner-city mission which gave rise to the Blue Nursing Service, pioneering youth ministries and an influential preaching pulpit—made an indelible impact on Noel in his formative years.
Education was at West End State School, Brisbane Boys College and Kelvin Grove Teachers College, with a year teaching at Charleville, before Noel was received as a candidate for Methodist ministry in 1962. He served a probationary year at Wavell Heights, had three years of studies at Kings College, University of Queensland, and was ordained in October 1967.
After three years at Mitchelton Methodist, Noel went to the USA to undertake doctoral studies in social ethics at Boston University, where he was taught by leading Christian theologian and ethicist, Dr Reinhold Niebuhr. This set the stage for a vocation dedicated to concerns about national values, public sector ethics, economic justice, all forms of discrimination, Aboriginal rights, refugees and eco-justice. His first wife, Pat, the mother of his three children, was ever supportive during this time.
Returning to Australia in 1972, Noel became a controversial figure in his advocacy for same-sex unions, Indigenous self-determination and, as part of the Concerned Christians group the right to protest, issues on which he clashed with the Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. He served as Education Officer with Action for World Development, Executive Director of Social Justice for the Uniting Church in Victoria, and the inaugural convener of the Uniting Church’s national Commission on Social Responsibility (1977-80).
Becoming an ecumenical tertiary chaplain and part-time ethics lecturer at two campuses in Brisbane in 1982 set him on an academic career through the 1980s and 90s, as Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor and Adjunct Professor in the fields of ethics, applied ethics and governance at Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University. He continued his activism in such causes as industrial rights for electricity workers in Queensland, and as co-founder of People for Nuclear Disarmament.
The 1980s Fitzgerald Inquiry into corruption in Queensland’s police force saw Noel engage in grassroots activism against corruption, as well as high-level political, public service, parliamentary and institutional initiatives towards embedding ethical principles and enhanced oversight and accountability mechanisms into public life in Queensland. Noel became a national leader in the evolving field of public sector ethics. In 1992, he returned to the USA to study administrative and legislative ethics and ethics education programs, and he was a founder and the second national president of a new peak body of ethics educators and practitioners, the Association of Professional and Applied Ethics.
A prolific writer, Noel’s published works included five books on ethics, including the acclaimed text Understanding Ethics (Federation Press, 1996, now in its fourth edition), Ethics and Political Practice (co-editor, 1998), Ethics: With or Without God (2015), and his memoir, Beyond the Boundary (2006).
In 2002, Noel returned to work for the Uniting Church as founding director of Uniting Care Queensland’s Centre for Social Justice. In his three years prior to retirement, the Centre issued three major research reports – on vulnerable children, family homelessness, and prison release policy.
Environmental concerns gained prominence in Noel’s ethical framework through the 1990s and 2000s. This wider lens of eco-justice – placing the earth, rather than humanity alone, at the centre of ethical and religious concern—became a defining paradigm for the rest of Noel’s life, in his advocacy, his organisational involvements through the Earth Charter initiative, and his personal spiritual sensibilities. This was very much a shared vision with his second wife, Coralie.
In June 2004, Noel became a Member of the Order of Australia for services to the community in the field of ethics.
Noel was drawn to progressive Christian theology and connected with St Mary’s Catholic Church, South Brisbane (later to become St Mary’s in Exile), while maintaining active involvements at West End Uniting Church and Trinity Uniting Church, Wellington Point. He described his spirituality in terms of being eco-centric, not anthropocentric; inclusive, not exclusive; mystical rather than literalist; and shaped by an over-riding sense of the goodness of life rather than its undeniable tragedy. Being a founding member of Redland City U3A meditation group was an expression of this.
In 1990, doctors discovered Noel’s first malignancy. Thereafter, cancer would become Noel’s episodic companion. In 2004, he wrote about “the dawning realisation of my mortality both gradually unhinged and enlightened me … for me, living in the shadowy uncertainty of cancer has been an ongoing, at times traumatic, boundary encounter. As well, it has become a classroom for learning what love is and why loving is what matters most.”
As late as 2013, Noel, with his third wife, Olga, was active in founding Redlands for Refugees at Wellington Point, a response to Australia’s punitive policies towards asylum seekers and a further expression of Noel’s conviction that each of us must share responsibility for creating the kind of global community we want to live in—and shutting the door on people in need is not an option.
Noel is survived by Olga, his three children Lisa, Kim and Christopher, and six grandchildren. His love of music, sport and simple family pleasures in their company always gave him the balance and joy he needed.
This obituary was originally published at JourneyOnline.
Reverend Marvin T. Milbury (STH’64 )
DENMARK- Marvin Thomas Milbury
Chaplain, Army Colonel, Kind Spirit…….
A fine man passed into eternity on May 7, 2021, dying peacefully at his home surrounded by the loving care of family. At the time of his death Marv resided at his home, named Mountain Gate Farm in Denmark, ME, along with his dogs Jewel and Journey, a few chickens, and the love of his life, Kate.
Remembered by many for his role as Chaplain to Maine Medical Center for 21 years, where he touched countless lives through a diverse ministry. From the trauma rooms of the Emergency Dept.to the oncology floors to the neonatal and intensive care units. He was a kind friend and servant to both staff and countless patients and families in crisis.
Prior to hospital chaplaincy work he served both Methodist and Nazarene churches in So. Boston, Woodsville, NH and Cape Elizabeth, ME.
He served active-duty Army in the post Korean war conflict where he participated in deadly night patrols along the DMZ, ministering to the wounded and dying. Following his hardship tour overseas he was stationed at Ft. Campbell, KY as Deputy Post Chaplain during the intensity of the casualties of the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam. Family notification and support following soldier death was a major focus of this assignment.
Marv was born in Easton, Maine - Northern Aroostook County in 1935, to Cecilia M. Cumming and Edward E. Milbury. Active in sports, and working early in the potato fields of the family farm, he was proud always to be a “county boy”. He studied engineering briefly in Longview, Texas but later felt called into Christian Ministry and attended Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, MA. His graduate work was completed at Boston University. During these long years of education he worked his way through by taking any job he could find to pay his own way. Most memorable were several years of night shift work while in school, working as an attendant at Boston City Hospital, for the insane. His real ministry began here and the stories from those years were frightening, heartwarming and sometimes hilarious.
He married his 1st wife, Carlene Emery of Pittsfield, ME in 1957. Together they adopted and raised son Philip, now of Dallas, TX. Widowed in 1986, Marv married Kathryn “Kate” Brown Deering in 1988. Together they have enjoyed rich life and adventure; including incredible travel, multiple homes, gardens and the great outdoors. They founded the Peace With-Inn Bed and Breakfast in Fryeburg, ME (now a wedding destination known as Hardy Farm). He loved his family with intensity, sacrificing vacation time repeatedly to take nieces and their friends on multiple camping trips and visiting the Aroostook county family as often as possible. He and Kate traveled the country together and much of Europe and especially loved their Alaskan trip. His Scottish legacy brought him twice to his beloved Scotland. “Blessed beyond measure,” he would often say by the love and adventure they shared. Endless hiking, paddling and boating with friends, and yearly trips to the Moosehead Lake region brought so much joy.
A selfless and courageous man of God, he bore witness of his faith to everyone he met and will be remembered and so missed for his kind, gentle spirit.
Marv spent 20 years of highly decorated military service. Retiring as full Colonel from the Maine Army National Guard in his final position as State of Maine Area Command Chaplain. He was an unparalleled Patriot in the finest sense.
Survived by his beloved wife, Kate, son Philip and so many admiring nieces, nephews and friends. This man will be deeply missed.
A public outdoor service will be held at his home on Sunday, June 6 at 2:30 PM. Details on social media or by contacting his wife Kate at kmilbury1@gmail.com
In lieu of flowers, please honor him by contributing to any of these fine organizations or just by extending kindness to a stranger today.
Denmark Fire Dept 62 East Main St. Denmark, ME 04022
Visiting Nurses and Hospice of Carroll County/Western Maine, PO Box 432 No. Conway, NH 03860
No. Fryeburg Community Chapel PO Box 204 Fryeburg, ME 04037
Arrangements are in the care of Hall Funeral Home, 165 Quaker Ridge Road in Casco where your kind words may be shared with Marvin’s family and friends on his Tribute Wall at www.hallfuneralhome.net.
This obituary was originally posted at Hall Funeral Home.
Rev. Alex C. Gallimore (STH’23) Named Baylor School Chaplain
This article was originally published by Baylor School, on May 7, 2021, and the full press release can be found here.
Following a national search, Baylor School has named Rev. Alex C. Gallimore as the school’s new chaplain. 
Gallimore is replacing Rev. Dan Scott, who retires this year after serving as chaplain from 2004-2021 and as interim chaplain from 2003-2004.
“I am honored to serve as chaplain to a diverse community with a historic commitment to making a positive difference in the world,” said Gallimore.
Read the full article by the link above.
Reverend Marylu Anne Bunting, (STH’99)
Reverend Marylu Anne Bunting (STH ’99) passed away on April 6, 2021. Rev. Bunting earned a Master of Divinity degree from STH in 1999.
Dr. Donald Junkins (STH’56, ’57)
Donald Junkins was studying at Boston University’s School of Theology in the 1950s, treading along his older brother’s path into the ministry, when he took a poetry seminar taught by Robert Lowell.
The class was a revelation, as were his teacher, classmates, and the poets who visited — among them W.S. Merwin, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, W.D. Snodgrass, and Allen Tate.
“Anne Sexton was in our class and often the bright center in our discussions,” Mr. Junkins recalled in a 2011 interview with Brad McDuffie.
Trading a future in the pulpit for a career at the front of a classroom, and switching from penning sermons to composing poems, Mr. Junkins devoted his life to literature, including teaching for three decades at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
He had moved there a year and a half ago with his wife, Kaimei Zheng, after living near Amherst for decades in South Deerfield, Sunderland, and West Deerfield.
A writer who drew often from his sense of place in his family and the region in which he lived, Mr. Junkins published more than 20 books — mostly poetry, along with translations and a pair of novels.
“I’m interested in the way the universe reveals itself to me, not in a grandly philosophical or theological way, but in my own town and my neighbors’ backyards, whether those backyards are literally New England or not,” he said of his writing in a 1986 speech to the UMass Phi Beta Kappa Society.
And yet, Mr. Junkins acknowledged that traces of his theological aspirations and studies might still be present.
“One friend, now gone, once said that I am writing in my poems a spiritual autobiography, a statement from which I certainly do not shrink,” he told McDuffie.
Of a poem in Mr. Junkins’s 1970 collection “And Sandpipers, She Said,” the poet Fanny Howe wrote in a Globe review that “what is most exciting is the sensuality of image, returning the reader to childhood, the first time: words like plum, sand, and dark sound fresh and strange set apart in the poem.”
Mr. Junkins, she said, “has this ability to restore one’s senses, contact with nature, and we should be grateful to him for that.”
In 1984, the Globe’s Christina Robb praised his collection “The Agamenticus Poems,” calling it “a remarkable, pungent, twangy, dramatic, and lyrical exploration of the time of his ancestors’ lives, and the way that time touches him — and us — now.”
In one poem, Mr. Junkins invoked images such as:
The last pale raspberries on my tongue,
And the single daisy by the road;
The clear remembrance of last night’s dream,
The white froth of yesterday’s storm’s wave
“These are fine, memorable poems that speak with the cadence of Maine and the murmur of old broken hearts and old healed ones,” Robb wrote.
Mr. Junkins told McDuffie that “one must always think of writing a poem as a process, a going somewhere, an exploration until the expanding center of itself is revealed. A poem is neither a statement nor a summary, it is an exploration that reveals itself. A poem is lines that open at the end.”
Donald Arthur Junkins was born on Dec. 19, 1931, and grew up in the Lynnhurst section of Saugus. His parents were Ralph Junkins, who worked at the General Electric plant in Lynn, and Evelyn Traumer White, a homemaker.
“He had a very idyllic childhood of playing with his boyhood friends, exploring the area, ice skating on the ponds,” said Mr. Junkins’s son Dan of Boston. “He was probably the golden child because he was the youngest of the three.”
Voted most likely to succeed in his 1948 class at Saugus High School, Mr. Junkins was awarded a scholarship to attend UMass, where he was a defensive halfback.
His final year, he took the only creative writing class offered.
“I had the feeling when I was taking the single senior creative writing course back in the early ’50s in Amherst that writing poems and stories was a mysterious enterprise,” he said in the 2011 interview.
Graduating in 1953 with a bachelor’s degree in English literature, he went to Alaska with a church group and built a cabin where people could gather and worship.
At BU he received degrees in social ethics and theology, along with a master’s and doctorate, both in American literature, though he always avoided using Dr. as a title. Before joining the UMass faculty in 1966, he taught at BU, Emerson College, and California State University at Chico.
Mr. Junkins married Mardie Luppold, an artist, in 1958. They had three children and their marriage ended in divorce in 1980. She now lives in Shirley.
In 1990, Mr. Junkins met Kaimei Zheng, a UMass graduate student who later was director of information management at the Isenberg School of Management. They married in 1993.
A founding member of The Hemingway Society, Mr. Junkins once discovered and brought to light a previously unpublished story by Ernest Hemingway. Mr. Junkins also had formerly served as poetry editor of the Massachusetts Review, and “was very, very loyal to the university,” said Jules Chametzky, a retired UMass professor and founding editor of the Review.
As a teacher of poetry and writing, he “insisted on your full-time engagement,” Jim Laughlin, who had been one of Mr. Junkins’s graduate students and is now a leadership consultant, said in an interview. “He didn’t want any of us to take the easy route. He set very high expectations and you wanted to meet those expectations, so you worked extra hard.”
In a written tribute last year, poet Bill Billiter recalled his first day as Mr. Junkins’s student, when the class focused on Jorie Graham’s poem “Salmon.”
“I’d never, ever been taught to read a poem that closely, with such attention to line, from a writer’s point of view,” Billiter wrote.
“Frivolous poetry,” Mr. Junkins had told McDuffie, “is merely the wastrel detritus of the casual mind.”
In addition to his wife, his son, and his former wife, Mr. Junkins leaves a daughter, Karn Amiya Junkinsmith of Burien, Wash.; another son, Theodore of Rye, N.Y.; a stepson, Yunwei Chen of St. Louis; and six grandchildren.
Plans for a memorial gathering were not complete.
In a wide-ranging life, Mr. Junkins had been, among other pursuits, “a lumberjack one summer in Martin City, Montana, a fisherman, a runner with the bulls of Pamplona, a fish shacker another summer with a deep-sea fishing family,” Dan wrote in a tribute to his father.
“I was mesmerized by my dad,” he added in an interview. “I loved him. I adored him.”
For many years, Mr. Junkins kept a vacation home on Swan’s Island, Maine, and he featured the place and its people in his poems.
“A poem grows out of infinite patience, and the slight stirring of an inner wind,” he said in the 1986 speech. “Words occur in the inner ear, and magic casements open. Invisible hands move curtains, and more words occur. The poem accepts its own domain.”
This obituary was originally published at The Boston Globe, by Bryan Marquard.