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Alumni/ae Council Committees
To become involved in any of these alumni/ae committees, please email alums@hds.harvard.edu.
The Alumni/ae Activities Committee, co-chaired by Ruth Purtilo (MTS
'75, PhD '79) and the Rev. Diane Miller (MDiv '76), has a long-standing commitment to work with the
alumni/ae relations
staff to create the Alumni/ae Day program, and also works with the council and other committees to orchestrate additional alumni/ae events and programs around the country.
The Awards Committee, co-chaired by Rabbi Lynne Landsberg (MTS '76) and Precious Rasheeda Muhammad
(MTS '01), raises up models for present and future alumni and alumnae in their pursuit of justice, love, and
compassion and, to those ends, recognizes alumni and alumnae for their achievement and contribution toward the
association's mission. The committee annually confers:
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The Rabbi Martin Katzenstein Award, given in honor of Katzenstein,
ThM '58, who was associated with the School for many years and who was acting Dean of Students when he died
suddenly in 1970. The award honors an alumnus or alumna who has earned a degree from the School and who ex
hibits a passionate and helpful interest in the lives of other people, an informed and realistic faithfulness,
an embodiment of the idea that love is not so much a way of feeling as a way of acting, and a reliable sense of
humor; and
The First Decade Award, given to an alumnus or alumna whose pursuit of his or her vocation,
however understood—that is, within a formal ministry, in education, in the arts, or in a profession to
which he or she has brought the values and competencies cultivated through his or her education through the
School—is an inspiration and an encouragement to all alumni and alumnae to rededicate themselves to
the values, hopes, and visions that led them to study at the School and launched them into their service
since. The award honors an alumnus or alumna who has earned a degree from the School within the past ten
years and whose vocation confirms our hope that God is present as justice, peace, and beauty, and whose
achievement inspires our striving for truth, compassion, and service.
The Communications Committee, co-chaired by Hellena Moon (MDiv '01),
Josh Rose (MTS '99), and Matthew Shakespeare (MTS '90), works to liaise with all of the
council's committees and the Harvard University online infrastructure to promote more robust informational and
educational offerings to our alumni/ae body through
www.post.harvard.edu.
The Continuing Education Committee, chaired by Keith Frome (MTS '89), plans to
explore the possibility of create a continuing education program for HDS
alumni/ae.
The Diversity Committee, chaired by the Rev. Jack Mendelsohn (STB '45), the
Rev. Samuel Nixon (MDiv '91), and
the Rev. Dr. Chandra Taylor Smith (MDiv '88), will connect the Alumni/ae Council more closely to other affinity groups within
the alumni/ae body (such as the Black Alumni/ae Network) and on assisting the
School administration with its recruiting and admissions efforts as it seeks to continually improve the pool of applicants to HDS.
The Information Gathering Committee, chaired by Dennis Koehn (MDiv '78), is currently formulating an alumni/ae survey that will be fielded against a randomly selected sample of alumni/ae respondents over the next semester.
The Student Relations Committee, co-chaired by the Rev. Karen Vickers Budney (MDiv '91) and Sophia Bae (MDiv '01), facilitates interaction and mentorship between the alumni/ae body and the student body through visiting events such as the weekly Community Tea.
The committee also lends assistance to the Office of Admissions and Financial
Aid, the Office of Career Services, and to the efforts to identify field
education sites.
The Nominating Committee, chaired by the Rev. Dr. Chandra Taylor Smith (MDiv '88), reviews nominations for officers and members of the Alumni/ae Council and delivers a slate of nominees for a vote of approval by the
council at the Annual Meeting of the Alumni/ae Association in June of each year.
In addition, Terry Mulry (MDiv '89) and Maria Karagianis (MTS '93) are the HDS Alumni/ae Council representatives to the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA). They not only represent
the HDS alumni/ae body to the larger University alumni/ae body, but they are
also working to encourage HDS alumni/ae to get involved with their local Harvard
clubs around the world in order to further integrate the Divinity School with the rest of the
University.
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