Recent YDS graduates share post-graduation plans

Each year we ask some of our extraordinary graduating students to tell us about their journey through YDS and where they’re headed after graduation. The Class of 2014 is headed into a number of different vocations, including parish ministry, public service, teaching, as well as further education. This is the second of three installments. 

Derick D. Dailey ’14 M.A.R.

African Methodist Episcopal 

I left Teach for America in the Mississippi Delta to spend a sustained period of time in a supportive academic community for further faith and theological formation. One of my mentors, Prof. Cliff Cain of Westminster College, recommended YDS as a school that would be academically liberating. My passion for Christian Education and lay ministry in the African Methodist Episcopal Church provided further motivation for my study at YDS; due to the likes of AME/YDS alumnus such as Bishop F.H.Talbott and Bishop J.N. Leath. 

I enjoyed every class I took at YDS and especially the wonderful conversation partners over the course of my two years here. Dean Gregory Sterling, Academic Dean Jennifer Herdt, and Prof. Yolanda Smith have been especially insightful and supportive of my work on issues of ethics, missiology, ecumenism, and Christian education. Chapel was life-giving every day. I love Yale’s attempt at true and pure ecumenical worship. It is one of a kind! There are a few experiences that made my YDS experience remarkable and unique. My participation in the World Council of Churches meeting in Busan, South Korea as a member of the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute in 2013; my time in Accra, Ghana and Lusaka, Zambia as a teaching fellow with Living Streams International Ministries; and the 17th Episcopal District of the AME respectively, further opened me up to the global church, missions, and ecumenism. I also really enjoyed serving as a Yale Presidential Public Service Fellow in New Haven in the summer of 2013. I worked with Neighborhood Housing Service of New Haven and learned an immense amount about the intersections between race, religion, and politics. It was one of my most memorable summers.  

Following graduation I hope to study and practice corporate compliance law, global corporate social responsibility, and education law in a corporate firm or a global corporation, focusing on issues of compliance and CSR. I have been accepted into several law and policy degree programs and hope to matriculate in the fall.

I also hope to serve as an adjunct at a small, undergraduate institutional or theological school while practicing law and continuing to serve the church through Christian Education, ecumenical leadership, and mission work. Ultimately, I hope to work in government.

Sara Doughton ’14 M.Div.

Roman Catholic Church

Before attending YDS I worked in service-learning at a small liberal arts college in my hometown, overseeing campus-community partnerships and student volunteer opportunities. There, I had the privilege of helping students translate their skills, values, and beliefs into lives characterized by kindness and justice.  Thanks in part to collaboration with the Office of Religious Life—and a few well-timed courses in Hebrew Bible—I became convinced that divinity school would allow me to better support students seeking to connect what they believe and know to be true with their actions in the world.

Over the last three years, courses like “Social Justice: Christian Community Ethics” and “Feminist and Womanist Pastoral Care” created space for conversations that combine interdisciplinary studies with practical application. At the same time, classes in religion and literature reminded me of the universal need to make meaning, and maybe even something beautiful, out of the yearnings, sorrows, and triumphs of storied human life—and the joy that can come from doing so in community.

And as much as I will miss YDS, it’s hardest to say goodbye to the students, faculty, and staff at St. Martin de Porres Academy, a NativityMiguel middle school for underserved youth. As a volunteer and then intern I have planned and facilitated class retreats, co-directed the Peer Ministry program, and assisted with religion curriculum development. Anything I have contributed to the SMPA family is only a fraction of what they have given me: a community of people to call home in New Haven who love fiercely and generously, who strive for creativity and authenticity in the school’s spiritual life, and who have supported me as I continue to discern my vocation. 

Next year I will join the theology faculty at a Roman Catholic high school in the Bay Area, implementing a service-learning capstone course for seniors and supporting other teachers who hope to incorporate experiential learning in their classes. I am deeply grateful for my time at YDS—for the relationships borne and nurtured during that time, the support of friends and faculty, the wealth of knowledge and understanding that emerges in our learning communities—and I look forward to seeing how my classmates and I continue to make sense of ourselves, the world, and our place in it.

Brooke Girley ’14 M.A.R.

Nondenominational

The road to YDS was not a direct one for me. Inspired by the legacy of the civil rights movement, I initially chose the path of a civil rights lawyer when I was a child because I wanted to continue the legacy of the movement by attacking racist laws and practices. My enthusiastic, or perhaps romanticized, perception of the law was short lived as I realized that as long as there is sin in the world, laws will always be an incompetent safeguard against injustice and never a cure. I understood that to be a more effective advocate for justice and racial harmony, I must augment my approach to address the underlying cause of sin.

This desire to augment my approach led me to the BRAD (Black Religion in the African Diaspora) M.A.R. concentration at YDS, where I was able to study the intersection of race, religion, and the law. While I am immensely grateful for the knowledge I acquired during my studies, the most important influence during my time at YDS was the community of Black women I found. Within this community I was able to create what Patricia Collins described in her book Black Feminist Thought, as a “safe space.” This close-knit community was a space where I could speak freely and engage in self-definition while resisting the dominant ideology that could be oppressive at times. Now, I am able to move out into the world with greater confidence and a feeling of solidarity. 

As my time at YDS comes to a close, my immediate plans upon graduation are to move back to Florida and take a much-needed vacation. Following my vacation I intend to return to the practice of law, focusing on intellectual property. I also want to become a professor, teaching on the intersection of race, law and religion, and work with my church’s youth ministry. Ultimately, I see myself as an educator, but my methods and tools of educating will not be restricted to books and the classroom.

Maeba Jonas ’14 M.Div.

United Church of Christ

If there is one phrase that will stick in my memory from my time at Yale Divinity School, it is the frequent tagline to many emails, fliers, and printed bulletins: “All Are Welcome!”  

At the beginning of my time at YDS, I wrote a letter to myself, to open after graduation. In it, I express my concern that I am not in the right place. Before coming here, I was working in public health at Johns Hopkins University with intravenous drug users. I felt compelled to apply to divinity school because all of my patients were convinced that being involved in communities of faith was, without exception, the only way they managed to get into recovery. Churches, I knew, were doing meaningful work in the world, and I wanted to learn more about them. 

As I wrote that letter, I recall feeling worried that I didn’t fit in at Yale. Everyone seemed so confident in their “call,” and I was sure I was going to be pointed out as a fraud. 

To my surprise, I found myself working at orientation, elected to Student Council, leading a yoga and meditation group, and organizing a symposium on responses to sexual violence at the college and university level, and serving as a co-coordinator of Yale Women Seminarians. I even found that I loved preaching and mustered the courage to take Prophetic Preaching with Nora Tubbs Tisdale–one of the most powerful and practical classes of my time here.

Next year, as if to further affirm God’s mystery in the inner workings of the world, I will be working once again in healthcare as a chaplain in the Clinical Pastoral Education residency program at Yale New Haven Hospital. I am also discerning a call to ordination in the United Church of Christ, something that came as a bigger shock to me than to anyone else in my life.

At the end of my letter, I offered myself this prayer, “I hope that wherever you are now, that you are happy and feel an integrated sense of God’s life and light inside you.” I am not sure how it happened, but it did. All I can say by way of explanation, is that the students, faculty, and amazing staff at YDS have continually reminded me: “All Are Welcome,” “ALL are welcome,” “All of you is welcome!”

I am grateful to have been a part of this community. 

Randall Spaulding ’14 M.Div.

Unitarian Universalist

I came to YDS looking to receive a Master of Divinity from an institution that expected academic rigor, but also saw worship and spirituality as inseparable from academics and integral for ministry. As a gay minister excommunicated from my previous denomination for coming out, I was also seeking a welcoming and inclusive space where I could thrive in an atmosphere of equity and be encouraged toward wholeness in mind, spirit, and body. I found it at YDS!

The friendships I have formed at YDS have been one of the most meaningful parts of my journey here. These interfaith and ecumenical relationships have joyfully widened further my understanding of the breadth of God’s family. At YDS we do indeed “Draw the Circle Wide,” as one of our favorite songs in chapel worship expresses. Worship has also been a deeply connecting experience—our chapel services every day have nurtured and refreshed my spirit for the academic work required. I also appreciated classes that challenged me to think beyond my comfort zone and beyond traditional understandings of religion, culture, orientation, race, and class and what it means to be about the work of ministry in the world. One of the best experiences was serving as a chaplain during my Clinical Pastoral Education program at Bridgeport Hospital (Bridgeport, CT).  I came away exhausted but profoundly transformed in mind and spirit.

Upon graduation, I will begin a chaplain residency program at Yale-New Haven Hospital.  I hope to be ordained as a Unitarian Universalist minister in the coming year and serve as a parish minister or chaplain with hospice and elder care.  My music career continues to be important as well, and I hope to be able to incorporate those skills into whatever ministry I may be called.  My husband, Gary Stephens, is a realtor in New Haven, so being able to remain located in Connecticut would be wonderful. I am looking forward to what the future holds, and am grateful to YDS for these years of study, growth, worship, and relationship-building.

Mykal Tairu ’14 M.A.R.

Nondenominational 

I chose to come to YDS for the challenge. The walls of this space hold a variety of students, faculty, and staff who come from several walks of life, and everyone offers something that we all can learn from—both directly and indirectly. The diversity, especially religious diversity, can be quite challenging, but I have been able to appreciate the difference that everyone brings while constructing my own theological framework. Another reason I chose to come to YDS is because it has a legacy of training people who go out and make an impact on the world. There have been many women and men who have graduated from this place and have done (and are doing!) great things, and I wanted to be a part of such a great legacy. 

One of my most important influences at YDS has been my social life. Having the opportunity to engage several students who hold different perspectives than I has been life-giving, to say the least. Most of my learning has happened though conversations with students, staff, and professors outside of class. Also working at a local after school program with students from low income communities each day has been overwhelmingly humbling. Serving as a mentor and counselor for the children in the program helped me realize that my education is in vain if it’s not accessible and made real to everyday people.

After I graduate I will be working with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul-Orlando, which is an international charity and justice-seeking nonprofit organization. There, I will be the Florida coordinator for the National Ex-Offenders Re-Entry Program. The job will entail organizing formally incarcerated people with several faith communities and getting them involved in the various justice issues that stem from our failed criminal justice system. My experience at YDS has helped me to discern my calling and provide a theological foundation for the work I will soon begin.