Graduate Profile: Marney Rathbun, MDiv '25

How I've Changed 

Harvard Divinity School has made me a more compassionate and courageous person than I ever thought I could be, and I attribute that to the other people in the program. I always wondered how open-hearted people got to be that way. I still don't know how they do it, but I am grateful now to have so many examples.

Memorable Moment

Last fall, I had to commute in very early. I was able to attend Morning Prayers at Memorial Church. I'd leave my house at 5:30 am, arrive sleepy and stressed, until the choir sang. Most memorable for me was one speaker, Dori Hale, a poet who described love as being "unshackled" by death. I was already nostalgic for those mornings when I was in them.

Favorite Class or Professor

All my classes at HDS shaped my experience in profound ways, and I would like to list every one of them. But the classes taught by these professors stand out as most formative: Xhercis Mendez, Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Jorie Graham, Kelly Brown Douglas, Chris Berlin, Cheryl Giles, and Dan McKanan.

Message of Thanks 

My wife, my family and friends, my cats, the Peter Pan bus line drivers whose reliability made a long commute easy, and the South Station Caffè Nero baristas who were generous and kind. All the people who work at and around HDS—Office of Ministry Studies, for such consistent care and support. And all the students and professors—to be in the radius of your minds and hearts.