Meet these graduates

A sampling of graduates look back on their most memorable experience during their time at YDS and look ahead to what’s next in their lives and careers.

Emily Bruce ‘19 M.Div. 

My trip to Israel last year was a truly transformative experience. Walking the paths that Jesus walked, seeing the world up close that I had only imagined from reading scripture, and contemplating the centuries of religious history that exist in that sacred place opened my eyes in ways I had never contemplated before. I will always remember the prayer I said while standing at the Wailing Wall on Shabbat, surrounded by women from all over the world, all saying their own prayers. I am so grateful for the opportunity to go on that trip and thankful for the professors and students who went on that pilgrimage with me. 

I am excited to be serving as the ministerial intern for First Parish Sherborn, a Unitarian Universalist church in the suburbs of Boston. After the completion of that two-year internship, I will be ordained as a Unitarian-Universalist minister and will seek a position as an interfaith college chaplain. 

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Paul Anthony Daniels ‘19 M.Div.

In Spring 2017, Dr. James Cone came to YDS, offering remarks as part of the School-Wide Read of his seminal text Black Theology & Black Power. There was standing room only in Marquand Chapel that night. A year later—almost to the date—Dr. Cone took his proper place in the Great Beyond. And a few days after his passing, for nine consecutive hours, a countless many reconvened in Marquand Chapel in public recitation of that very same text. In the midst of growing cries against anti-black racism, Cone brought us the Good News that Jesus is on the side of the oppressed!

Upon graduation, I will matriculate at Fordham University—pursuant of the Doctor of Philosophy in Theology (Systematics).

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Joe Currie ‘19 M.A.R. (Second Temple Judaism)

Thanks to funding from YDS, I participated (I use the term loosely) in an excavation at Tel Hazor in Israel. The experience was transformative in two respects. First, after waking up every day at 4:15 a.m., “hurting my wrist,” and shoving wheelbarrows of dirt, I decided to focus on manuscripts. And second, I developed wonderful friendships with two YDS students also on the dig. Upon returning, we gathered almost every week (this time in the air-conditioning) to discuss Foucault and eat donuts. I’m thankful to YDS for its many academic opportunities, but I’m most grateful for the colleagues. 

After a brief stint back home in Texas, I’ll be studying Modern Hebrew in Jerusalem this July (hopefully in an air-conditioned classroom). In the fall, I’ll—forgive me—be defecting to Harvard University to begin a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible. I’ll be working closely with Paul Kosmin and Andrew Teeter. A dissertation is several merciful years away, but my interests include Daniel and the Sibylline Oracles, the relationship between historiography and apocalyptic literature, and the political history of the Hellenistic Near East. Also, Boston’s Union Square Donuts. 

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Chris Hazlaris ‘19 M.Div.

Being able to captain and coach YDS’s soccer team, the Paracleats, was an absolute blessing I will not forget. It not only provided me with an intentional, supportive community and an outlet from the cerebral, individual nature of graduate work, but it also honed my ministry skills and allowed me to (hopefully) be a pastoral presence for other young adults seeking relationship outside of school.

This winter I accepted a position as Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries at a thriving Presbyterian church in my home city of New Orleans. There I will be leading middle- and high school-aged students in retreats, service learning programs, mission trips, and Bible Studies, and also acting as a general pastoral presence for them and role model/cheerleader in their lives and everyday activities. Nothing means more to me than affirming young people in Christ and walking with them amidst their joys and anxieties (I hope one day, too, to work in higher education), so I think this is the perfect place to start.

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Emma McDonald ‘19 M.A.R. (Ethics)

I really appreciated how my classes always connected every semester, even though the topics they covered initially appeared disparate. I remember in particular reading about the concept of the transcendent good described in Robert Merrihew Adam’s book Finite and Infinite Goods in Adam Eitel’s Theological Ethics class my first semester, at the same time that I was reading Raymond Carver’s story “Cathedral” in Peter Hawkins’ class on contemporary fiction and religion. Finding Adams’ concept elaborated on in the form of Carver’s short story was one of many instances that I found myself grateful for the interdisciplinary and ecumenical conversations that YDS fosters, both among students and among the materials we read. 

I’ll spend the summer teaching ethics to high school students in a program at Yale, and then I will move to the Boston area in August to begin a Ph.D. in Theological Ethics at Boston College, where I will continue studying reproductive technologies and how the Catholic laity make moral decisions.

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Nazeer Bacchus ‘19 M.A.R. (Religion and the Arts)

I cannot say exactly when this conceptual shift took place during my graduate studies, but YDS has helped me to see my educational journey as a continuing process of intellectual formation and self-discovery. I have learned to embrace this process: to feel proud of my progress, even when I know there is so much to learn; to be excited over an idea for a paper, even when it leaves me with more questions than answers; to make time for friends and family, laughter and conversation, even when it feels like every second spent away from the desk is one that puts me farther behind. For me, finding those special moments to slow down and to reflect on where I am and how far I have come has made me truly appreciative of my time here and all the more motivated for what is to come. 

In the fall, I will begin a doctoral program in Hebrew Bible at New York University’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and certificate program in Poetics and Theory through the Comparative Literature department.  

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Anca Wilkening ‘19 M.A.R. (History of Christianity)

I came to YDS as an exchange student from Germany. Within the first couple of months, I was impressed by how closely I would work with professors in my field and by their investment in providing intimate and supportive mentorship that nurtures students in a wholistic manner. I was fortunate enough to enroll as a full student the next year, and under the guidance of amazing historians, I flourished as a young scholar who can conduct research that is both academically and personally fulfilling. My experience as a student here has taught me what type of teacher I want to be in the future.

This fall, I will continue my academic journey at Harvard University, where I will be a doctoral student in religion. I am planning on furthering the research questions and topics I have developed at YDS. My work brings to the surface the voices and stories of often disregarded groups in how we tell American religious history. In making people outside of dominant Anglo-Protestant traditions the focal point of historical narratives, rather than treating them as supporting characters, I want to expose how they help us further understand the historical intersections of lived religion, gender, and race in the cultural and social environment of early North America. 

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Joshua Narcisse ‘19 M.Div. 

It is hard to narrow it down to one moment or a single experience, yet this question brings to mind finals week my first semester at YDS. A number of first-year students and I banded together and camped out in what was then the newly named Pennington Room to study for Prof. Joel Baden’s Old Testament Interpretation exam. Through that night of cramming, quizzing, taking naps on a rotational schedule, eating, and dealing with fits of anxiety, I found out what it means to do the work of community formation. I got to experience what it means to stand at the intersection of every emotion imaginable, to be with others who desire to journey together. Thankfully so many of the folks that were in the room that night in December 2016 will complete their journey as we graduate this weekend.

Following graduation I’ll be heading to Memphis, Tenn., as the inaugural Faith & Health Resident where I will serve on the staff of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church and Church Health, a faith-based non-profit that provides quality holistic healthcare services to underinsured and uninsured residents of Memphis. During this year I will continue to complete ordination requirements in the Presbyterian Church (USA), dive deeper into pastoral leadership, and prayerfully learn a bit more about myself as I endeavor to live into my calling.

May 16, 2019