COLLEGE AND SEMINARY NEWS

Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary has named John Wells Kuykendall of Davidson, N.C., as Interim President. He will begin his appointment August 1, 2003. John Kuykendall was president of Davidson College in North Carolina for 13 years, where he also taught as a professor of religion. Today as Professor and President Emeritus he holds the Samuel E. and Mary West Thatcher Professorship in Religion.

At Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, Neil Parrish, a May graduate, has received a $25,000 Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship to study for a year at a foreign university of his choice and Jessica Hunt will spend the upcoming academic year abroad after being chosen as a Fulbright winner.

Retired United States Senator Wendell H. Ford delivered the undergraduate commencement address and received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at Pikeville College in Pikeville, Kentucky, on May 10. The medical school’s third class graduated 53 new physicians and heard an address by John Crosby, J.D., executive director of the American Osteopathic Association. The College also presented honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees to Alex E. Booth, Jr. and Walter E. May.

Columbia Theological Seminary honored retiring professors Walter Brueggemann and Charles Cousar during Colloquium ’03, “Shaking Earth and Heaven: Bible, Church, and the Changing Social Order,” which was held April 21-23. Six leading scholars gave the event’s theme presentations and the community gathered for worship each day.

On April 1, the Board of Trustees of Columbia Theological Seminary announced the appointment of William P. (Bill) Brown as Professor of Old Testament. He begins his teaching duties at Columbia in the fall semester of 2004. Since 1991 he has taught at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, where he is the Aubrey Lee Brooks Professor of Biblical Theology.

At Maryville College in east Tennessee, secondary and post-secondary faculty are learning to look at the Humanities in a technology workshop held on the campus June 8–June 13. Participating faculty will continue the seminar through the 2003–2004 academic year with online discussions and follow-up meetings.

Kathleen Farnham, Maryville College
Director of Church Relations, welcomed
guests to the Maryville College
breakfast during General Assembly.

Jackson, MS-area businessman David C. McNair recently presented to Belhaven College a $1 million commitment toward an endowment designed to enhance and encourage students to catch a lifelong vision for cross-cultural missions. “We want our students to understand the global world,” said Dr. Roger Parrott, Belhaven College president.

At Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, during the 2002-03 academic year, ten of its 21 full-time faculty members have published eleven books, addressing a variety of topics both inside and outside the classroom. As the seminary continues its celebration of 150 years of equipping people for ministry, other significant achievements include: A major grant of $1,483,429 from Lilly Endowment Inc. to the seminary and Milton J. Coalter to fund a three-year website endeavor; the selection by the Association of Theological Schools of seminary professor Nancy J. Ramsey as one of the faculty participants for the Luce Consultation on Theological Scholarship; the appointment of Garnett E. Foster to a four-year term as interim Director of Field Education; the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Women’s Center at LPTS, the only endowed center of its kind among PC(USA) seminaries.

COLUMBIA AND LOUISVILLE SEMINARIES RECOGNIZE DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI/AE

Columbia Theological Seminary presented its Distinguished Service Awards to Murphy Davis, Ed Loring and Charles Moffatt at the annual Alumni/ae Association meeting in April. These awards are presented annually to Columbia graduates who have shown outstanding Christian service in ministry.

Davis and Loring are a husband and wife team who are founding partners of the Open Door Community in downtown Atlanta.

Charles Moffatt is a member of Middle Tennessee Presbytery, where he served as pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Gallatin for many years. He dedicated 52 years to the parish ministry and served on the PC(USA) Permanent Judicial Commission, the General Assembly Committee on Synods and as moderator of two presbyteries. He is a four-time commissioner to the General Assembly and was a representative to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. A 1951 graduate of Columbia Seminary, he earned a PhD degree from the University of Edinburgh.

Since 1986, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary has recognized 63 members of the Alumni/ae Association for their vision, accomplishments, and leadership. During the 2003 reunion, four individuals were added to this roster and were awarded the Distinguished Alumni/ae Awards.

Paul Y. Harlan is a native of Mississippi who enrolled in Louisville Seminary at the age of 49. He served Bardstown Road Presbyterian Church in Louisville before moving to First Presbyterian Church in Kennett, Missouri, where for 13 years he ministered to migrant workers and others in need through an ecumenical endeavor and founded the first mental health facility in the “bootheel” area of the state. He came back to Louisville Seminary and at the age of 74 he received his doctorate, having explored in his D.Min. project the value of interim ministry and the impact of retirement years in ministry. In his retirement years, Harlan has served as interim pastor to five churches in Memphis.

Washio Ishii was born in Tokyo, Japan. In 1960 he earned a degree in Psychology from Centre College and then received a Master of Divinity degree from Louisville Seminary in 1963. That same year, he was ordained, became a citizen of the United States, and accepted his first call as pastordirector of the Madison Larger Parish in North Alabama, which consisted of three yoked Presbyterian churches. He retired in 1989 after 26 years of effective ministry in that area. Across his pastoral career, Ishii has served three governing bodies of the Presbyterian Church at the General Assembly, Synod and Presbytery levels. He has been a commissioner at three General Assemblies and council and committee member for the Synod of the South and the Synod of Living Waters. He was moderator of two different presbyteries.

Homer T. Rickabaugh attended Maryville College and received the Fielding Lewis Walker Fellowship in Doctrinal Theology when he graduated from Louisville Seminary with a B.D. in 1957. He then left for the mission field in Korea, where he served from 1957 to 1980. He completed a Master of Theology at Union/PSCE and earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from San Francisco Seminary. Most Presbyterians have encountered him through his work with the General Assembly Council. From 1988 until his retirement in 2001, Rickabaugh was the Associate for Presbytery and Synod International Partnerships. He currently serves as parish associate at the Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church in Kentucky and as a member of the Mission Unit of the Presbytery of Mid-Kentucky.

John B. Begley is the first chancellor of Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, KY. He was named to this position following 20 years as the president of the college and at the close of his tenure, he was the longest-serving president of a four-year college in Kentucky. He graduated from Louisville Seminary in 1967 and is a member of the United Methodist Church.