{"id":3000,"date":"2019-09-13T09:59:34","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T14:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/?p=3000"},"modified":"2019-09-16T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T15:00:00","slug":"2019-convocation-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/2019\/09\/2019-convocation-address\/","title":{"rendered":"2019 Convocation Address"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Convocation
Caption: Convocation 2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The message below was delivered by dean emilie m. townes at the 2019 Convocation held at Vanderbilt Divinity School on August 23.<\/em><\/p>\n

we gathered in this space that was conceived by students, faculty, staff, alums, and the board of visitors when we started this journey in the fall of 2013<\/p>\n

as we talked to all these groups and more, the common themes of community,\u00a0 \u00a0 justice, worship, light, welcome, accessibility, better classrooms\u00a0 a front entrance (which meant, of course, we had to decide where the front entrance was)\u2014a place of seeking the sacred in community where faith is lived and practiced and not an esoteric sound bite hosanna<\/p>\n

then came the conversations\u2026and more conversations\u2026and finally finding the right architectural firm in gilbert|mclaughlin|casella and the general contractor orion and the rest of the design team<\/p>\n

and in June 2017, construction began in earnest<\/p>\n

it was a journey with the support of then chancellor zeppos, provost wente, the board of trust, the carpenter foundation, and many folks in this space<\/p>\n

as kitty norton worked hard to find funding, the building expansion committee worked hard with the campus planning team in those early months<\/p>\n

and we would not be here without professor jimmy byrd who served as point person and most especially heather lee as on-site project liaison, and bob winters as project supervisor and josh gill as the project manager<\/p>\n

the list is long of who helped us reach this moment that we must now carry forward, so please forgive me if I have not called your name<\/p>\n

the last few days have also been filled with conversations and struggle<\/p>\n

many of us gathered here know that there was a serious contract dispute between two of the subcontractors<\/p>\n

with the advocacy of workers\u2019 dignity (and our students and alums affiliated with it) who created an effective petition and were prepared to protest this opening if need be<\/p>\n

and the commitment of the university to its bottom line insistence that those who do business with and on behalf of the university must conduct themselves professionally and treat business associates and employees fairly<\/p>\n

the university ultimately stepped in to bring all companies to the table to bring about a just resolution between them; the dispute between the two subcontractors has been resolved and payment has been made<\/p>\n

now that we are all back from summer break, the VDS faculty is now thinking through, talking through, writing through and teaching through how we respond as educators and committed folk to our religious values<\/p>\n

we have been here before:<\/p>\n

in the late 1920\u2019s and early 30\u2019s it was alva taylor and williard uphaus encouraging their young white male students to oppose segregation in the south\u2014something not particularly welcomed by either the divinity or university administrations of that time<\/p>\n

the 1978 davis cup protests against Vanderbilt hosting the South African team because of the apartheid regime it represented and the divinity school\u2019s active witness during this time and then-dean sally mcfague being photographed checking on protestors during their picketing<\/p>\n

the photograph went out on the national wire services and her support for the protestors was interpreted as a challenge to the university administration<\/p>\n

mcfague resigned as dean to protect the school\u2014and faculty and students again had to reckon with what it means to do the right thing<\/p>\n

the 1960 lawson affair when james lawson was unfairly expelled for masterminding the student sit-in movements in Nashville that caused much soul searching by the faculty and student body and eventually birthed our statement of commitments in the early 1970s<\/p>\n

and because we have been here before, we will embrace our legacy of coming together to do the right thing<\/p>\n

but in the midst of all that has happened in these last several days, i have been especially moved by the bravery and orneriness (and coming from a womanist, to say someone is being ornery is a complement) of Armando Arazate, the owner of the small minority-owned business who kept fighting for his rights and for his workers\u2014ICE be damned<\/p>\n

so, i am very<\/em> pleased to be able to welcome you to this space, the space where our commitment as a divinity school to do the right thing stands firm and the words you see in the floor as you came in mean something more than an aesthetic word walkway<\/p>\n

we will continue to do the work of theological education with the swag, sway, and slay of justice here<\/p>\n

be theologically fabulous<\/p>\n

and simply do the work our souls must have<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The message below was delivered by dean emilie m. townes at the 2019 Convocation held at Vanderbilt Divinity School on August 23. we gathered in this space that was conceived by students, faculty, staff, alums, and the board of visitors when we started this journey in the fall of 2013 as we talked to all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6668,"featured_media":3001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3000"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3003,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3000\/revisions\/3003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}