Sharon Welch Appointed Provost of Meadville Lombard

January 5, 2007

Meadville Lombard Theological School announces the appointment of Dr. Sharon Welch to the newly-created position of Provost at the school. Welch is a dynamic and prolific scholar of theology who will bring to the school a wealth of experience, knowledge and energy.

"I have known and admired Sharon as educator, feminist, advocate for our faith, teacher and colleague in Meadville governance," said Denise Davidoff, Meadville Lombard Board of Trustees member.  "Sharon is widely known in the larger UU community as a person who does great work with grace and intelligence and style. I have no doubt," Davidoff continued, "that the Lee Barker/SharonWelch leadership team will reify the vision for growth we current stewards of the school have so enthusiastically fashioned. It is an honor to serve on the Board of Trustees in these exhilarating times."

William F. Schulz, DMin '75 DD '87, also served with Welch on the Board of Trustees at Meadville Lombard. "Sharon Welch is the quintessential scholar/activist," said Schulz, "one who has never let her devotion to the academy and signal accomplishments there preclude a profound commitment to changing the 'real world' in which we live.  Meadville Lombard is extraordinarily fortunate to have attracted her to its midst and Unitarian Universalism is inordinately lucky to have such a model teacher and latter-day prophet back in its institutional fold."

As Provost, Welch will be the chief academic and enrollment management officer of the school.  She will be responsible for leading the shaping, expansion, and maintenance of the academic program while aligning it with a system of enrollment management.  She will ensure the quality of the faculty and student body, lead the development of the School's research capabilities, and foster the School's devotion to educational excellence.

Lee Barker, President of Meadville Lombard Theological School, says this appointment is significant not just for the school, but for Unitarian Universalism. "As Sharon's presence will bring increased enrollment," said Barker, "the reservoir of Unitarian Universalist scholarship will be greatly enhanced because she is conducting her work in a UU seminary. And with her responsibilities for program design, her work will have the widest possible impact."

"I think of Welch as the best kind of activist/academic and consider her a role model," said Dr. Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Associate Professor of Theology, Duke Divinity School.  "For a place like Meadville Lombard, the ground-breaking character of her work in ethics is clearly significant.  Her recent focus on alternatives to the binary ways of thinking about morality and war/peace initiatives and her honest explorations of the amoral character of religion are truly exciting.  That she refuses to romanticize religious traditions, even as she attends with utter seriousness to the possibilities for liberative and humane possibilities for global life give Welch a kind of realistic wisdom unusual for an academic."

"With the breadth and depth of her competency and experience, Sharon will surely enrich the community of theological discourse here at Meadville," said Michael Hogue, Assistant Professor of Theology. "She is an established and well-respected scholar and author. Her experience with and writing about public theology will certainly energize that ambition here," said Hogue.

Barker noted that with her past work on the Board of Trustees, Welch brings a deep understanding of and capacity to fulfill the school's mission to train quality liberal religious leaders for a world so desperate to be lead toward justice, equity and compassion.

Welch was drawn to the Provost position at Meadville so that she could work with UU ministers in formation, as well as help design new vocational programs. Furthermore, the deep, scholarly community of the Association of Chicago Theological Schools will allow her to explore new and creative ways to promote dialogue between and within faith communities.

Welch hopes to pursue the work that she began at the University of Missouri-Columbia, a research project on the development of multiculturally competent professionals with faculty from Theatre, Counseling Psychology, and Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. "To work for social justice over the long haul requires hearts, minds, and senses that are as open to the beauty, wonder and mystery of life as they are to pain, tragedy, suffering and injustice. The development of multicultural competencies includes a nuanced awareness of shifting power dynamics between social groups, substantial knowledge about the history of social groups and virtuosic skills in fostering equitable personal and social relationships," said Welch.  "I would like to bring the expertise gained in this work to the task of ministerial education, helping congregational and community ministers hone the skills of power literacy for themselves, and for members of their communities," she said.

Creation of the Provost position is one of the actions the Meadville Lombard Board of Trustees voted on at their meeting in November, 2006. The Board issued a declaration at the conclusion of that meeting, titled "Changing Lives to Change the World: Moving Forward."  Welch said "in looking at the declaration, I think Meadville Lombard, with the commitment of its administration, faculty, staff and students, is moving forward in creative ways and is poised to be able to nurture religious leadership that is informed by the best scholarship and the most creative forms of social action.  I am grateful that my vocation has led me here to be a part of this learning community."

Welch will finish the academic year in her current position as Chair of the Department of Religious studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia and begin with Meadville Lombard in September, 2007.

Welch earned her M.A. and her Ph.D. in Theology from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Before joining the faculty of the University of Missouri, she was a professor of Theology and Religion and Society at Harvard Divinity School for nine years.

She is the author of After Empire: The Art and Ethos of Enduring Peace, A Feminist Ethic of Risk, Sweet Dreams in America: Making Ethics and Spirituality Work, and many articles. (See a complete list of her publications, here.)

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Contact:
Tina Porter tporter@meadville.edu
(773) 256-3000 ext. 236