Seminary of the Southwest celebrated the installation of Cynthia Briggs Kittredge as its eighth dean and president with a Festival Eucharist for the Holy Spirit on Friday, September 13 at 7:00 p.m. at The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, Austin.
Seminary trustees and members of the wider Church presented Dean Kittredge in the ceremony that drew over 300 alumni, students, family, and friends from sister seminaries and Episcopal institutions.
C. Andrew Doyle, bishop of Texas presided and Martha Horne, dean emerita of Virginia Theological Seminary, preached the sermon for the installation. Dean Horne is the first woman elected to lead an Episcopal seminary, followed by Katherine Ragsdale at Episcopal Divinity School and Cynthia Briggs Kittredge at Seminary of the Southwest.
Dean Kittredge, who served as professor of New Testament since she joined the faculty in 1999 and as academic dean since 2010, began her tenure as dean and president of Seminary of the Southwest on June 1, 2013.
Dr. Kittredge holds degrees from Williams College and Harvard Divinity School where she earned a Th.D. in 1996. She was ordained priest in 1985 and is canonically resident in the Diocese of Texas. She has served as assisting clergy at Good Shepherd since 1999.
Dr. Kittredge’s research has centered on early Christian communities, Paul’s letters, the Fourth gospel, and hermeneutics. She has published Community and Authority: The Rhetoric of Obedience in the Pauline Tradition and Conversations with Scripture: The Gospel of John and co-edited Walk in the Ways of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and The Bible in the Public Square. She contributed “Biblical Studies for Ministry: Critical and Faithful Interpretation of Scripture in an Either/Or World” in Transforming Graduate Biblical Education: Ethos and Discipline, Kent Richards and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, eds., Society of Biblical Literature.
Dean Kittredge served on the Theological Education in the Anglican Communion Steering Committee from 2009 – 2012. She was elected president of the Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars in 2008 and has served on the board of Evangelical Education Society since 2005 and now chairs the board.
Dr. Kittredge and her husband Frank D. Kittredge, Jr. live in Austin and have three grown children.
