McCormick to celebrate conclusion of 176th academic year
04-23-2010
By Geoff Ashmun
Following commencement services on Saturday, May 15, forty-seven graduates of McCormick Theological Seminary will exit the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Memorial Chapel with diplomas in hand and better prepared to serve Church and society with their gifts for ministry. Featured speaker the Rev. Dr. Deborah Block (D.Min., Class of 1989), Head of Staff and Pastor of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will offer her reflections on the journey these graduates are just beginning. Block is serving her tenth year on McCormick’s Board of Trustees.
Several of McCormick’s graduates have already secured work or made plans for further study.
– Emmanuel Gore, one of McCormick’s Global Scholars and a native of Sudan, came to seminary already with considerable experience in interfaith dialogue and is planning to continue his work toward a Ph.D. at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
– During the month of June, Honna Eichler will serve as the Chicago Logistics Coordinator for the Global Institute of Theology in June and begins a permanent position as an Advancement Associate at the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions. Her main role will be to develop methods and strategies to capture the interfaith movement post-Parliament, and help the organization develop a continuous presence within the inter-religious arena. She will also serve on the Presbytery of Chicago’s Ecumenical and Interfaith Working Group.
– LaShundra Dickerson will be ordained as an elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She will continue her work as a youth minister while pursuing her Masters in Business Administration. In addition, she is serving on the Board of Directors for a disadvantaged women’s shelter and volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.
– Matthew Helms has been selected as one of two pastoral residents for a two-year program at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago. He will begin the residency program this summer by attending the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). He will be eligible for ordination as a Minister of Word and Sacrament during his residency.
– Philip Sigmon will be serving at a hospital in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, as a chaplain in residence as he fulfills his clinical pastoral education requirements toward ordination in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
– Lesley Weir will be completing her unit of CPE with VITAS Hospice this summer.
– Pyungwon Seo has been admitted to the Doctor of Ministry program at Chicago Theological Seminary and will begin his course of studies in September.
For more news on McCormick’s alumni/ae and the ministries to which they are called, watch McCormick.edu in the coming weeks and months