Frank Wendt, a leading Divinity School donor and the longtime chair of the precursor to the Dean’s Advisory Council, has died. One of the Divinity’s School’s most generous supporters, he was a charter member of the Mary Goodman Circle and joined with his wife, Barbara, in starting, or making lead donations to, three endowed scholarship funds: the Frank and Barbara Wendt Scholarship Fund, the Harry Baker Adams Scholars in Divinity Fund, and the Frank Mullen Fund. He also established the Loring Sabin Ensign Lectureship and made the lead gift to renovate the Richard H. Niebuhr Hall.
“Yale Divinity School could not flourish without people like Frank and Barbara Wendt,” Dean Greg Sterling said. “We depend heavily on the generosity of people like Frank and Barbara for support and leadership in key positions. They have been magnanimous in student support, and Frank was devoted as the chair of our advisory council. We offer prayers of gratitude for Frank and of comfort for Barbara.”
Read the obituary and this 2003 interview with Frank Wendt on his philosophy of philanthropy.
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Nora Tubbs Tisdale, Clement-Muehl Professor of Homiletics Emerita, was given the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Academy of Homiletics.
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Donald Beisswenger ’57 M.Div., a former Vanderbilt Divinity School professor and a minister-activist who worked with the homeless, has died.
Read the article in the Tennessean and a commentary by Reflections editor Ray Waddle.
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Eboni Marshall Turman, Assistant Professor of Theology and African American Religion at YDS, has been appointed co-chair of the black theology unit of the American Academy of Religion.
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Willie Barnes ’12 M.Div. is the new pastor of the historic Greater Bethel A.M.E. Church in Miami, Fla. The Church is Miami’s oldest Black organized church and was added to the United States National Registry of Historic Places in 1992.
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Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy issued an official gubernatorial statement recognizing Herron Gaston ‘14 M.Div., ‘15 S.T.M., ’18 D.Min. (Andover Newton) for his receiving the Trailblazer Award of Summerfield United Methodist Church in Bridgeport.
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In Memoriam: