Over 50 alumni/ae returned to the Southwest campus earlier this week for the annual Blandy Lectures and Alumni Convocation. They came to hear Sara Miles, founder and director of The Food Pantry and director for ministry at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, to celebrate the Very Rev. Steven Thomason, recipient of the Hal Perry Distinguished Alumni Award, and Dr. Steven Tomlinson who received the Durstan R McDonald Teaching Award, and to renew friendships and enjoy the company of classmates and the faculty.
Ms. Miles books include Jesus Freak: Feeding Healing Raising the Dead and Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion. She speaks, preaches and leads workshops around the country, and her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, and on National Public Radio.
Named for the first dean of Seminary of the Southwest, the Very Rev. Gray Blandy, the annual Blandy Lectures are hosted by the Southwest Alumni Association and held over the course of two days on the seminary campus in the fall of each year.
The Hal Perry Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes skillful and diligent service in the spirit of the late Hal Brook Perry who served as a faculty member at Seminary of the Southwest from 1972-1991. He was Assistant Dean of the Seminary and instructor in Church History and Liturgics.
The McDonald Teaching Award, established upon the retirement of Dean Emeritus Durstan R McDonald in 2002, recognizes exceptional teaching in the spirit of the award's namesake.
The next Blandy Lectures and Alumni Convocation are scheduled for September 29-30, 2015.
