Douglas Travis, dean and president of Seminary of the Southwest since June 2007 has announced his retirement. His last day of service will be May 31, 2013. In his message to the seminary community, Dean Travis expressed his joy at having led the seminary during a time of growth in enrollment and financial support during a time of health and great hope for the future. “This has been an amazing ride and I have experienced enormous satisfaction in what we have accomplished together,” said Dean Travis.
Simultaneously, the Rt. Rev. Dena Harrison, chair of the board and bishop suffragan of the Diocese of Texas, announced the board’s appointment of Cynthia Briggs Kittredge to lead the seminary as its eighth dean and president. The Rev. Dr. Kittredge has served as the seminary’s academic dean since 2010 and professor of New Testament since she joined the faculty in 1999.
“On behalf of the board of trustees, I want to express my gratitude to our Dean and President Doug Travis for the outstanding work he has done. It is also my great joy to announce the Rev. Dr. Kittredge’s appointment as our next dean and president. She is the perfect person to lead the seminary at this time, and we are extraordinarily blessed to have her gifts and talents devoted to our institution and its faithful service to the church,” said Bishop Harrison.
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 Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd since 1999.
Dr. Kittredge is author of Community and Authority: The Rhetoric of Obedience in the Pauline Tradition and Conversations with Scripture: The Gospel of John. She co-edited Walk in the Ways of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza with Shelly Matthews and Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre.
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.
Dean Emeritus Travis will be honored at a celebration on Sunday, May 12, and in retirement will divide his time between Dallas, Texas and Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Seminary of the Southwest is an accredited Episcopal seminary in Austin, Texas offering master’s degrees for ordained ministry, counseling certification, chaplaincy and pastoral care, spiritual formation, and religion. The seminary’s mission is to form men and women for the service of Christ in lay or ordained ministry within the church and the larger society.
