Ministry in a changing world: Christianity,
politics, and social justice.
The complex relationships at the intersection of
Christianity, politics, and social justice are the focal point of a Divinity
School project supported by the Jessie Ball duPont Fund. Under a 2006-07
planning grant from the fund, YDS will explore ways to prepare students for
ministry in a dramatically changing world -- a world described in the grant
application as one in which graduates "will be called to serve struggling
parishes in struggling communities, where resources are few and questions of
economic and social justice loom large." At the conclusion of the year-long
planning period, an assessment will be made about the feasibility of creating a
full-fledged Center for Christianity and Politics at Yale. Heading the
initiative is Harlon L. Dalton ’73JD, professor of law at Yale Law School and
professor (adjunct) of law and religion at YDS.
YDS mother/daughter
tandem ordained together
Last year, Jinny Smanik ’05MDiv and her daughter
Kate ’05MDiv made YDS history when they graduated together. This year, they capped
that with a rare double ordination at Westminster Presbyterian Church in West
Hartford, Connecticut. "For me, it is neat evidence of how God's grace works in
the world," said Kate Smanik Moyes, describing the series of seeming
coincidences that led to mother and daughter entering YDS in different years,
graduating at the same time, and, finally, taking part in each other's August
20 ordination. "My mom is an incredible sounding board," said Moyes. "It turned
out that I was a good sounding board for her, as well." Moyes is chaplain at
Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and her mother is associate
pastor at Union Presbyterian Church in Schenectady, New York. Added Moyes, "We
still call each other two or three times a week to talk about worship services,
sermons, and lectionaries."
Scaffolding? Again?
Just three years after completion of a major overhaul of YDS
facilities, construction crews descended once again in 2006 for a summer of
revamping, fine-tuning, and modernizing. The new $4 million project is dwarfed
by the 1998-2003 renovations, which cost $49 million. But the latest
restorations are especially significant since they included work on Marquand
Chapel, the school's spiritual center of gravity. The chapel balcony was
expanded, and the distinctive winding marble stairs at the entrance -- the
location of choice for many a wedding photo -- were repaired. Some of the
most important aspects of the renovation will be heard but not seen. To improve
sound quality, an inch of plaster was applied to the balcony and the ceiling,
and holes were drilled in the walls and filled with foam. Shutters will be
fitted to all windows to contain sound. Work crews installed almost a mile of
electrical conduit beneath the floor and inside the walls to power the chapel's
updated audio system.
Prominent scholars
appointed to joint professorships at YDS, Institute of Sacred Music
Sally M. Promey ’78MDiv, an art historian at the University of
Maryland, and Teresa Berger, a liturgical scholar at Duke Divinity School, have
accepted joint professorships at YDS and the Institute of Sacred Music,
effective January 2007. Promey will join the YDS and ISM faculties as professor
of religion and visual culture and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences as
professor of American studies. Her scholarship explores relations between
visual culture and religion in the United States from the colonial period
onward. She is a recipient of the American Academy of Religion award for
excellence in the historical study of religion. Berger will serve as professor
of liturgical studies at ISM and YDS. Her scholarly interests lie at the
intersection of liturgical studies, gender theory, theology, and cultural
studies. In 2006 she received two Catholic Press awards for her writing.
School of Drama
James Bundy, Dean
www.yale.edu/drama
Seeing (and hearing) is believing
With audio-described and open-captioned performances of every
production, the Yale Repertory Theatre offers the most comprehensive
accessibility services program of any theater in the state of Connecticut.
Audio description, an initiative begun in 2002, is a live narration of the play's
action, sets, and costumes for patrons who are blind and low-vision. Yale Rep
is the only Connecticut theater offering this service on a regular basis, and
trains its own staff of describers. Open captioning offers a digital display of
the play's dialogue as it is spoken, for patrons who are deaf and
hearing-impaired. C2 (Caption Coalition) Inc., the leading provider of
professional live performance captioning for theatrical and cultural
presentations, is Yale Rep's official open captioning provider.
Theater for theater people
Mikhail Bulgakov's comic novel Black Snow, the story of a young writer in post-revolutionary
Russia whose work is transformed beyond recognition by the most illustrious
theater company in Moscow, is considered required reading for anyone who works
in or loves the theater. Playwright and actor Keith Reddin ’81MFA brings his
adaptation of the novel to the Yale Rep this season for a collaboration with
resident director Evan Yionoulis ’82, ’85MFA. Mr. Reddin's adaptation debuted
at Chicago's Goodman Theatre and won the coveted Joseph Jefferson Award for
Best Production in 1993. It plays at the Yale Rep December 1-23.
Yale Rep playwright receives MacArthur "genius" grant
Sarah Ruhl, whose adaptation of Eurydice played at the Yale Rep in September and October of
this year, has been named a 2006 MacArthur Foundation Fellow for her "vivid and
adventurous theatrical works that poignantly juxtapose the mundane aspects of
daily life with mythic themes of love and war." Ruhl's play The Clean House, which had its world premiere at the
Yale Rep in 2004, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The New
York Times called the Rep's Eurydice "devastatingly lovely."
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