2020 Honorees

2020 Distinction in Congregational Ministry

Shelley Best ‘00 M.Div.

At the heart of YDS is the commitment to train women and men for the lay and ordained ministries of the church. The award for Distinction in Congregational Ministry annually goes to an individual who has shown exceptional pastoral competence in the work of the mission of local congregations.

Rev. Dr. Shelley Best’s personal and theological life story reads like a portrait in human possibility and creative entrepreneurship. It is also a glimpse into the future of ministry. 

As a child growing up in Connecticut, Shelley forged a resilient faith in God. Later, during graduate school at YDS and Hartford Seminary, she clarified her ideals of human rights advocacy and liberation theology. 

At YDS, the late Letty Russell prompted Shelley to broaden her perspectives and value her own insights as a Black female scholar in a predominately white-male institution.

This influence was felt years later when Dr. Best became an ordained elder in the A.M.E. Zion Church and pastor of the Redeemer’s A.M.E. Zion Church in Plainville, Connecticut.

Dr. Best has been prodigious in bringing to life her personal blend of faith and activism.

As president of the Hartford-based Conference of Churches, she has helped transform the organization into an enterprise focused on community-building and soulful self-care.

At the heart of it is 224 EcoSpace, a 30,000-square-foot venue that features an art gallery, yoga and dance studios, a conference center, and workspaces for business start-ups. 

It’s been called one of the most distinctive office spaces in the city and was built on Dr. Best’s unique vision for faith and human possibility and clear understanding of how the two are interdependent.

Her activism has reached around the globe.

She served as the Connecticut leader in faith-based initiatives during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. 

In India, she led a leadership workshop for fifty Christian ministers, and has  journeyed to South Africa and Israel with a mission to bridge faith and cultural understanding. 

Closer to home, Dr. Best hosts a Sunday morning radio broadcast on faith and community called “Rich Answers,” reaching more than 75,000 people in Southern New England. 

She became a certified yoga instructor after the age of fifty and shares the benefits of this practice with under-served communities.

Dr. Best is also an artist. Sixteen of her abstract paintings collectively titled “What is Black?” were part of an exhibit at YDS in 2019.

In a YDS interview that year she said, “It’s an honor to find myself in the role of practitioner and witness and exciting to have a chance to share how to do this theological work … the possibilities are endless.”

See a video here.

2020 Distinction in Theological Education

Javier Viera ’00 S.T.M.

One of the finest traditions of YDS is its commitment to excellence in all dimensions of theological education. This award recognizes alumni whose scholarship, teaching or leadership and contributions to vocational formation for ministry reflect the best of YDS and its distinguished faculty. 

There was a time during college when Javier Viera became interested in a future in politics. But ministry also called to him.

One summer, while interning for a U.S. congressman, he asked for advice. The response he got helped clarify his destiny.

“The world needs a lot more good ministers than politicians.”

Dr. Javier Viera was born in Puerto Rico and raised in Florida. He holds a degree from Florida Southern College, an M.Div. from Duke, and a doctorate in education from Columbia University. He is presently completing doctoral work in Latin American Studies at the Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico. 

Javier’s interests range across the theological map – from inter-religious dialogue to pastoral leadership and homiletics, to the role of religion in modern Latin America.

These interests were shaped early on, in part by YDS, as well as his experience in parish ministry in New York City as an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church.

At YDS, Javier’s mentors included Margaret Farley and Serene Jones. 

He credits Margaret with teaching him the importance of holding different truth claims in dialogue. From Serene, he learned how often theological ideas are forged in times of upheaval, and how vital it is to keep the faith despite dangers and uncertainties.

Today, the adventure of faith and ideas and social change has made Javier Viera a leading theological educator in this country. Dr. Viera is the new president of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, after six years as dean of Drew University’s Theological School. 

At Drew, he led a transformation of the curriculum, launched new degree programs, and oversaw increased enrollment and fundraising. 

Dr. Viera arrived at Garrett-Evangelical in early 2021 as the first person of color to hold the office of president in the seminary’s 167-year history.

See a video here.

2020 William Sloane Coffin ‘56 Award for Peace and Justice

David Dodson ‘77 B.A. , ‘81 M.Div., ‘81 M.P.P.M.

The Coffin award is given in honor of William Sloane Coffin, former Chaplain to the University and one of the most significant religious leaders of the last century. The recipient of this award shares Coffin’s prophetic witness and courageous devotion to the dignity of all persons and has made a notable contribution to the work of peace and reconciliation. 

As former president and now senior fellow of MDC, which helps low-wealth communities flourish through education, training, and social mobility, David Dodson has helped vulnerable Americans pursue their economic dreams.

David has created pathways to living-wage jobs for young people, forged local partnerships and multiracial leadership across the South and the nation, and sharpened philanthropy as a tool to combat the upstream causes of social disparities. This is the pragmatic vision of MDC, which is described as a “think tank with muddy boots.”

David saw the urgency of addressing inequity long ago. He joined MDC in Durham, NC, in 1987, having nurtured an ethical vocation as a student at Yale and as a lifelong Episcopalian. 

At Yale, he received a B.A. in architecture and urban policy, an M.Div. in ethics and theology, and a master’s degree in public and private management from the Yale School of Management.

David has spoken around the country about confronting barriers to economic mobility. He is the coauthor of several MDC publications on the use of regional economic competitiveness and strategic philanthropy to fight poverty. 

David’s recent MDC initiatives include the Network for Southern Economic Mobility and a “Made in Durham” public-private partnership focusing on careers for Durham’s young people.

David’s work goes straight to the heart of much that ails our nation, especially its intensified inequality, decline in social trust, and lack of opportunity for many. 

David Dodson is truly a pioneer in the kind of solutions and healing our country needs.

See a video here.

2020 Lux et Veritas

Frederick J. “Jerry” Streets ‘75 M.Div.

The Lux et Veritas is awarded for excellence and distinction in applying the compassion of Christ to the diverse needs of the human condition through the wider church, ecumenical organizations, not-for-profit groups, government, or industry. We proudly give the award to the Rev. Dr. Jerry Streets.

The work of the Rev. Dr. Jerry Streets has long intersected themes of multi-faith dialogue, racial reconciliation, and pastoral care.

Born in Chicago, Rev. Streets is a graduate of Ottawa (Kansas) University, with master’s and doctoral degrees in social work from Yeshiva University in New York.

As pastor of the Mount Aery Baptist Church in Bridgeport from 1975 to 1992, Jerry fostered congregational growth and built a new church edifice. He served as University Chaplain and Senior Pastor of the Church of Christ in Yale from 1992 to 2007, the first Black minister and Baptist in that post. 

Rev. Streets is currently senior pastor of New Haven’s historic Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ. He is also a licensed clinical social worker who teaches at Columbia’s School of Social Work and its Teachers College.  

Jerry has lived a life of service and inquiry that has extended across Yale and across the world.

In 2008, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. He has made trips to the Balkans with the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma, working with Christians and Muslims to care for post-war populations there. 

In addition, a UCC delegation took him to South America to promote humanitarian aid, and he has also led delegations to Cuba, Ghana, Turkey, and Israel. 

Rev. Streets has been associated with Yale for more than fifty years, ever since his YDS student days in the 1970s, when he helped the School start rectifying its neglect of the Black student presence in campus life and curriculum. 

Even then, he showed a broad vocational reach: he was elected to the New Haven Board of Alders, serving as a city alderman while still a divinity student. 

Since 1987, Rev. Streets has been an adjunct professor at YDS.

Jerry’s writings encompass both social work and religion. He was editor of the 2005 book Preaching in the New Millennium, a collection of Battell Chapel sermons commemorating Yale’s tercentennial.

Rev. Streets is also a member of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

This year, YDS created a student prize in Rev. Streets’ name for the graduating student who has made a distinguished contribution to the advancement of social justice.

In a recent Reflections journal interview, Rev. Streets said: “It’s human to feel overwhelmed and to think you have no impact. But that’s a delusion. We have to attack problems in small ways. Look into your heart and figure out how to find a voice against policies that hurt people.”

See a video here.