School Notes: Yale Divinity School
March/April 2012

AYA honors YDS alumni

Yale Divinity School alumni have garnered two Association of Yale Alumni Board of Governors Excellence Awards. The awards—one for “outstanding school event” and the other for “best marketing, branding, and communications”—were formally announced during ceremonies at the AYA annual assembly in November. The school event award was presented in recognition of “Honoring the Past, Challenging the Future: Celebrating 8 Decades of Women at Yale Divinity School,” which highlighted Convocation and Reunions 2010 and helped bring a record number of alumni back to campus in 2010. The marketing award recognized communications surrounding YDS’s 2011 Lenten initiative, entitled “Mobilizing Faith, Fighting Poverty,” which spanned the 40 days of Lent.

Dean honored with festschrift

Dean Harold Attridge was honored with a festschrift prior to the concurrent American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature meetings in San Francisco in November, in recognition of his New Testament scholarship over a span of four decades. The festschrift, published by the Society of Biblical Literature and entitled Method and Meaning: Essays on New Testament Interpretation in Honor of Harold W. Attridge, is a tome of over 500 pages featuring articles by 30 scholars. Attridge will step down from the deanship at the end of his second five-year term in June but will continue to teach at YDS.

YDS Day of Service

On a Friday in November, 85 Yale Divinity School students and staff devoted their afternoons to serving neighbors in New Haven, as part of the second annual Day of Service organized by the YDS Committee on Community Engagement (YCCE). Volunteers assembled toiletry kits at a homeless shelter, played games and shared conversation with adults afflicted with mental illness, served music and ice cream at an elderly care facility, and painted, baked brownies, cleaned apartments, or made cards for seniors. Volunteer coordinator Lisa Levy ’12MDiv called the experience “transformative,” adding that she hoped it would lead YDS students “into a sustained life of service.”