On March 6, 2023, at the midday Eucharist and assembly, the Faculty of Seminary of the Southwest presented the Very Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas with the 2023 Durstan R McDonald Teaching Award. Brown Douglas, Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary, recently announced her retirement from EDS since her appointment in 2017.
The McDonald Award was established upon the retirement of Dean Emeritus, the Very Rev. Durstan R McDonald in 2002, and is given each year by the Faculty of Seminary of the Southwest in recognition of exceptional teaching in the spirit of the award’s namesake.
The service was highlighted by a stirring sermon from the Very Rev. Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, Dean and President, who considers Brown Douglas, “a valued colleague, and even more a beloved sister in the Council of Deans.”
Following the service, Kittredge presented Brown Douglas the award by reading the prepared citation, acknowledging her, “exceptional commitment to the roles of scholar, dean, and public intellectual, as well as your fierce advocacy for racial and social justice.”
>> Watch the Award Presentation here
>> Read the entire McDonald Award citation here
The gathering of the only two women seminary deans in The Episcopal Church – at the beginning of Woman’s History Month and at the end of Black History Month – was not lost on those in attendance. In her sermon, Kittredge addressed how her relationship with Brown Douglas has impacted her:
“(My) final mind-bending, scales-falling-from-the-eyes shift in consciousness; alarming, embarrassing, shocking, I’m still living into what it means: How the unquestioned belief in the superiority of whiteness, the assumption of white centeredness and black contingency, reading the tradition from the perspective of power and privilege has kept good white Christians from acting as though black lives do matter. Kelly Brown Douglas showed us this truth step by agonizing step. Kelly Brown Douglas made me realize I was white.”
>> Watch the entire sermon here
Douglas was named Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Theology at Union in September 2017. She was named the Bill and Judith Moyers Chair in Theology in November 2019. She also serves as the Canon Theologian at the Washington National Cathedral and Theologian in Residence at Trinity Church Wall Street.
Dean Douglas’ academic work has focused on womanist theology, Black theology, sexuality and the Black church, and racial and social justice. Prior to EDS at Union, she served as Professor of Religion at Goucher College where she held the Susan D. Morgan Professorship of Religion and is now Professor Emeritus. Before Goucher, she was Associate Professor of Theology at Howard University School of Divinity (1987-2001) and Assistant Professor of Religion at Edward Waters College (1986-1987).
