Theology professor to head Union Theological Seminary
Serene Jones ’85MDiv, ’91PhD, the Titus Street
Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School, is leaving YDS to assume the
presidency of Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Union, one of the
most prominent mainline Protestant schools, has a long history of ties to YDS.
Jones succeeds Joseph Hough ’59BD, ’65PhD, who led a successful fundraising
campaign that brought relative financial stability to Union after years of
budgetary unrest. Her appointment takes effect on July 1.
YDS dean Harold Attridge remarked, "Serene has
been an active participant in day-to-day life on Sterling Divinity Quadrangle,
and she has been one of the primary links between YDS and Yale's professional
schools, particularly the Law School, and the Faculty of Arts and
Sciences," adding that she will be "greatly missed" at the
Divinity School and across the campus.
Conference brings together religion, the environment,
and hope
If an interdisciplinary conference at Yale Divinity
School is any gauge, "religious environmentalism" has not only taken
root but is blossoming and is on the verge of maturity. The four-day gathering
February 28 to March 2 was booked well in advance, and the mood of the
conference -- even amid dire reports of widespread environmental degradation --
was palpably one of hope and celebration, reflecting the conference theme, Renewing
Hope: Pathways of Religious Environmentalism. Almost 300 people from diverse walks
of life came to partake.
Mary Evelyn Tucker, one of the primary organizers of
the conference, who has joint faculty appointments at both the divinity and
environment schools, spoke in her opening remarks of "a sense of renewed
hope regarding the emerging alliance of religion and ecology," noting,
"We cannot do this work alone, but together new synergies will arise of
reformation and renaissance." The conference was yet another manifestation
of the increasing collaboration between the divinity school and the School of
Forestry & Environmental Studies, which jointly sponsored the conference
along with several other groups.
Divinity School mourns loss of professor emeritus
R. Lansing Hicks, professor emeritus of Old Testament
and former associate dean of academic affairs at Yale Divinity School, died
January 14 at the age of 86. Hicks joined the faculty of YDS in 1971, following
the affiliation between YDS and Berkeley Divinity School, and retired in 1990.
He had been appointed to the BDS faculty in 1954 and named full professor in
1958.
An Episcopal priest with roots in the South,
Professor Hicks will be remembered for his charm, his sense of humor, and for
the care he afforded students both in and out of class. Hicks's primary focus
was on teaching rather than on writing books, but he authored a number of
encyclopedia articles, journal articles, and book reviews, and in 1968 he
delivered the Winslow Lectures at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary,
published in monograph form as Forms of Christ in the Old Testament: The
Problem of The Christological Unity of the Bible. Hicks was known widely as a person
of high personal and academic integrity. That sense of integrity was apparent
early in his career when, as a young scholar in 1953, he was among a group of
faculty at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, who resigned
their positions to protest the school's reluctance to desegregate.
School of Drama
James Bundy, Dean
www.yale.edu/drama
New plays at Yale -- and beyond
Three plays by female playwrights will be featured in
the 2008 Carlotta Festival of New Plays, which runs May 9-18 at the drama
school. This year's line-up: Grace, or the Art of Climbing by Lauren Feldman ’08; Good Egg by Dorothy Fortenberry ’08; and I
Am a Superhero by
Jennifer Tuckett ’08. The annual Carlotta Festival of New Plays honors Carlotta
Monterey, the widow of Eugene O'Neill, who donated to Yale the proceeds of the
publication of O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night. The festival presents work by
current playwriting students at the school in fully mounted productions, a rare
and valuable opportunity for playwrights who are just starting out.
Plays by two Carlotta Festival alumni are currently
being featured beyond Yale. McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey,
will present the Brother/Sister Plays by Tarell Alvin McCraney ’07MFA as part
of their 2008-09 season. The three plays -- In the Red and Brown Water, The Brothers Size, and Marcus; or the Secret of
Sweet -- were
developed while McCraney was a student at Yale School of Drama. In the Red
and Brown Water and Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet were produced at the school as part of the Carlotta
Festival of New Plays in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
Amy Herzog ’00, ’07MFAD, author of The Wendy Play
(also presented at
last year's Carlotta Festival), recently participated in Manhattan Theatre
Club's 7@7 series with a reading of her play Willing.
Alumni on stage
Allen E. Read ’05MFA recently starred in the world
premiere of the new musical Mask (based on the film of the same name) in the role of Rocky,
at Pasadena Playhouse.
Kathryn Hahn ’01MFAD, who appeared for many seasons
on the TV series Crossing Jordan, made her Broadway debut this spring in the comedy Boeing
Boeing, opposite
Christine Baranski, Mark Rylance, Bradley Whitford, Gina Gershon, and Mary
McCormack.
At the Yale Rep
James Bundy ’95MFAD recently directed A Woman of
No Importance,
Oscar Wilde's rarely seen comedy of serializing seducers, moralizing
monogamists, secret pasts, and simmering heartbreak, at Yale Repertory Theatre.
The company included several Yale School of Drama alumni: Rene Augesen ’93CDR,
John Little ’84MFAD, and Beinecke Fellow Kate Forbes; as well as current acting
students: Will Connolly ’10, John Doherty ’10, Bryce Pinkham ’08, Erica
Sullivan ’09, and Liz Wisan ’10. In addition, the production featured sets by
Lauren Rockman ’08, costumes by Anya Klepikov ’08, lighting by Ola Braten ’08,
and sound by Jana Hoglund ’08.
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