Landis, Dennis

Dennis Channing Landis (named for William Ellery Channing) grew up in the Unitarian Church of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Over the past two decades, he has been closely involved with the restoration of the 1771 meeting house that is home to the Unitarian Universalist Society in Brooklyn, Connecticut. He was for six years president of that Society and serves as its archivist. A long-term project is the history of the Brooklyn congregation, the only Congregational church body in Connecticut to accept Unitarian theology.

Landis was for 20 years editor of a bibliographical project that produced the six-volume reference series, European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Books Printed in Europe Relating to the Americas, 1493-1776 [i.e. 1750]. He is the Curator of European Books in the John Carter Brown Library, a special collection of early Americana at Brown University. He studied rare book bibliography at Columbia University and earned a Ph.D. in German literature from the University of Connecticut, where he also taught for three years. His research interests range from European intellectual history in the 17th century to American religious history of the 19th. He is married to Ann Phelps Barry, a librarian and church musician.

Articles: Celia Burleigh, Samuel J. May

Lavan, Spencer

Since his ordination in 1962, Spencer Lavan has served a Unitarian Universalist minister mostly by teaching in higher education. He taught “Religions of Islam and India” and was a dean to undergraduates at Tufts University (1969-79). He organized and chaired the Department of Medical Humanities at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in Maine (1982-88). Finally, he served as President and Dean of the Meadville/Lombard Theological School at the University of Chicago (1988-96). From 1984-88 he was editor of the Journal of Medical Humanities and Bio-Ethics. He is currently serving as a co-editor for the Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography. He is the author of several books on religious subjects, a former president of the Unitarian Universalist Historical Society, and a founder of Collegium: Liberal Religious Studies.

Lavan is a graduate of Tufts University, Harvard Divinity School, and McGill University (M.A .in Islamic Studies and Ph.D. in Comparative Religion). He has received three honorary degrees: from the Protestant Theological Institute of Cluj/Kolosvar, Romania, the school preparing Hungarian-speaking Unitarian ministers for pulpits in Transylvania, 1995; from Meadville/Lombard Theological School, 1997; and from the University of New England, 1999. He is married to Susan Lavan. They are the parents of four adult children and reside in Harpswell, Maine.

Articles: Walter Channing, Caroline Dall, Charles Dall, Hajom Kissor Singh, Eliza Sunderland, Jabez T. Sunderland

Lloyd, Jeanne

The Rev. Jeanne Lloyd is a community minister ordained by the Unitarian Universalist Congregations in West Hartford and Manchester, Connecticut, and fellowshipped by the Unitarian Universalist Association. As a minister, Jeanne facilitates a process whereby all people and organizations are encouraged to contribute their gifts and resources to build stronger communities. She is settled as Director of Community Services at The Arc of the Farmington Valley in Canton, Connecticut, where she advocates for justice on behalf of people with disabilities by promoting community inclusion for all people. Jeanne is also certified by the American Association on Mental Retardation as a pastoral care giver and uses art as a form of therapeutic self-expression for people with developmental disabilities. As Co-President for The Unitarian Universalist Society of Community Ministries (formerly known as The Society for the Larger Ministry), she also helps run the membership organization for lay and professional community ministers. Frances Wayland Wood was her husband’s, Robert Hard’s, Great Aunt, and was also known as “Auntie” to hundreds of congregational members.

Articles: Frances Wayland Wood

MacDonald, JoAnn M.

JoAnn M. Macdonald is a non-fiction writer who lives in Joppa, Maryland, near Chesapeake Bay. After becoming a member of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Harford County (UUHFC) in Churchville, Maryland in 1998, she began writing in earnest about Unitarian and Universalist women of the 1800s. JoAnn contributed to her church’s monthly Newsletter by writing biographies of UUFHC members. Occasionally she speaks at church on topics such as Unitarians’ and Universalists’ involvement in the beginnings of public education in the United States and UU women in the ministry.

Among her writings is an article, “The Tradition that Transcends Time”, which discusses living-as-married from her personal point of view. It was published in the spring 2001 “Commitments” issue of Inward Springs, a periodical for liberal religious families.

Articles: Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Maria Mitchell

Magidson, Errol

Errol Magidson lives in the Beverly neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer at the Institute of African Studies of Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone, West Africa, 1965-67. In 1971 he accepted a faculty position at the City Colleges of Chicago, eventually ending up teaching psychology at Daley College, one of the City Colleges. During his time as a professor, Magidson edited a special issue of Educational Technology devoted to “Trends in Computer-Assisted Instruction,” 1978; received the Socrates Teacher of the Year Award, 1998; and was named Distinguished Professor, 2002-2003. Since retiring in 2004, he has taught part-time at Saint Xavier University and Roosevelt University, and has presented workshops for school teachers on using the computer to develop documentaries. He also gives presentations and workshops on developing and using PowerPoint effectively in the classroom.

A recent widower, Magidson has two adult children, Lisa and Michael. He is a member of Beverly Unitarian Church, which is housed in Givins’ Irish Castle. Since December 2009 he has been working on a documentary,Chicago’s Only Castle: The History of Givins’ Irish Castle and Its Keepers, which premiered September, 2011, in honor of the 125th anniversary of when groundbreaking took place. This documentary is dedicated to Jan Magidson, Errol’s wife of 35 years, who passed away in March 2011, and to Bill Diana, president of Men of the Castle, who passed away in June 2011.

Articles: Rufus Austin White, Florence Ellen Kollock Crooker

Mann, Anthony

Anthony Mann was educated at Longcroft School, Beverley and at the universities of Warwick, Manchester and Keele in the United Kingdom. His doctorate The Brahmins and Britain: the significance of British models in the forming of the upper-class of Boston, Massachusetts, 1780-1840 was awarded by the University of Keele in 2000.

He is the author of “Unitarian Voluntary Societies and the Redefinition of Elite Authority in Boston, 1780-1820” in Secular and Religious Reform Movements in America – Ideas, Beliefs and Social Change eds., D. K. Adams/C. A. van Minnen (Edinburgh University Press, 1999); “‘A Nation first in all the arts of civilisation’: Boston’s post-Revolutionary elites view Great Britain” American Nineteenth Century History (Summer 2001); and “How ‘poor country boys’ became Boston Brahmins: The Rise of the Appletons and the Lawrences in Ante-bellum Massachusetts” Historical Journal of Massachusetts (forthcoming Winter 2003).

Articles: Josiah Quincy

Mannis, Jedediah

Jedediah Mannis is the full-time executive director of the Shelter Island Fund, a non-profit organization that specializes in the protection of open space in Massachusetts using limited development as a preservation tool. Prior to heading Shelter Island, he practiced real estate law in Boston, Massachusetts. He donates his legal expertise to homeless men and women in Boston under the auspices of Ecclesia Ministries, an outdoor church for homeless people led by the Rev. Deborah Little, an Episcopal priest.

Mannis attended Yale (1966), Yale Law School (1969), and is currently a student at the Harvard Divinity School. He edited (with Galen Wilson) a book of civil war letters, Bound to be a Soldier: the Letters of James T. Miller(Knoxville: University of Tennessee, 2001), and is working on a book about Joseph Tuckerman.

Jed and his wife Joyce live in Winchester, Massachusetts, where he has been actively involved in municipal affairs, most recently as the chair of the town’s Conservation Commission.

Articles: Joseph Tuckerman

Marsh, John

John Marsh serves as Lead Minister of The First Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa. He was dedicated as an infant and attended Sunday School at the First Parish Unitarian Church in Norwell, Massachusetts. He was an English literature major at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and has a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard University. He is also a graduate of the World Council of Church’s graduate school program in Bossey, Switzerland. John has served congregations in California, New York State and in Edmonton, Alberta. It was in western Canada that John met his wife, Alison Patrick and where their three children (now grown) were born.

Articles: Samuel Gridley Howe, Margaret Laurence

Martin, Virginia

Virginia Martin has a longstanding interest in research on women’s education, women’s contributions and women’s professional roles. Her interest in Eliza and Helen Reid reflects the author’s concern in the development of educational opportunities for women and in professions that have become primarily careers for women.

As a retired speech-language pathologist she has direct knowledge of and experience with professional associations and as a former school clinician has had a direct involvement with health and social issues. Her research on the history of her profession in Canada is on several provincial and national association websites. She is a member of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Winnipeg. Some of her research on individuals in the Winnipeg UU church is on its website.

Articles: Eliza Anne McIntosh Reid, Helen Richmond Young Reid

Mehler, Ralph

Ralph C. Mehler is an insurance broker residing in his hometown of Sharpsville, Pennsylvania. As a board member of the Sharpsville Area Historical Society, he has a particular interest in the history of the town that is so closely associated with the family of noted industrialist “General” James Pierce. The Pierces were leading members of the Universalist congregation there and paid to erect its church in 1882. In researching the history of the First Universalist Church of Sharpsville, Mehler was able to obtain its listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The building is now owned and is being restored as its headquarters by the Historical Society. Mehler received a B.A. in linguistics from Yale.

Articles: Clarence J. Harris

McEmry, Aaron

Aaron McEmrys is a student at Meadville Lombard Theological School, where he is preparing for ministry. Before coming to Meadville, Aaron worked as a union organizer and educator. He received his B.A. from the National Labor College at the George Meany Center for Labor Studies.

Articles: Brook Farm

McGonigle, Gregory

Gregory William McGonigle was raised in Westwood, Massachusetts, and while attending high school converted to Unitarian Universalism. In 2000 he received an A.B. with Distinction from Brown University in Religious Studies, focused on South Asian religions and contemporary American religious history. While an undergraduate, he studied abroad in India and sought to increase appreciation of religious pluralism in Brown’s academic and cocurricular life. He is now a Master of Divinity candidate at Harvard Divinity School and an aspirant to UU ministerial fellowship. He is a member of the Harvard Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Students Executive Board, and is a friend of First Parish in Cambridge (UU). He has worked for Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and Committee on the Study of Religion, and is interested in pursuing doctoral studies and a career integrating scholarship, teaching, and ministry.

Articles: James Freeman Clarke

Miano, David

David Miano is an ancient historian, specializing in the histories of the Near East, Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, and China. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego, and is the author of Shadow on the Steps: Time Measurement in Ancient Israel, geared toward scholars, How to Know Stuff, a little e-book designed for the general public, and several anthologies designed for classroom use, including Ideas in the Making: A Sourcebook for World Intellectual History to 1300 and Pen Stylus, and Chisel: An Ancient Egypt Sourcebook.

Articles: James Freeman

Mishra-Marzetti, Manish

The Rev. Manish Mishra-Marzetti serves as Senior Minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is a co-editor of the 2018-2019 UUA common read, Justice on Earth: People of Faith Working at the Intersections of Race, Class, and the Environment. He has served extensively in Unitarian Universalist leadership, including as a member of the UUA Board of Trustees; President of DRUUMM (our UU people of color organization); Commissioner on the UUA Commission on Appraisal, co-authoring its report Engaging Our Theological Diversity; Secretary of the Board of Starr King School for the Ministry; and as an author and advocate of the 2007 General Assembly resolution confronting gender identity-related discrimination. He brings to the ministry his multicultural experience serving as a U.S. diplomat during the Clinton administration.

Articles: A. Powell Davies

Morgan, John C.

John C. Morgan has been a Unitarian Universalist minister for over twenty years, serving congregations in New England, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where he has been minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Berks County since 2000. He is also a newspaper columnist, including the Reading Eagle-Times. He has published many articles, poems, and books, the last being Awakening the Soul: A Book of Daily Meditations (Boston: Skinner House Books, 2001).

Before entering the ministry he was a community program director and newspaper journalist. Programs he directed have won national awards, as have his newspaper articles. He holds an undergraduate degree in sociology and religion from Albright College in Reading, Pa., a Master’s in the Philosophy of Religion from Oberlin College in Ohio, an M.Div from Andover Newton Seminary outside Boston, and a doctorate in ministry from the Lutheran Theological Seminary of Philadelphia. He is married and has one son.

Articles: George de Benneville, Abel C. Thomas

Morris, Richard

Richard Morris is author of Cologne No. 10 For Men, a Vietnam War novel, “Skytroopers,” a song series he wrote in 1967 while serving in Vietnam, and Well Considered, a thriller about race and history in Maryland (see www.richardmorrisauthor.wordpress.com). Earlier in his career, he designed and built solar homes, conducted housing research, and wrote books, articles, and speeches for the National Association of Home Builders.

He resides in Hyattsville, Maryland, and is a member of the Goodloe Memorial Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Bowie, Maryland, where he is a past president and where he directed the choir for twelve years. He did historical research leading to the name change from Bowie Unitarian Universalist Fellowship to Goodloe Memorial Unitarian Universalist Congregation, and wrote the chapter on Don Speed Smith Goodloe in Darkening the Doorways: Black Trailblazers and Missed Opportunities in Unitarian Universalism, Mark D. Morrison-Reed, Ed., Skinner House, 2011.

Articles: Don Speed Smith Goodloe

Mylvaganam, Thurairaja

Thurairaja ‘Raja’ Mylvaganam was born in Malaysia in 1949 to Ceylon Tamil parents whose religion was Saivism (one root of what is generically called Hinduism). He was educated in the neo-colonial school system in Malaysia. After high school he went to England, where, while making a fruitless attempt to be an accountant, he was inculturated into ‘the Sixties’ instead. After a promoting extra-curricular education in Malaysia, in the eighties he returned to England and joined academic life. He ventured to the United States in 1984. He joined Meadville as a D.Min student with the specific intention of writing a biography of William Roberts. This remains an ongoing and uncompleted project. He has received graduate degrees from Mundelein College, Chicago (M.A.,1987), and Meadville Lombard Theological School (M Div.,1993). During his ministerial training Raja served as Intern Minister at May Memorial Unitarian Society in Syracuse, New York and Intern Campus Minister at Hendriks Chapel, Syracuse University. After completing programs conducted by the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education, he worked as a Campus Minister and Chaplain at the Channing Murray Foundation and the Seton Medical Center in Austin, Texas. He now lives in Copenhagen, Denmark with his spouse Geneviève Trintignac. He continues his research into the Unitarian mission in the wake of the Enlightenment.

Articles: William Roberts

Nagel, Laura

Laura Nagel is the founding Executive Director of the International Convocation of Unitarian Universalist Women, 2010. She served as Board President and then as Executive Director of Southwest Unitarian Universalist Women (SWUUW), 2004-2009, for which she formed a nonprofit corporation. She first met Margot Adler while arranging for her to be a keynote speaker for SWUUW in 2005. She also served as co-convener of Unitarian Universalist Women and Religion’s core group from 2005-2007.

Laura has a Masters degree in Urban Affairs and Policy Analysis from the New School for Social Research and had a career as an urban planner specializing in housing and community development. She and her husband recently retired to Monterey, California, Laura’s home town, where they rebuilt her mother’s old house on the beach about which Laura wrote the blog Phebe Force. They are both members of the UU Church of the Monterey Peninsula, where Laura serves on the board and they both sing in the choir. They have two adult daughters.

Articles: Margot Adler

Noble, Laurie Carter

Laurie Carter Noble, writer and long-time Unitarian Universalist and social justice activist, has written extensively on issues affecting women and children. She has taught writing at Villanova University and Bryn Mawr College, as well as for the American Management Association and the Boston Center for Adult Education. For several years she was the feature columnist in her community newspaper, the Back Bay Courant, writing with a focus on Boston history. She teaches writing workshops and is particularly interested in helping women write the stories of their lives and those of their foremothers.

A founding member of the Unitarian Universalist Women’s Heritage Society, Noble served as an editorial consultant for the UUWHS anthology, Standing Before Us: Unitarian Universalist Women and Social Reform, 1776-1936. She edited Reverend Violet Kochendoerfer’s autobiography, A Modern Pioneer. She is currently researching the life of suffragist and Universalist minister Olympia Brown in preparation for a new biography.

Articles: Abigail Adams, Olympia Brown

Nugent, Jim

Jim Nugent is a writer and designer living in Matteson, Illinois. He grew up in Mt. Clemens, Michigan where he attended Zion (German) Evangelical Church with his family. “It was a liberal congregation influenced by German Pietism,” Jim says, “but, I was always an agnostic or atheist . . . still am!”

In 1962, Jim registered as a concientious objector. The following year he traveled to Southern Illinois University to study design with R. Buckminster Fuller. As a student he was active in the Student Peace Union and the Student Non-violent Freedom Committee. Good food and talk attracted Jim to the Sunday evening student group at the Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship.

Jim worked as a communication/media specialist with behavioral psychologists, criminologists, mathematicians, and in Buckminster Fuller’s research office before joining the University of Illinois field staff in 1974 as a communication generalist.

Jim, his wife Becky, and their three children have been members of the Universalist Unitarian Church in Peoria, Illinois and the Abraham Lincoln UU Congregation in Springfield, Illinois. More recently they have attended the UU Comunity Church in Park Forest, Beverly Unitarian Church, and Unity Temple UU Congregation in Oak Park. He served on the board of the Unitarian Universalist History and Heritage Society, 2010-2014.

Current interests include writing, design, mathematics visualization, history, and bicycling. Jim started working with the DUUB in 2004 as a contributor. In addition to being a contributor of biographies, he took on the position of managing editor in 2010. As of November 2016, he had fact-checked and edited 75 biographies written by contributors and researched and written 10 biographies from scratch.

Articles: William Bentley, Nathaniel Bowditch, John Murray Forbes, Lucia Fidelia Woolley Gillette, Elizabeth Briant Lee & Alfred McClung Lee, George Mortimer Pullman, Helen Richmond Young Reid, Henry Nelson Wieman, John Bird Wilkins, Clarence Mott Woolley, Edward Mott Woolley, Smith Rensselaer Woolley

Papa, Stephan

Stephan Papa is a Unitarian Universalist minister who has served as the senior minister of the First Universalist Church of Denver, Colorado since 1982. He previously served Unitarian Universalist congregations in Florida and New York. He became a Unitarian Universalist at the Universalist Church in Wausau, Wisconsin, and is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin (B.S.) and the Meadville/Lombard Theological School (M.A., D.Min.), which is affiliated with the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is a student of Unitarian Universalist history, having studied Unitarian history in England at Manchester College in Oxford and traveled to Hungary, Romania (Transylvania), and Poland to visit early Unitarian historical sites. He is the author of a biography of Abner Kneeland, The Last Man Jailed for Blasphemy (1998).

Additionally, he has served on the Fund for a Just Society panel of the Unitarian Universalist Association and founded The Freedom Fund in his congregation which assists indigent women in their reproductive choices. He is also the author of An Agnostic Talks to God. He currently lives in Denver with his wife, Patty, and their daughter, Alexandra.

The Last Man Jailed for Blasphemy is available from the UUA Bookstore (1-800-215-9076), item #6000.

Articles: Abner Kneeland

Parker, Sandra

Sandra Parker was born in 1943. She received her B.A. from the State University of New York at Geneseo, 1965, and her M.A., 1967, and Ph.D., 1968, from Case-Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She taught English at Hiram College (Hiram, Ohio), 1968-2000, where she is now Professor Emerita. Currently she does part-time teaching at Florida Gulf Coast University and Southwest Florida College in Ft. Myers, Florida. She has written three books on 19th-century Ohio women writers: Home Materials, Ohio’s Nineteenth-Century Regional Women’s Fiction (1998), After the Western Reserve, The Ohio Fiction of Jessie Brown Pounds (1999), and ‘Tecumseh’ and Other Stories of the Ohio River Valley by Julia L. Dumont(2000). She is preparing a book on Frances Gage.

Articles: Frances Dana Barker Gage

Pedon, Creighton

W. Creighton Peden is the Fuller E. Callaway professor emeritus of philosophy, Augusta State University. He was educated at Davidson College (B.A.), the University of Chicago (M.A.), and at St. Andrews University, Scotland (Ph.D.). He wrote Wieman’s Empirical Process Philosophy (1977), The Chicago School: Voices of Liberal Religious Thought (1987), The Philosopher of Free Religion: Francis Ellingwood Abbot (1992), Civil War Pulpit to World’s Parliament of Religion: The Thought of William James Potter (1996), A Good Life in a World Made Good, Albert Eustace Haydon (2006), An Intellectual Biography of David Atwood Wasson (2008), Evolutionary Theist: An Intellectual Biography of Minot Judson Savage (2009), and many articles and chapters for other books. With Charles Hartshorne he wrote Whitehead’s View of Reality (1981). He co-edited H. N. Wieman’s Creative Freedom: Vocation of Liberal Religion (1982), H. N. Wieman’s Science Serving Faith (1987), The Chicago School of Theology: Pioneers in Religious Inquiry (1996), The Collected Essays of Francis Ellingwood Abbot (1996), Essays and Sermons of William James Potter (2003), and Pragmatism and the Rise of Religious Humanism, The Writings of Albert Eustace Haydon (2006).

Articles: Francis Ellingwood Abbot

Pettee, David

David Allen Pettee was born August 18, 1957, in Huntington, NY. He is a seventh generation Unitarian Universalist, and was educated at Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York (B.S. in Recreation, 1975), Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts (M.S.W., 1983) and Starr King School for the Ministry, Berkeley, California (M. Div., 1988). During his first year in seminary, he walked across America on the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament, which was nominated for the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize. The following year he went to Ukraine as part of a citizen diplomacy exchange.
Since 1993, Pettee has served a hospice ministry with the Sutter Visiting Nurses Association & Hospice in Emeryville, California. In 1994, he was both ordained by the First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco, and commenced an affiliation as a community minister. In 1996, he was one of 36 religious leaders who joined respondents supporting two physician-assisted suicide cases that were heard before the United States Supreme Court. He has been active in the support of community ministry, and serves on the West Regional Sub-Committee on Candidacy. He was the visiting minister in residence at Starr King School in Spring, 2001, and taught a course on the history of community ministry within the Unitarian Universalist tradition, seeding a collection of materials relating to the history of community ministry at Starr King School.

David and his wife Mindy have two daughters, Hannah and Sophie. He is currently working on a biography of John Turner Sargent.

Articles: John Turner Sargent

Pochatko, Andy

Andy Pochatko is an independent scholar and reference librarian for the Harbor-Topky Memorial Library, Ashtabula, Ohio. He has graduate degrees from Clarion University of Pennsylvania (M.S., Library Science, 2010) and Bowling Green State University (M.A., English, 2014). He lives near Meadville, PA, with his wife, son, and four cats.

Articles: Harm Jan Huidekoper

Resly, Erik Martínez

Erik Martínez Resly is currently the lead minister at The Sanctuaries in Washington, D.C. He did his undergraduate work at Brown University and completed his master of divinity degree at Harvard Divinity School. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a recipient of the Hopkins Shareholder Award. He serves on the Advisory Board of The Radical Spirit and The Journal of Comparative Theology.

He grew up overseas and was confirmed in the Unitarische Freie Religionsgemeinde in Frankfurt, Germany.

Articles: Clemens Taesler

Richards, Marilyn

Marilyn Richards is a lifelong Unitarian Universalist. She graduated from Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. She has been a computer programmer and has taught international folk dancing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At present she is a Unitarian Universalist seminarian at Andover Newton Theological school and the Intern at the First Church Unitarian Universalist in Milford, Massachusetts.

Articles: Rammohun Roy

Ritchie, Susan

Susan Ritchie is the Minister of the North Unitarian Universalist Congregation (formerly the Dublin Unitarian Universalist Church) in suburban Columbus, Ohio. She also teaches Unitarian Universalist History and Polity at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio and Comparative World Religion at the Comparative Studies Department of the Ohio State University. Prior to entering the ministry Ritchie earned a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies. She has published a variety of articles relating the constructions of subjectivity and political oppression to folklore, teen pregnancy, the medical humanities, and postcolonialism. Her current research topic is secularism as a specific reflection of liberal Protestantism.

Articles: Horace Mann, Mary Peabody Mann

Robbins, Paula

Paula I. Robbins, PhD is in her fifth career and second retirement. She lives and gardens in the Westwood CoHousing Community in Asheville, North Carolina, where she is a freelance medical editor and writer, part-time garden guide at the North Carolina Arboretum, and active volunteer at the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement.  She is the author of four books and many articles, including The Royal Family of Concord: Samuel, Elizabeth and Rockwood Hoar and their Friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson (Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2003) which is available via e-mail at Orders@Xlibris.com.

Paula served as Communications Chair and Newsletter Editor for the Thomas Jefferson District UUA from 1996-1999. She holds degrees from Vassar College, Boston University, and the University of Connecticut. She has two sons and four grandchildren.

Articles: Abigail Adams Eliot, Hoar Family, Ezra Ripley

Robinson, David

David M. Robinson is Oregon Professor of English and Distinguished Professor of American Literature in the Department of English at Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon. He is a scholar specializing in Emerson, Thoreau and the New England Transcendentalist movement, and in the early history of American Unitarianism. He was educated at the University of Texas at Austin (BA 1970); Harvard Divinity School (MTS 1972); and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (MA 1973; PhD 1976). Robinson has held research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies, served as a Fulbright Guest Professor at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and as Chair of the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Panel on Theological Education. He has also directed several National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminars for teachers on the Transcendentalist movement. His publications include Apostle of Culture: Emerson as Preacher and Lecturer (1982); William Ellery Channing: Selected Writings (1985); The Unitarians and the Universalists (1985); Emerson and the Conduct of Life (1993); and World of Relations: The Achievement of Peter Taylor (1998). He is currently engaged in teaching courses in American Literature at Oregon State, and preparing a new book on Henry David Thoreau.

Articles: John Sullivan Dwight, George Ripley

Ronalds, Beverley, G

Beverley F. Ronalds grew up in Melbourne, Australia and completed post-graduate studies at Imperial College, London. Serving as Group Executive at Australia’s national science agency CSIRO and Woodside Chair of Oil and Gas Engineering at the University of Western Australia (UWA), she also has significant industry experience in the design of offshore production facilities. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Institution of Engineers Australia and the Australian Institute of Company Directors, as well as an adjunct professor at UWA. Find out more about her book Sir Francis Ronalds: Father of the Electric Telegraph along with research on her other Unitarian forebears at: SirFrancisRonalds.co.uk.

Articles: Samuel Carter, Thomas Gibson, Thomas Field Gibson, Elizabeth (Betsey) Ronalds, Sir Francis Ronalds

Ross, Warren

Warren Ross began his lifelong commitment to Unitarian Universalism in his teens as president of the youth group at All Souls Church in New York City. After time out for graduate work, the United States Army, getting married, and starting a career in medical journalism, he served as the first president of the New York Metropolitan Unitarian Universalist District, as a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association board of trustees, and then as a trustee of Starr King School for the Ministry. He is a contributing editor of UU World and the author of two Skinner House books. He has held various offices at the Flushing Unitarian Church (where he first heard about Veatch funds) and at the Community Unitarian Church of White Plains, both of New York.

He was a founder and principal of Kallir, Philips, Ross, a medical communications company in New York City, and served two four-year terms on the Rye, New York City Council, the first as a member, the second as mayor. He is the father of three daughters and lives in Rye with his wife, Lucile.

Articles: Caroline Veatch

Ruchotzke, Renee Zimelis

Renee Zimelis Ruchotzke is currently preparing for ministry as a modified residency student at Meadville Lombard Theological School. She graduated from Kent State University in 1990 with a B.A. in History. She is serving as the interim Director of Religious Education at East Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Kirtland, Ohio and is the Campus Ministry Coordinator at Kent State University for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Kent, where she is also a member.

Articles: Caroline Bartlett Crane

Ruston, Alan

Alan Ruston was editor of the Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society (UK) 1988-2012, twice president of the Society, and is currently a Vice-President. He has had published numerous books and articles on British Unitarian and dissenting history over a period of forty-five years. His most recent book is On the Side of Liberty A Unitarian Historical Miscellany, Lindsey Press, 2016. Alan has written specifically on the subject for family historian–My Ancestor was an English Presbyterian/ Unitarian, published by the Society of Genealogists in London.

An active Unitarian, Alan has held many posts within the movement. He is currently Chairman of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, and a well-known writer and speaker within British Unitarianism. He is a retired civil servant and lives near Watford in Hertfordshire.

Articles: Robert Aspland, Seth Curtis Beach, Robert Brook Aspland, John Relly Beard, Sir John Bowring, Sir John Carter, Austen Chamberlain, Joseph Chamberlain, Neville Chamberlain, Field Marshal Neville Chamberlain, Brooke Herford, Lawrence Pearsall Jacks, Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, Henry Solly, Robert Spears

Schulman, Frank

Frank Schulman (26 Mar 1927-4 Jan 2006 ) graduated from Harvard Divinity School (S.T.B.) and was ordained at the Arlington Street Church in Boston in 1954. He served churches in Worcester, Massachusetts; Youngstown, Ohio; Emerson Unitarian Church in Houston, Texas; and, in retirement, The Huntsville (Texas) Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. He also served in Horsham and Oxford, England. At Oxford he supervised the training of the divinity students at Manchester College, Oxford, taught various courses, and was appointed to the Faculty of Theology of Oxford University (the first Unitarian ever to hold that appointment). He holds a D.Min. from Meadville Lombard, having done his doctoral work on Emerson’s Reasons for Leaving the Parish Ministry. He also holds four degrees from Oxford (including the D.Phil).

Schulman is the author of three books on English Unitarian History and a number of pamphlets and articles. Dr. Schulman served on numerous denominational and civic organizations. He and his wife, Alice, had four children and lived in The Woodlands, Texas.

Articles: Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Martineau, Charles Wellbeloved

Seaburg, Alan

Alan Seaburg was Librarian of Crane Theological School, Tufts University; Co-minister with Kenneth Patton of the Charles Street Meeting House in Boston; and Curator of Manuscripts for 25 years at the Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School. When he retired in 1995 the school made him Curator of Manuscripts, Emeritus. In 1999 the Meadville/Lombard Theological School in Chicago gave him an honorary D.D. He was for many years Poetry Editor of Snowy Egret. His poetry has been issued as Thoreau Collage (1978), The City of Love (1990), On My Own (1992), 52 Tavistock Square (1994), and Affectionately Yours, Paris (in the Anne Miniver Reader, 2008).

With his brother Carl Seaburg he wrote Medford on the Mystic (1980), a town history in photographs and text, and The Incredible Ditch (1997), a history of the Middlesex Canal. He has edited Carl Seaburg and Stanley Paterson, The Ice King: Frederic Tudor and His Circle (2003), written An American Artist: Thomas Dahill (2011), and contributed “The Evolution of Religion in Twentieth-Century Cambridge” to Cambridge in the Twentieth Century (2007). Alan Seaburg’s other works include Cambridge on the Charles (2001), a history of Cambridge, Massachusetts, At the Fair (1990), a study of the Boston immigrant experience, and the ebook, Botega a Roma: Tom Dahill at the American Academy (2007). His writings appear in many magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, Amherst Review, Hawaii Review, and Commonweal. His “A Visit to Crane Theological School” is in the Unitarian Universalist Christian (2005).

JULY 2018 UPDATE: Rev. Dr. Alan Leslie Seaburg, 86, of Billerica, formerly of Cambridge, died on July 22, 2018 in Boston. He was born in Medford and was the son of the late Nils Henry and Eva (Gerrard) Seaburg.

Visit the website of Anne Miniver Press: Publisher of Fine Literature, for more information and access to free online editions. Visit Amazon.com to find out more about Alan’s latest book: The Unitarian Pope: Brooke Herford’s Ministry in Chicago and Boston, 1876-1892.

Articles:  Horatio Alger, Johannes A.C.F. Auer, P. T. Barnum, Seth Curtis Beach, William Bentley, Georgene Esther Bowen, Bruce Wallace Brotherston, Seth Chandler, Paul Carnes, Ernest Cassara, Alfred S. Cole, John Cousens, Albert Dieffenbach, John Hassler Dietrich, Richard Eddy, Frederick May Eliot, Roger Etz, Henry Wilder Foote II, Victor A. Friend, Judith Ripley Goodenough, Dana McLean Greeley, Robert Edward Green, Edward Everett Hale, Frank Oliver Hall, Alice Harrison, Brooke Herford, John Holmes, Homer Alexander Jack, Charles Rhind Joy, Andrew Kuroda, The Larger Hope, Charles Lyttle, Jean Mayer, Lee Sullivan McCollester, Charles Edwards Park, Arthur Peacock, Leslie Pennington, Thomas Handasyd Perkins, Richard Pierce, John Moses Ratcliff, James Joseph Reeb, Curtis Williford Reese, William Rice, Elmo Arnold Robinson, Caroline Soule, Albert Warren Stearns, Charles Vickery, Von Ogden Vogt, Robert Nelson West, Earl Morse Wilbur, Rhys William

Senghas, Catherine

Rev. Catherine Senghas is the Senior Minister & Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry. Catherine graduated from Andover Newton Theological School in 2009. Prior to entering ordained ministry, Catherine enjoyed a 20-year career in accounting and financial management, first in the private sector in high-tech, and later in the non-profit realm in sponsored research. She is a graduate of Smith College (BA, 1977) and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (MBA, 1981). Catherine also serves on the Board of the UU Buddhist Fellowship.

Articles: Mary White Ovington

Senghas, Dorothy

Dorothy “Dorrie” Senghas was born on March 7, 1930 and grew up a Unitarian in the First Parish in Concord, Massachusetts. She received her B.A. from Radcliffe (Harvard) and an M.A. in History from the University of California (Davis) and an MLS from Simmons College. She served as Director of the Simmons College Library from 1974 to 1979. She moved to Burlington, Vermont when her husband became minister of the UU Society of Burlington. Until her retirement she worked at the libraries at the University of Vermont. She later served as the Archivist of the Burlington congregation. She was chair of Vermont ACLU, 1983-85. She served for eight years on the UU Funding Program and was on the Board of the UU Mountain Retreat and Learning Center. She was a practicing Zen Buddhist. Dorrie died on December 10, 2002.

Articles: Mary White Ovington

Simonson, Nelson

Nelson C. Simonson was born in in Detroit, Michigan and grew up in New York City. He served in the United States Navy, 1944-74. While in the Navy he attended Cornell University, the University of Rochester (B.S. in Mechanical Engineering), and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Bachelor of Civil Engineering). He then worked in the Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps.
Simonson joined the Unitarian Church of the Larger Fellowship in the 1950s. Since then he has attended Channing Memorial Church in Newport, Rhode Island and the Unitarian Church of Arlington, Virginia. On retiring from the Navy, he moved to Reading, Pennsylvania and took a job with a large engineering firm. There he joined the historic First Unitarian Universalist Church of Berks County, Reading, Pennsylvania and “fell in love with” the history and theology of Universalism. He has been on the board of the Joseph Priestley District, a president of the Pennsylvania Universalist Convention, and on the board of the Murray Grove Association.

Nelson and his wife Caroline have five children, eight grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. He is now fully retired and lives in a community run by the United Church of Christ outside of Reading, Pennsylvania.

Articles: George de Benneville, James Shrigley

Slyfield, Brian

Brian Slyfield, a native of Horsham, has long been fascinated by the people and events relating to its long history. After taking a degree in English at Manchester University he enjoyed a career in magazine publishing, and now, in retirement, has time to concentrate on the research and writing of books and articles of local appeal. Among other publications, he has produced a popular history of Horsham. He is editor of the Horsham Society Newsletter, which every month features material on the town’s past, much of it written by him.

He is a keen collector of antiquarian books and pamphlets relating to Horsham and Sussex. His collection has become an invaluable research source. He lectures on local history and book collecting both at home and abroad. He was invited, for example, to give a series of talks in Horsham, Pennsylvania, on the origins of that township and its relationship with Horsham, Sussex.

Brian was born on 21 October 1941 and has two children by his first marriage. He is now married to Jill, and they live at Arun House, one of Horsham’s historic houses, which dates back to 1541 and was once owned by the family of the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Articles: Matthew Caffyn

Smith, Bonnie Hurd

Bonnie Hurd Smith has been researching Judith Sargent Murray for over twenty years; at Simmons College as part of her undergraduate and her graduate studies in history and communications, as a board member and president, 1992-96, of the Sargent-Murray-Gilman-Hough House in Gloucester, Mass. (Murray’s home); as founder of the Judith Sargent Murray Society, 1996; and as an independent scholar, author and lecturer. Smith has reissued many of Murray’s essays and her catechism in print and electronically. She has also embarked on a multiyear effort to transcribe and publish Murray’s letters; Smith published From Gloucester to Philadelphia in 1790: Observations, Anecdotes, and Thoughts from the Letters of Judith Sargent Murray in 1998, and, most recently, The Letters I Left Behind, Judith Sargent Murray Papers, Letter Book 10 in 2005.

Smith devotes her career to combining history and communications in an effort to make history accessible, engaging, and well-funded. She has served as executive director of the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail, created a similar walking tour in Salem, Mass. (both feature Murray), and was director of external affairs for the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. Smith started her own company, Hurd Smith Communcations, in 1990, through which she has provided services in the areas of organizational management, public relations and marketing, event planning, fundraising, graphic design, and writing. Smith also currently serves as executive director of the Ipswich (Massachusetts) Historical Society.

Articles: Judith Sargent Murray

Speck, Richard

Richard Speck is the Acting District Executive for the Joseph Priestley District of the Unitarian Universalist Association. From 1991-2000 he was the parish minister in Vero Beach, Florida. Richard holds the Doctor of Ministry degree (1990) from Meadville/Lombard Theological School. He has a B.S. in Biology from the University of Memphis and an M.A. in Health Administration from the University of Illinois, Sangamon.

Richard is married to Janet Tillman. They have no children. He has been researching the life of Vincent Silliman and has begun a biography of Silliman with the hope of publication in the near future.

Articles: Vincent Brown Silliman

Sprecher, Paul

Paul Sprecher is a candidate for the Unitarian Universalist ministry and a student at the New York Theology Seminary. Paul’s day job is working on computer systems for the American Stock Exchange. He is married and has two children, 16 and 19. He lives in Ridgewood, New Jersey and is a member of the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood. He has spoken at a number of societies in the Metro New York District over the past several years.

Articles: John Haynes Holmes

Sprigge, Timothy

Timothy L. S. Sprigge was born in 1932 in London. He has taught philosophy at the Universities of Sussex and of Edinburgh. (In the latter he was Professor of Logic and Metaphysics.) His books include Santayana: An Examination of his Philosophy (1974) ; Theories of Existence (1984) ; The Vindication of Absolute Idealism (1984) ; The Rational Foundations of Ethics (1987) : James and Bradley: American Truth and British Reality(1993). He is a member of St Mark’s Unitarian Church in Edinburgh and, having recently moved from Scotland to the South of England, he now attends the Unitarian Church in Brighton.

Articles: Mrs. Humphry Ward

Steers, David

David Steers is the minister of the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian churches of Downpatrick, Balllee and Clough in county Down, Northern Ireland. He is chaplain at Stranmillis University College and St. Mary’s University College, both in Belfast, and is editor of the Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society and the Oxford based Unitarian theological journal Faith and Freedom.

He trained for the ministry at the Unitarian College, Manchester and holds degrees from the Universities of Oxford (BA & MA), Manchester (BD & MPhil with distinction) and Glasgow (PhD). He was tutor and examiner in the Faculty of Theology/Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow from 2001-2003. He has contributed to the Dictionary of Irish Philosophers, the Dictionary of British Classicists and the Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Philosophers (all published by Thoemmes Continuum), as well as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and many other works. He is a member of the Councils of both the Unitarian Historical Society and the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland and is the editor and co-author of European Perspectives on Communion (2001) and Liverpool Unitarians: Faith and Action (2014). He is married to Sue and they have four children. He blogs on historical matters at: velvethummingbee.wordpress.com/

Articles:John Abernethy, William Drennan, William Drummond, Alexander Gordon, James Kirkpatrick, William Roscoe,

Stringer-Hye, Richard

Richard Stringer-Hye is a Science librarian at the Stevenson Science and Engineering Library at Vanderbilt University who occasionally writes biographical pieces for reference publications. He is currently conducting research and writing a history of Pierre Bernard and the Clarkstown Country Club. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his family.

Articles: Charles Francis Potter

Tauscher, Cathy

Cathy (Gearheart) Tauscher studied at Wellesley, M.I.T, Goddard College, and Pacific Oaks, earning a masters’ in Human Development with a specialization in Leadership in Education. After an initial career in teaching and school administration, during which she developed an interest in historical research, Cathy became a Unitarian Universalist in 1984, and her interest in history then became focused on Unitarian Universalism. Since 1991, she has been a religious educator in the state of Washington, first serving the Evergreen UU Fellowship and then the Woodinville UU Church.

Cathy is working towards credentialing as a Religious Educator at the Masters’ Level, and wrote her thesis, Why People Come and Why They Stay for a Unitarian Universalist Religious Education. She has recently completed a study on Jenkin Lloyd Jones: A Life that Faith Made, and another entitled, A History of Trends in Unitarian Universalist Religious Education. Widowed since 2000, Cathy lives on Whidbey Island, Washington, where she raises miniature horses. She has a daughter and two stepchildren.

Articles: Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Susan Charlotte Barber Lloyd Jones

Thierry, Joyce

Joyce Thierry is a television and film scriptwriter, and instructor in the Writing Program at the Vancouver Film School. Her TV credits include story editing the Vancouver scripts for YTV’s Incredible Story Studio for two seasons, researching and writing scripts for Vision TV’s The Simple Way, being script coordinator on CBC’s These Arms of Mine, and working for two seasons on the Leo Award winning WTN series, The Creators. She was a resident in the “TV Drama Program” at the Canadian Film Centre and is Past-President of Women In Film & Video Vancouver. Her three present writing projects, all in different stages of development, revolve around Atomic Mosquito, a film based on the life of Dr. Lotta Hitschmanova, along with an accompanying television documentary, 56 Sparks Street, on this amazing woman. Thierry is also writing a book, You Are a Big Camel Who Eats Wood, on her family’s recent year-long, round-the-world, backpacking trip, during which she was able to visit places and interview people who had been affected by the work of Dr. Lotta. Thierry is a Trainer for Our Whole Lives (OWL, the Unitarian Universalist Association sexuality curriculum), and has been teaching About Your Sexuality (AYS) and OWL to teenagers for ten years.

Articles: Lotta Hitschmanova

Thomson, Douglass

Douglass H. Thomson is a professor and director of the graduate program in English at Georgia Southern University. He has published numerous articles on British Romanticism and Gothic literature. Recent titles include “Mingled Measures: Gothic Parody in Tales of Wonder and Tales of Terror” in Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net (May 2008) and an electronic edition of Walter Scott’s An Apology for Tales of Terror (1799) for The Walter Scott Digital Archive of the University of Edinburgh (2007).

He is currently researching dissenting academies and circles in late eighteenth-century England, with particular emphasis on the Aikins family.

Articles: John Aikin

Trhttps://uudb.org/articles/johnaikin.htmlask, Mary Kathleen

Mary Kathleen “Kathi” Trask earned a BS in Elementary Education from New Mexico State University in 1970 and Masters in Education with an emphasis in Early Childhood at Eastern New Mexico University in 1979. She taught kindergarten in Clovis, New Mexico for 30 years before retiring in 2001. Kathi and her husband, Richard Trask Jr., have been active members of Westminster Presbyterian Church for 25 years. They have a daughter, son and one grandson.

Since retirement Kathi has become interested in genealogy and was honored to find that Horace and Mary Holley were among her ancestors. Horace Brand Hening, Kathi’s paternal grandfather, inherited his great-great grandmother Mary Austin Holley’s talent of writing and observation and her spirit of adventure. He came to the New Mexico territory in 1902 as a young news reporter and became Secretary of Immigration. He wrote a book and pamphlets advertising for settlement in New Mexico—much in the way Mary Holley had promoted Texas a century earlier!

Articles: Horace and Mary Austin Holley

Twite, Stuart

Stuart Twite is the Director of Religious Education at First Parish Church, Unitarian in Norwell, Massachusetts. He was born and raised in South Dakota where he received B.S. and M.Ed. Degrees in education. For a time he worked in politics on the state and national levels, both in campaigns and as a staffer. He then taught history in public and private schools in Arizona and South Dakota. For the past six years he has been a stay-at-home father for his three children. Five of those years were spent in New York where he worked as a freelance editor, was a Sunday School Superintendent, and served on the local Library Board of Trustees. His love of Unitarian Universalist history began in college and he has been a student of the tradition ever since.

Articles: Ezra Stiles Gannett

Ulbrich, Holley

Holley Hewitt Ulbrich is Alumni Distinguished Professor Emerita of Economics at Clemson University and the author of seven books in her field. Along with her economic writings, she has also contributed a chapter on Philip Prince to a book on the history of the Clemson University presidents. She received her BA (1963), MA (1964) and PhD (1969) from the University of Connecticut in Economics and her Master of Theological Studies (2003) from Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Currently she is working on a book on the history of the fellowship movement. Holley is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Clemson, South Carolina.

Articles: John C. Calhoun

Viney, Donald Wayne

Donald Wayne Viney was born 13 February 1953 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, the eldest of two children. He has lived in Oklahoma (1953-1966, 1977-1984), Colorado (1966-1977), and Kansas (1984-present). Viney received the B.A. in philosophy from Colorado State University (1977) and the M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Oklahoma (1979, 1982). He has taught philosophy and religion at Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, Kansas since 1984. He is on the editorial board of The Midwest Quarterly and he is a member of the American Philosophical Association and of the Society of Christian Philosophers. Viney publishes in the area of the philosophy of religion.

He is author of a number of articles in philosophical journals and dictionaries on Hartshorne’s life and thought as well as being author of Charles Hartshorne and the Existence of God (SUNY Press, 1985) and editor of Charles Hartshorne’s Letters to a Young Philosopher: 1979-1995 (Special Issue of Logos-Sophia, 11, Fall 2001). Viney has also written extensively on the life and thought of Jules Lequyer (1814-1862) and has translated some of Lequyer’s writings into English. See especially, Translation of Works of Jules Lequyer (Edwin Mellen Press, 1998) and Jules Lequyer’s Abel and Abel (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999). Don Viney is a father to two daughters, Jenny Viney and Aislinn Watts, and a grandfather to Lily Watts. He and his wife Rebecca Viney live in Pittsburg, Kansas.

Articles: Charles Hartshorne

Viney, Wayne

Wayne Viney received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology with a minor in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Oklahoma in 1964. He is currently professor of Psychology at Colorado State University where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the History of Psychology and in the Psychology of Religion. He has published extensively in the History of Psychology and has served as President of Division 26 (History of Psychology) of the American Psychological Association. More recently he has served as President of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association. He is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association and in The American Psychological Society. He is also a member of the History of Science Society. His major research interests are in the psychology and philosophy of William James and the problem of authority as it pertains to human knowledge.

Wayne Viney is the father of two sons, Donald Wayne Viney and Michael David Viney. He resides with his wife Wynona Viney in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Articles: Dorothea Dix

Voelker, David

David J. Voelker is an associate professor of humanistic studies and history at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He became interested in Unitarian-Universalist history when he began a college research project on the controversial career of the Reverend Horace Holley as president of Transylvania University in Kentucky. His doctoral dissertation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2003) was a critical study of Orestes Brownson. His publications include essays on Thomas Paine’s religious beliefs and on the decline of Calvinism, as well as review essays on Patrick Carey’s biography of Brownson and Philip Gura’s history of Transcendentalism.

Articles: Orestes Brownson

Walker, Nathan

Nathan C. Walker is a candidate for Unitarian Universalist ministry and is currently doing his internship at Community Unitarian Church at White Plains, New York. He is also a doctoral student in the Higher & Postsecondary Education Administration program at Teachers College Columbia University, where he received a Masters of Arts degree. He received a Masters of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary, New York; a B.F.A. from Emerson College, Boston; trained with the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco; and is certified by the State of Massachusetts to teach PreK-12 dance, communications, and theatre arts.

As a professional, Nathan serves as the Founder of the Da Vinci Foundation, whose mission is to establish the first official Unitarian Universalist college in America. He is also the Executive Director of the student movement that composed the Congressional bill to establish a National Tuition Endowment. In the past, he has served as the Interim Director of Religious Education for the Fourth Universalist Society; the fellowship program coordinator at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons; and as an instructor at Western Nevada Community College and Lake Tahoe Community College. He has been an Advisor for New York University’s School of Continuing Education and an Artist in Resident for the Nevada Arts Council.

Nathan has been a guest speaker/lecturer for the Unitarian Universalist Metropolitan District of New York, the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, Manhattan Country School, the Brearley School, Teachers College Columbia University, Nevada Arts Council’s Arts All the Way state conference and Summer Arts Institute at the University of Nevada Reno, and for the Minnesota State College Student Association.

Articles: Peter Cooper

Wesley, Alice Blair

No biographical information is available for this author.

 

Article: James Luther Adams

Widrick, Eugene

Eugene R. Widrick is Minister Emeritus of the First Religious Society of Carlisle, Massachusetts which he served for twenty-four years. He was born and grew up in New York State and is a graduate of State University of New York at Albany, New York (MSLS), Tufts University (BD), and Andover Newton Theological School (DMin). During his ministerial career he served churches in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. From 1968-71 he served the Unitarian Church in Cape Town, South Africa. The author of Neighbours & Fellow Creatures, he is currently preparing a collection of his sermons for publication.

Articles: Robert Edward Green, Judith Ripley Goodenough

Williams, Gayle

Gayle A. Williams is an Assistant Dean in University College at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). She has an Ed.D in Higher Education and Student Affairs and an M.A. in Religious Studies from Indiana University. She has published a number of articles on the academic success of freshmen. Another of her research interests is religious history and its role in higher education in America. She published an article in Indiana Magazine of History (March, 2003), “Andrew Wylie and Religion at Indiana University, 1824-1851: Nonsectarianism and Democracy.” Gayle is the mother of three adult daughters. She lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Articles: David Starr Jordan

Zen, Beringia

Beringia graduated from Northern Arizona University with a degree in cultural anthropology. While in school she focused her research on two diverse social groups; heroin users and women from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Results of her studies were presented at The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Annual Conference on AIDS Research, NAU’s Women’s Studies Lecture Series and published in Connections.

After deciding to leave the field of anthropology, Beringia took her late night hobby of computer programming and turned it into a career as a database designer for large scale manufacturing systems. She quit working in 1998 to stay home, full-time, with her newly adopted daughter, Darby Rose.

Articles: Rod Sterling

Ziemer, Melissa

Melissa Ziemer is currently preparing for ministry at Meadville Lombard Theological School. She graduated from Smith College in 1995 with a B.A. in Women’s Studies. From 1995-2001 Melissa worked primarily in early childhood education and in the violence against women movement. She is a member of the Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Articles: Florence Buck