Just over a year ago, the Rev. Jake Joseph joined the YDS community as Associate Director of Alumni Engagement and Development, with responsibility for alumni/ae and donor relations.
A graduate of Grinnell College and the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, Joseph is the current Preacher-in-Residence at First Congregational Church of Fairfield, Conn., former Associate Minister of First Congregational Church in Guilford, and former Associate Regional Director of the Connecticut Region of the Anti-Defamation League.In his role at YDS, he is bringing new perspectives to alumni relations and innovative approaches to the program’s signature event—Convocation & Reunions.
YDS Communications sat down with Joseph to learn more about him and his approach to fostering community in YDS alumni circles.
As you mentioned in your sermon in Marquand Chapel last spring, people sometimes ask you why you left ministry—and you have a surprising response. What do you tell them?
I am in the cohort of clergy who are what I call “parish-pulpit-preaching-pandemic dropouts.” Work-life balance won out in my life after seven years of over-vocation. Even though I left the pulpit and parish, the work remains, and the call to serve people never went away. While I am no longer parish clergy, the skills I learned in divinity school are fully in use in my role at YDS.
People often ask me, “Jake, do you miss ministry?” They act as if leaving a congregational setting somehow un-ordains you. There is still a notion out there among some that callings outside the parish are lesser ministries, and frankly I laugh at such a limited understanding of God’s work and the settings where we do that work.
As you have gotten to know the YDS community over your first year in the job, what have you learned?
Yale is a universe of resources and opportunities as much as it is a university. One of my favorite parts of my role is being a bridge to the Yale Alumni Association. I get to represent YDS staff at YAA’s Assembly and Convocation and partner with YAA groups like the Yale Club of Cape Cod or Yale Blue Green for events and activities, as YDS has done recently. This gives me life! Many people don’t realize that graduate and professional school alums outnumber the alums of Yale College. Yale Divinity School alums have just as much ownership of YAA shared interest and identity groups and the regional clubs as alums of Yale College.
The Yale Alumni Association has every kind of affinity group you can imagine and professional networks from non-profit executives to leaders in environment and ecology work to LGBTQ+ and countless other groups. Many YDS alums are in leadership at YAA and even come back to Yale as delegates representing regional club leadership in places like Fort Worth, Texas, Oregon, and British Columbia. One of our alums, Jerry Henry ’80 M.Div., just finished his service as President of the YAA Board and is now the international Co-Chair of Yale Day of Service! It is a universe that YDS and our alums have only started to explore and engage.
Convocation & Reunions 2024 took place earlier this week, including a preliminary day of service. What are some of the most significant innovative approaches and dimensions you and your colleagues incorporated this year and for future iterations?
As I mentioned, Jerry Henry is a YDS alum and one of the co-chairs of the University’s Day of Service. This motivated us to do a YDS Day of Service as part of a pre-Convocation day on Sunday, October 6th. We thank the alums, faculty, and staff who turned out. Given how many of our alums work in fields of public and faithful service, I was surprised when I learned that YDS was one of the few schools and units at Yale without a day of service. Hopefully, by adding it to Convocation, we can jumpstart the effort.
We have partially rethought our approach to Convocation & Reunions and aimed to make the program feel more like a conference. The lectures serve as the plenary sessions, with other concurrent workshops and other engagement opportunities filling the rest of the time. We have a much wider variety of career-focused workshops coming from a broader set of sources. And, of course, we ensure plenty of time and space for socializing and reuniting with old friends and classmates. One of my favorite stories this year is that one of the members of the 25th Cluster Reunion for the Class of 1997, 1998, and 1999 reached out to us to share her willingness to run a labyrinth workshop as part of her reunion commitment. It was quickly suggested that we connect her with a current student and landscaping professional from the Class of 2025 who recently replanted the area around the labyrinth. I made the introduction. They have had a blast working together to create a sacred spaces and labyrinth experience as part of Convocation. Here we have a member of the 25th Reunion from California coming to co-facilitate for the YDS community a labyrinth program at Convocation with a member of the Class of 2025. For me, that is the Holy Spirit at work in Alumni Engagement!
Longer term, what is your vision for YDS alumni relations? What can alums do to help make that vision real?
Most of my mentors in ministry attended or were connected with YDS. When I was admitted to YDS but chose to go somewhere else for divinity school, many of them were disappointed. As YDS alums, they were happy to verbalize that displeasure. Now that I work here, it is fun to feel finally connected with their work and history. In a way, by working with our alums, I am reconnecting with many of my own mentors and offering new energy and a different perspective to the field of alumni engagement at Yale.
As a minister, then, my hope for this work is a little bit different. It feels like a prayer: My prayer for YDS and our Quad Partners is that we build a strong, connected alumni community that truly reflects the diverse experiences and strengths of our members. I hope we actively engage with each other and support our current students and the School. May our participation in events like Convocation & Reunion and our growing involvement with the Yale Alumni Association help us stay connected and share our expertise with the wider world of Yalies. I pray that we contribute our time, talents, and resources, and that our collective efforts create a lasting impact, enriching our community and advancing the mission of YDS. Amen and Boola Boola.
I guess I did end up at Yale Divinity School after all, and I hope to stay here offering all I have to this community and its mission for a very long time.
October 10, 2024