Today I am completing my 4-year term as dean at Wesley Theological Seminary. It was a wonderful and exhilarating experience and I would do it all again in a heartbeat. When I accepted the position in 2018 I was fully aware of the crisis in higher education with the rising cost of doing business and a shrinking pool of students. This is especially true in theological education with the membership decline in mainline churches and thus fewer employment opportunities for seminary graduates. I was also aware of the divisions in my denomination (The United Methodist Church) over same-sex marriages and the ordination of persons who identify as LGBTQ+. At that time there was still hope that a split might be adverted through the passing of “The One Church Plan” at the called 2019 General Conference. So while there were multiple challenges facing a free-standing seminary, I still found the opportunity to shape the faculty of a seminary and a future generation of church leaders appealing.

One of the opportunities for theological education is the growth of the church in the Global South. Christianity is growing in Africa, Asia and Latin America and globalization provides an opportunity for cross-cultural fertilization. Christians in the West have a great deal to learn from the enthusiasm and vigor of Christians in other regions of the world. I have witnessed this first-hand in my travels, particularly 15-years of mission service in Latin America. Global migration and new technologies create greater opportunities to build relationships and cross linguistic and cultural barriers. Seminary communities are enriched with international students as our domestic students will serve in ministry contexts that require cross-cultural competencies. Global migration is so prevalent that all future church and community leaders need experience and the ability to work with those who are different from themselves. Moreover, 2018 was the half-way point of the Trump administration which saw a rise in xenophobia, anti-immigrant rhetoric, hate crimes all due to Donald Trump’s legitimization of White Christian nationalism. A seminary like Wesley located in Washington DC provided a space where people from diverse backgrounds could interact in and outside the classroom to develop cross-cultural sensitivities, and the opportunity to join this community was appealing.

While these trends and opportunities were visible in 2018, of course there were many unknowns and variables, the corona virus being the biggest but there were others on the horizon. I will mention three major developments during my term as dean:

1.  The 2019 special session of The United Methodist Church went terribly south. Not only did the “One Church Plan” not pass, but U.S. conservatives developed the Traditional Plan that created mandated penalties for clergy performing sex-sex marriages and mandatory suspensions for “self-avowed practicing homosexuals.” This Traditional Plan was approved and became the official doctrine in the Book of Discipline. While the Council of Bishops meant well to suspend all voting on legislation related to human sexuality at the 2016 General Conference in Portland and guide the church toward a middle ground, the two camps only became more entrenched, and the differences were exacerbated in 2019. Bishop Marcus Matthews took a group of Wesley students to St. Louis and the experience was deeply painful. Once the students returned to campus we had a series of debriefings to process what had occurred, however some students became so disillusioned with the United Methodist Church that they transferred to other denominations or discontinued their candidacy process all together. Some students decided not to continue with an MDiv and opted for a shorter degree, such as an MTS and sought out other avenues to live out their calling to serve through chaplaincy, non-for-profits, or education. The number of new United Methodist students applying for seminary dropped off in subsequent years.
2. A second major development during my tenure as dean became much more pronounced in the summer of 2020. In February of 2020 an unarmed Black man, Ahmaud Arbery was murdered in Brunswick County, Georgia by two white vigilantes and an accomplice. The following month a medical worker in Louisville, Breonna Taylor, was murdered by police officers attempting to serve a “no knock” raid on her apartment. Then in May of the same year another unarmed Black man, George Floyd, was asphyxiated by police officer, Derek Chauvin, on a Minneapolis street corner. Chauvin had his knee of Floyd’s neck for 8:46 minutes and a video recording of the murder went viral on social media sparking nation-wide protests led by the Black Lives Matter movement. These three deaths of unarmed Black people, among others, and the injustices suffered by African Americans incensed Americans of all races to take to the streets in protest throughout the country. These incidents of racial inequality and systemic injustice have provoked a time of reckoning and new energy to right past wrongs. To Wesley’s credit, the faculty had already begun a series of conversations prior to the summer of 2020 to address white privilege and the marginalization of underrepresented voices in our curriculum. The faculty continued these conversations into the 2020-21 school year to make curriculum changes and require a course in Anti-Racism and Intersectionality. I am proud of the progress we have made.
3. The third development is the Coronavirus pandemic that has radically changed life, not only in higher education, but in every industry and facet of life. In March of 2020 I cancelled classes on a Wednesday at noon and instructed our faculty to transition to online teaching by the following Monday. Covid-19 spread so quickly and was so deadly that hospitals and medical personnel were overrun. The faculty quickly adapted their courses to the online environment and our staff were instructed to work from home. While initially we thought that these measures would be temporary, soon we realized that the remainder of the semester would be taught virtually and then commencement and end of year festivities were cancelled, as well. Courses were taught online and staff worked remotely for 18-months until the Covid-19 vaccines became more readily available, and even then, only a few courses were taught in person and staff returned on a flex schedule. Like the rest of the world, we thought these trends would be temporary, but people became accustomed to the greater flexibility involved in telecommuting and taking classes virtually. While people missed in-person interaction, they also realized that Zoom saved the time and cost of commuting. People juggling multiple outside commitments and welcomed these changes. After initial resistance to change, workers realized the added flexibility, and there was no turning back. The advances in technology made all of this possible and the pandemic became the impetus for accelerated change. When companies asked employees to return to the office they faced tremendous resistance, not only out of fear of contracting the virus, but also the practical reasons of being able to complete their work responsibilities from home, thus the “Great Resignation.” The pandemic has fundamentally changed the workplace and how we live our daily lives. During the pandemic Wesley lost revenue from students moving out of the residence halls and cancelled its food service contract for the refectory. While a few students have moved back to campus, the lack of food service and residential student population have made building community more difficult. Now we have to reimagine what community looks like in a virtual and hybrid environment with some people on campus and others remote. Our registration trends still reflect a 2:1 ration of students who prefer online courses to traditional residential learning.  We still do not know if these changes are permanent or a temporary response to the trauma of the corona virus pandemic, but something has fundamentally changed in our society where people want greater flexibility and better work/life balance. This will impact the delivery system for higher education and particularly theological education, that tends to have more second career students, in the future. This is a phenomenon that I will continue to observe from afar.

In sum, I began the role of dean aware of the crisis in higher education and theological education, in particular. The decline in mainline denominations had already begun and has, in fact, accelerated toward a demographic cliff as the average age increases without a younger generation to replace older members. I was excited about the diversity at Wesley Seminary and how it is uniquely positioned to engage Global Christianity and prepare students cross-culturally. The divisions within the United Methodist Church were certainly there and have only become more pronounced after the 2019 General Conference. However the divisions in the United Methodist Church have reached a heightened state of tension, which is a turn-off for potential students who want a more inclusive church, free of conflict to live out their calling. The reckoning for past sins of racism has led me to feel that Wesley needs more people in leadership who reflect the racial diversity of our student body and constituency, and I feel led to step aside and create this space. I have always felt this and supported equity and inclusion, however now it is time to live into my values and create a space for more diverse senior leadership. Lastly, the pandemic has allowed faculty and staff to be more dispersed and distant—some even moving to other states. It is more difficult to build morale, confront the challenges before us when people telecommute. People still long for community, however they also enjoy the flexibility and freedom of working from home. It is also a challenge to offer course delivery methods that meet the needs of a diverse student body in a rapidly changing world. I have thoroughly enjoyed serving as dean during these four years and confronting these challenges and opportunities day-in and day-out.  I feel that the time is right to step-down and allow another person to bring fresh ideas to these questions and to lead the faculty into the future. These three major developments make the current context fundamentally different from the initial challenges that I anticipated back in 2018.

On a personal level, I am very excited to return the classroom and my passion for research, writing and teaching. I also welcome greater work/life balance and opening up the door to my pent-up creative energies to research and write. This is an area of my life that has been neglected and brings me great passion and joy. I entered into a PhD program in theology 20 years before becoming a dean and I never imagined a career in higher education. I entered a doctoral program because I loved to learn and didn’t want to stop after a master’s degree. It is this love of learning that continues to drive me and give me joy. I look forward to continuing to support the mission of Wesley Theological Seminary in a new, yet familiar role, of accompanying students on their journey.

I have many fond memories of the relationships built, the achievements and the challenges overcome. I have “held down the fort” successfully through the pandemic and now it is someone else’s turn to confront the next challenge. For example, I served as dean through re-accreditation with the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) in 2020, and the Middle States Commission for Higher Education (MSCHE) in 2021. I wrote my share of assessment reports—especially over the summer and Christmas breaks—when nobody was watching. We also successful developed a Global Doorway Program to allow international students to study at Wesley without leaving their country. This makes theological education accessible and overcomes the limitations of time, money and visas. We shepherded two fastest growing demographics in the United States, Hispanics and Asian, to launch student associations. The Gente Latinx Student Association (GLSA) and the Asian American Pacific Islander Student Association (APIA) have built a safe space for students to garner support and celebrate their cultures within the life of the seminary. During my term as dean the student body has become more diverse and is now comprised of more than 50% people of color. I am grateful for the relationships with students and look forward to deepening these ties through classroom interaction. During the 2020-21 school year I was able to secure a small grant from the Wabash Center to send us two consultants to lead the faculty in a series of conversations on white privilege and systemic racism.

I am also grateful for the work with faculty, staff and administration through the challenge of keeping the seminary community safe during the pandemic. We studied the trends, CDC guidelines and scientific evidence to make decisions around closing the campus, teaching online courses, mandating masks and requiring vaccines when they became available. We also confronted a suicide on campus and responded to the needs of our seminary community during a season of grief. These were some of the greatest challenges in a generation and I was honored to be entrusted with the confidence of the seminary leadership to sit at the table early in the morning or late at night to make these decisions. Most of all I will treasure the relationships with colleagues that were forged in times of trial. These memories and relationships will persist as I return to my first love of teaching. I am grateful to God, to the seminary and for the support of my family during this season and look forward to the next chapter ahead.