From the Co-Directors

This academic year marks the fifth year in the life of the Center for Christianities in Global Contexts.  Building on the prior work of Dr. Elizabeth Tapia and Dr. Wesley Ariarajah, Dean Jeffrey Kuan and Dr. Virginia Burrus will co-direct the Center in 2011-2012, continuing both to broaden the Center’s agenda and to bring its activities into ever closer and deeper coordination with the life of the Theological School and the Graduate Division of Religion as a whole.

We are particularly excited about both the gifts and the enthusiasm brought by this year’s Luce Graduate Fellows, expanded to include not only four Senior Fellows but also six Associate Fellows.   Coordinating closely with Dr. Burrus, this team of PhD students will carry our work forward on a number of fronts.

Because we believe that our future must be rooted in our past, we are researching and writing about the history of international students at Drew, as well as reaching out to alumni and alumnae around the globe.  At the same time, we are investigating the possibility of partnerships with other graduate theological institutions in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere, with an eye toward developing flexible and innovative forms of collaboration.  We are continuing to build resources for the cross-cultural trips that are part of our Master of Divinity curriculum and to explore other ways to make our current curricula more attuned to global contexts and to develop new curricula for use here and abroad.  We also continue to support and disseminate relevant faculty research; to sponsor special events; and both to support our international students and to find ways to mobilize them as resources for our community.  It is our hope that many of these efforts will become visible on this website in the course of this year.

We remain grateful to the Luce Foundation for its support for our work.

Kah-Jin Jeffrey Kuan
Professor of Hebrew Bible
Dean of the Theological School

Virginia Burrus
Professor of Early Church History
Chair of the Graduate Division of Religion

Co-Directors of the Center for Christianities in Global Contexts
The Theological School, Drew University