Alumni News and Profiles

Rachel Leiken, MDiv '20, Multifaith Engagement Fellow at the Memorial Church, writes about deepening her commitment to social justice, community building, and university chaplaincy. After the election in 2016, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I...

Melissa Bartholomew fosters diversity, inclusion, and belonging at HDS Melissa Wood Bartholomew, MDiv ’15, has been here before—the horrifying event, the protests, the renewed pledges, soon forgotten, to combat racism. While she has concerns about whether...

Kevin Cranston and the truth of pandemics Kevin Cranston, MDiv ’86, learned early on that viruses tell the truth. As a gay man coming of age during the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s, he saw the ways that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) crossed...

White-Hammond provides care to the sick—and addresses the injustice that makes them ill Gloria White-Hammond, MDiv ’97, is committed to healing and ministry—often in the most difficult situations. In the 2000s, she entered war zones in the African nation...

The Harvard Divinity School community that all of you support and help to build—with your involvement, your leadership, and your financial investment—is a remarkable one. Together with the faculty, staff, and students of HDS, you are creating the space...

I write at perhaps the most challenging moment of our lifetimes, as our society reels from global pandemic, economic collapse, and social unrest. We have all been affected. Many in the HDS community are on the front lines as activists, caregivers, and...

"So let us hold fast to love on the road to justice, though the road is windy. I believe we will get there to the promised land. We will get there indeed if we hold fast to love," says Aric Flemming, MDiv '19.

Celebrated by Italian immigrants in the United States since 1792, Columbus Day became a federal holiday in 1937 to commemorate the "arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas." The explorer’s reputation has darkened in recent years as scholars have...

"In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic—and the racism pandemic we have been fighting since my ancestors arrived from the West Coast of Africa, I am reminded that there is so much that we don’t know," says Melissa Wood Bartholomew, Associate Dean for...

The Rev. Mel Kawakami, MDiv '74, ThM '85, is a retired pastor and pastoral counselor for the United Methodist Church. He spent his career helping communities devastated by unexpected loss, including his tenure as pastor of the Newtown United Methodist...