On June 14, Disciples Divinity House marked the conclusion of its 124th academic year and celebrated its graduates. Among them were Disciples MDiv graduates Jack Veatch and Ellie Leech, AMRS graduate Devon Crawford, and ecumenical resident Noriko Kanahara, who earned her PhD in the Department of History. Veatch was ordained on July 14 at the First Christian Church in Stow, Ohio, on July 14, and will study at the Ecumenical Institute of the WCC in Bossey, Switzerland, next year. Leech, a member of Chicago Christian Church, will continue to serve children and youth there while she completes CPE and other ordination requirements. Look for the inspiring Convocation address by Allen V. Harris, DDH trustee and Regional Minister of the Christian Church in the Capital Area, entitled, “Reviving Our Passion for Faith Seeking Understanding: The Wilderness Imperative for Now.”

The trustees have launched a $4 million campaign to undergird scholarships, to create new immersive learning opportunities, and to enhance accessibility to our beloved “House.”

For 125 years, the Disciples Divinity House has fostered an atmosphere electric with possibilities for excellence in ministry, scholarship, and public leadership. Its singular residential scholarship program and intellectual community, offered in connection with the University of Chicago Divinity School, prepares men and women to be the creative thinkers and courageous leaders needed in the church and wider world today.

“Plans for the 125th anniversary have been in the works for five years,” explained trustee Chad H. Martin, who is chair of the 125th Anniversary. “And believe it or not – the most difficult part of the entire planning process was determining our theme. Of course, we bask in the history of the House. And rightly so: DDH, for being a three-story building on the corner of 57th Street and University Avenue, with a full-time staff that you can count on one hand, has had a super-sized impact. That is worth celebrating.”

“However, no one—not the trustees, alumni/ae, dean, staff, or students—wants to describe DDH only in terms of what has been done in the past. So, when Larry Bouchard offered the phrase, grateful for what is to come, we knew that captured the essence of our celebration.”

“As part of preparing the House for what is to come, we are raising funds to support and enhance its mission for the next 125 years,” Martin announced at the Anniversary Dinner on May 25. “We started the silent phase a year ago – and the response has been overwhelmingly positive and generous. Much of this generosity is expressed through commitments that will fully endow at least six new scholarships at $250,000 each. In fact, we were able as a Board yesterday to formally create the Dr. Geunhee and Mrs. Geunsoon Yu Scholarship. THAT is our mission in action, and evidence the campaign is already a success.”

“And to give a sense for the level of generosity that has already been expressed in the silent phase, over $2.5 million is already pledged or committed. We have already raised over 60% of our overall $4 million goal, with another significant amount in the commitment process. But we still need to raise additional funds.”

Cash gifts may be made through pledges that will be fulfilled over the next three years. And any estate gift that evidences the house as a future beneficiary will be counted. Each and every gift conveys hope for and belief in a future where community, curiosity, and courage continue to shape the world.

That generosity will support three crucial purposes: 1) Funding for critical ministry and scholarship and, closely related, 2) funding for internships and immersive learning. An expansion of scholarships, both in number and in innovative use of funds, will help ensure that students are ready to provide critical ministry and scholarship for our globalized and swiftly changing world. Additionally, we want to raise 3) funding to ensure the House is a welcoming place. “One of the most unique things about the House is that it remains a ‘house’ – a physical place for students, staff, and community to intersect, " Martin observed. "We want the House to be a welcome place to all, and we think addressing first floor accessibility takes us in the right direction for the next 125 years.”

We give thanks for the remarkable legacy of the Disciples Divinity House of the University of Chicago as we celebrate its 125th anniversary, and for the individuals, churches, and organizations who have made that legacy possible. In that spirit, we are also grateful for what is to come.

The spring schedule featured presentations of culminating projects by three June 2019 MDiv graduates: Chelsea Cornelius on "Becoming Real: A Neonatological Theology"; Ellie Leech on "By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them: Sexual Misconduct and Betrayal in Christian Congregations"; and Jack Veatch on "God Talk: Exploring Hip Hop as a theological conversation space through Kendrick Lamar's DAMN." Ms. Cornelius and Ms. Leech will be chaplain residents next year. Mr. Veatch will be ordained at First Christian Church, Stow, Ohio, on July 14, and study next year at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland.

The Disciples Divinity House will celebrate a historic 125th anniversary in 2019. The celebration will take place on May 24-26, Memorial Day Weekend, in Chicago. Speakers for the weekend include Teresa Hord Owens, Sandhya Jha, Stephanie Paulsell, W. Clark Gilpin, Robert M. Franklin, the Honorable Betty Sutton, actor Drew Powell, Ayanna Johnson Watkins, Bonnie Miller-McLemore, Cynthia Lindner, Holly McKissick, Julian DeShazier, Lee Hull Moses, Vy Nguyen, Garry Sparks, Braxton Shelley, Santiago Piñón, and more.

On Friday, Honorary Co-Chairs JoAnne Kagiwada and Clark Williamson will welcome guests to the Disciples Divinity House. After worship and a barbeque supper, Rebecca Anderson and Yvonne Gilmore will co-host a DDH StoryHour. Hannah Fitch will provide soulful music.

Saturday will feature a lecture, three panels, and focused discussion sessions, sponsored under the auspices of the Hoover Lectures. Larry Bouchard, Professor of Religion at the University of Virginia, will enunciate the anniversary theme, “Grateful for what is to come,” which will echo throughout the weekend. Historians W. Clark Gilpin and Susan E. Schreiner will respond by exploring “gratefulness and timefulness.”

What are our responsibilities to a future that cannot be fully known? How can gratitude for past and present communities ready us to move onward with courage and vision? How might art, worship, community engagement, theology, and preaching, attune us to the demands of the future?

At a time when the future may seem particularly uncertain and may provoke anxiety and despair, critical awareness of the past and present is especially crucial. For if the past is acknowledged with recognition of the unexpected gifts and hard-won knowledge that constituted it, and the present received as an opportunity to respond with gratitude for these past gifts, then the challenging unknown of the future might elicit sage and courageous ministry, scholarship, and leadership. The point is not to be more optimistic, but rather to engender gratitude, thought, and action.

A panel of distinguished academics will explore teaching and learning for what is to come: Harvard professor and Christian Century columnist Stephanie Paulsell, Morehouse College President Emeritus Robert Franklin, Vanderbilt practical theologian Bonnie Miller-McLemore will speak with Divinity School Dean David Nirenberg presiding. Another panel of innovative practitioners Sandhya Jha, Ayanna Johnson Watkins, and Holly McKissick, with Julian DeShazier presiding, will invite ministry, thought, and action towards what is to come.

A gala dinner will take place on Saturday evening at the Quadrangle Club, with Dean Kris Culp, Board President April Lewton, and 125th Anniversary Chair Chad Martin. Trustee Gaylord Yu and actor Drew Powell (of TV series Gotham, Ponderosa, and Malcolm in the Middle) will serve as Masters of Ceremony.

On Sunday, Teresa Hord Owens, General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), will preach at University Church, offering a compelling message for these times.

Disciples minister and writer Thandiwe Dale-Ferguson is planning morning prayer for the quiet of the extraordinary Chapel of the Holy Grail. Opportunities for a focused conversation with practitioners and scholars will be offered on Saturday afternoon and again on Sunday morning. Family-friendly activities are being planned, with childcare for the youngest children and activities for older children.

The celebration will be immediately preceded by a Divinity School and DDH Ministry Alumni/ae gathering, featuring reflections by Cynthia Lindner on “Multireligious formation as a perspective on ‘public ministry,’” with responses by faculty and alumni/ae from varied religious traditions.

The 125th celebration will be followed by the Second Annual Amy A. Northcutt Lecture to be given by the Honorable Betty Sutton, the former Congresswoman and Gubernatorial candidate from Ohio. The event remembers Amy Northcutt, a former DDH Board President who was CIO of the National Science Foundation at the time of her death. A panel, hosted by Verity Jones, will focus on women and transformative leadership and feature Constance Battle, Ronne Hartfeld, JoAnne Kagiwada, and Gail McDonald.

Registration closes May 10. The weekend’s events are supported by the Hoover Lectures, so registration costs have been minimized. A commemorative mug is offered free with registration by March 31.

A new endowed scholarship will honor Dr. Geunhee Yu and Mrs. Geunsoon Yu, two remarkable individuals whose intelligence, faith, love, and leadership have profoundly shaped the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and their own family.

The Dr. Geunhee Yu and Mrs. Geunsoon Yu Scholarship will help ensure full tuition, stipend, and housing for Disciples Divinity House students and make possible opportunities for extended internships and study-travel.

From 1992 until his retirement in 2011, Dr. Yu served as the inaugural Executive Pastor of the North American Pacific Asian Disciples (NAPAD). He had been the first among the NAPAD community to earn a PhD in Religion. Under Dr. Yu’s leadership, the number of new congregations grew exponentially, many new cultural and language groups became part of NAPAD, diverse young leaders were nurtured, and educational initiatives were created.

Dr. Yu carried forward and imaginatively extended a legacy passed on to him from the founders of NAPAD, David and JoAnne Kagiwada, Soongook Choi, and Harold Johnson. Among the young leaders that Dr. and Mrs. Yu encouraged were Sandhya Jha, April Lewton, Timothy Lee, Vy Nguyen, and John Donggook Roh, all DDH alumni/ae.

For decades, the mission of the Disciples Divinity House has been entwined with NAPAD’s and that of its predecessor organization, American Asian Disciples (AAD). David Kagiwada, one of the founders of the organization and a DDH alumnus, was instrumental in connecting Geunhee Yu with AAD and bringing him into denominational leadership in Indianapolis. JoAnne Kagiwada has served on the DDH Board of Trustees since 1984. Another founder, Soongook Choi, also served as a trustee.

The new scholarship was announced at the twentieth biennial NAPAD Convocation, which met in Portland, Oregon, August 8-11, 2018. Gaylord Yu, a current trustee of the Disciples Divinity House, and his brother Gideon Yu were inspired to establish the scholarship to honor their parents, to celebrate the long partnership between DDH and NAPAD, and to ensure innovative pastoral and intellectual leadership for future generations. 

Dean Culp commented, “Dr. Yu became Executive Pastor during my first year of deanship. He has been an exemplary colleague, teaching me and many others what leadership can make possible for NAPAD and for the whole church. We do not know what the future of the church will look like, but we do know that leaders like Dr. and Mrs. Yu make all the difference. This scholarship will honor them by helping to prepare compelling leaders into the future.”

Joan Bell-Haynes and Melinda Keenan Wood have been elected to the Board of Trustees, effective January 1, 2019. Both are ordained Disciples ministers, and they are alumnae of the Disciples Divinity House.

Joan Bell-Haynes is Executive Regional Minister of Central Rocky Mountain Region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). From 2005-17 she led the United Christian Parish in Reston, Virginia, an ecumenical congregation comprised of four denominations. She was the First Vice Moderator of the General Assembly of the Christian Church from 2013-15. A recipient of the Capital Area’s Bridge Builder Award, Ms. Bell-Haynes has been active in interfaith work. She has served on the board of the Christian Church Foundation and Disciples Church Extension, and as Secretary of the National Convocation. She is originally from Georgia, where she was a founding member of Ray of Hope Christian Church in Decatur. She was married to the late Oscar Haynes.

Melinda Keenan Wood is the immediate past president of the Alumni/ae Council. In September 2017, she became the senior minister of Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Durham, North Carolina. From 2002-17 she was the senior minister of Pershing Avenue Christian Church in Orlando, Florida. Ms. Keenan-Wood’s service to the wider church includes chairing the Week of Compassion Committee and extensive engagement in the Florida region. A member of the DDH entering class of 1997, she came to her MDiv studies with a background in nonprofit work. With her spouse Lanny, an educator, architect, and STEM advocate with PLTW (Project Lead the Way), they have one adult child, Thompson.

Michael E. Karunas concluded service as a trustee at the end of 2018, after completing a three-year term. He is Senior Minister of Central Christian Church in Decatur, and a MDiv graduate. He previously served congregations in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Centralia, Illinois. He and his spouse Amy Zeittlow, a fellow Divinity School ministry alum, are the parents of three children. He was raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he was mentored by Russ and Barbara Fuller. Mr. Karunas, in turn, has been a mentor to current students Andrew Packman and Hannah Fitch. We are grateful for his commitment, including service to the Development Committee, as a member of the student-trustee delegation to Heidelberg, Germany, and, previously, on the Alumni/ae Council.

JoAnne H. Kagiwada will conclude her service as a trustee at the end of the year. She was first elected to the Board of Trustees in 1984, making her its longest serving current member.

Ms. Kagiwada’s leadership, including as Vice President, member of the Executive Committee, and longtime chair of the Nominating Committee, has been transformative. She has helped to foster a collegial, future-oriented style of shared work and to recruit an enviably talented, diverse, and committed board. She had joined the board when its twenty-one members included only one other woman, Leverne Pfile; women students had first been admitted to DDH as residential scholars less than ten years before that.

She first came to know the Disciples Divinity House through her husband, the late David T. Kagiwada. An alumnus and BD graduate of the Divinity School, Mr. Kagiwada was an influential pastor and denominational leader. At the time of his death, he was Senior Minister of Crestview Christian Church in Indianapolis. The Kagiwadas were among the founders of what is now the North American Pacific/Asian Disciples.

A graduate of the University of California-Berkeley Law School, JoAnne Kagiwada’s distinguished career focused on non-profit organizations. As Executive Director of the Legislative Education Committee of the Japanese American Citizens’ League, she helped to ensure passage of a $1.25 billion redress program on behalf of Americans of Japanese ancestry who were unconstitutionally deprived of their civil liberties and incarcerated in concentration camps by the US government during World War II. From 1978-88, she was Director of International Affairs for the Christian Church. She has served on numerous nonprofit boards, including as a vice president of the National Council of Churches. She is a regular volunteer at the Oakland Peace Center.

She has also made indelible contributions as a mentor to emerging leaders, including graduates Sandhya Jha, April Lewton, and Vy Nguyen, and trustee Gaylord Yu. Each of them offered remarks for a luncheon in her honor in October. Her daughter, Stacy Kagiwada, was present, representing also her sister Stephanie and brother Scott.

“As a leader, JoAnne has been participating in institutions that are about building healthy and meaningful communities for a long time,” Ms. Lewton observed. “In her lifelong service across the church and in wider society, these are commitments that she makes known and encourages others to consider and actively do: that as a whole, we must do good, and, always, we must mentor and accompany our young people.”

Ms. Lewton, who is President of the Board of Trustees, spoke on its behalf: “We are humbled, inspired, and so, so grateful for the leadership and wisdom that you have given over the years to this board and to the DDH community of scholars, alums, and our wider church community. We strive to continue to carry your commitments of healthy systems, mentoring, and caring deeply for others in all that we do.”

JoAnne Kagiwada will serve, with Clark Williamson, as Honorary Co-Chair of the 125th Anniversary Celebration in May 2019.

The Design at 50: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Recommendations, a symposium at Brite Divinity School on January 14, will mark the 50th anniversary of "The Design," the governing document for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Brite President Newell Williams collaborated with Chuck Blaisdell to create the event. Blaisdell, a current member of the DDH Alumni/ae Council and recently retired pastor and former regional minister, DDH Dean Kris Culp, and Bill Lee, former Moderator of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), are the featured speakers. Responding are Tim Lee, a Brite Professor and DDH alumnus who is the current Second Vice Moderator; Lori Tapia, National Pastor for Hispanic Ministries; and Texas pastor Dawn Weaks. More here including registration for the event.

Chad H. Martin serves as the chair of the 125th Anniversary of the Disciples Divinity House, which will be marked in 2019. He has been leading a team of members of the Board of Trustees and Alumni/ae Council in formulating plans. A member of the Board of Trustees since 1998, he served as its President from 2010-15. He is the Chief Financial Officer of MeridianLink. A lifelong Disciple, he is a graduate of Texas Christian University (BS) and of Stanford University (MBA). Chad and Crista Martin live in California and are the parents of two children.

Dean Kris Culp and Board of Trustees officers Mareta Smith and Pamela James Jones, with Dr. Theodore Jones, traveled to Heidelberg, Germany, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Theologisches Studienhaus (TSH) of the University of Heidelberg on October 31. TSH dean Heike Springhart and EKD prelate Dagmar Zobel will travel to Chicago in May for DDH’s 125th Anniversary.