While on campus, I worked with Clergy & Laymen Concerned about Vietnam both in Boston and Washington, D.C., and headed up seminary student counseling for conscientious objectors. My most influential professors included George Peck, Max Stackhouse, Gerald Cragg, Eddie O'Neal, and Joe O'Donnell. I was ordained in June 1971 and served 40 years as a settled UCC minister in Massachusetts, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. As a minister in the United Church of Christ, I have attended half a dozen General Synods and supervised a number of seminarian interns. I served on Conference Boards of Directors in Michigan and Pennsylvania, was a new church start pastor for nine years, and served on Mass Conference Church Development for numerous years. My commitment to human rights includes support of the Open & Affirming movement. Since retirement, I have been a fully trained intentional interim minister in six churches - Scottsdale, AZ, Charleston, SC, Grafton and Mashpee, MA, and Hollis and Atkinson, NH. I have been honored to have been nominated to the ANTS Alumni/ae Board.

I look forward to the opportunity to represent the alumni/ae of Andover Newton as the school works to line out its future. Since our founding in 1807, we have been known for our commitment to hands-on ministry combined with intellectual excellence. That was true when Andover was in Andover; it was true when Newton was established on the Hill; it was true when the two schools began to live together and then became one institution. It will be true of us in our future. Our first graduates went out as missionaries to an emerging church; our future graduates likewise will go forth to a new world. As alumni/ae, we can be a part of that future, sharing our insights, experiences, hopes, and dreams.  

I was ordained by the UCC in 1980 and am widely experienced in church leadership, having been a settled as well as an interim local church pastor in Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Michigan. I’ve done independent contracting around mission/stewardship education and even worked for Andover Newton in Church Relations and then Admissions. I’ve served on boards and committees of the Association, Conference, and national church in Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. I hold a BS in Business Administration from Castleton (VT) State College, the MDiv and STM from Andover Newton, and a DMin from Hartford Seminary. I am a member of the Newman Church UCC in Rumford, RI, and live in East Providence, RI, with my elderly cocker spaniel. I play classical mandolin with L’Esperance Mandolin Ensemble, but the dog stays home.

Kurt has been serving as the pastor of Chapel Street Congregational Church in Lincoln, RI. since the beginning of 2016. This is his second call, following ministry at Faith UCC in Indianapolis, IN, from 2010-15. Besides having a passion for his family and church ministry, Kurt’s passions include the interfaith social justice movement, singing, and community organizing.  

While living on campus at Herrick House with his wife, Jen, and their twins, Ben and Maddie, Kurt was involved in several student-led initiatives including being selected as a Fellow for Journeys on the Hill (CIRCLE) and the Peace Fellowship. Kurt was also the Residential Representative at Herrick House from 2007-10.

Dan was a member of the Class of 2015 at Andover Newton. He graduated with a Master’s in Divinity along with two certificates, one in Ministerial Leadership and the other in Spiritual and Pastoral Care. While at Andover Newton, Dan also served as a leader for the UCC fellowship, was a member of the Visual Worship Grant team, and worked for the Media Center, Admissions, and Institutional Advancement.

Dan has a Bachelor’s degree in Communication from Bridgewater State College. He is married to his wife, Stacy, and they have four kids. Dan is currently in the search and call process with the UCC and is looking to stay in the New England area. He is looking forward to the conversation with fellow alumni/ae about the future of the Alumni/ae Board, Andover Newton, and how we can work and walk together.

Having entered with the class of '81, I graduated with the Andover Newton class of '82, and went to work in my first parish in Maine. From there, I served churches in Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Maryland, and served as Associate Conference Minister in South Dakota. After retiring because of a chronic health condition, I became an English teacher (grades 7-12) and served in two rural schools on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation in South Dakota. When the Isabel High School closed in 2009, I returned home to Maine, to the saltwater farm where I was born and raised, to be of help to my widowed mother. I worked for the next six years for a special-purpose private school as a behavioral health professional and teacher, helping students with behavioral disorders return to integration into public schools. I retired again last June. I was elected to the town Board of Selectmen in November.

I am excited by the transition of Andover Newton to a school that, while retaining the important mission of educating a learned clergy for leadership in the 21st century, is accepting the realities of our current economic and community life in the United States in this century. I am glad that the Board of Trustees of Andover Newton has recognized the financial realities faced by the school in time to leverage the remaining endowment and the potential proceeds of the sale of the campus to continue the heritage of leadership and mission that the school has preserved since the foundings of our two ancestral institutions.

I loved living on the Hill for the three and a half years that I called Herrick House home. I loved the rolling games of Uno in the Sturtevant Dining Hall, and having faculty live in my neighborhood. I loved choir rehearsals on Wednesday nights, the wisdom of faculty, and the first efforts of all of us as we practiced our preaching in Colby Chapel. But the new opportunities will create community and caring, shared wisdom and play for new generations of students to come. It is an honor to have been asked to share in this movement toward the future and the preservations of traditions.

Phillip has worked in the field of housing and community development for more than 30 years, after having served in a variety of ministry settings. He was born in Australia and received his seminary training and ordination in his home country before coming to the United States and earning the STM at Andover Newton and PhD at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is a former Fulbright Scholar and Dabney International Fellow.

After nine years of parish ministry, he was appointed in 1968 to be the Executive Director of the Urban Ministry in Holyoke, MA (an interfaith organization with Catholic, Jewish, Orthodox, and Protestant ties), where he focused religious efforts on a very low-income neighborhood transitioning from a French community into a multi-ethnic community.

He is a founding partner and senior vice president at OKM Associates Inc., which he joined in 1976 after four years at real estate developer Oxford Development Co. Highlights of this work have been the reengineering of many distressed housing authorities, the evaluation of several key national programs such as HOME, CDBG, Section 8, Indian Housing, the development of long range plans for States, cities and towns and local housing agencies and the development of HUD’s research agenda for the elderly for the decade 2000-2010.

Phillip has developed and delivered numerous training programs in community and housing development and management in the USA and in several other countries as well as teaching at the collegiate level (Suffolk University School of Management), focusing on the low-income populations. In addition, he assessed the policy and structure of national public agencies in the Czech and Slovak republics, Ukraine, Russia, and Tanzania and provided extensive training and technical assistance to national, regional and local governments in those countries and also Poland and Bulgaria.

Peter is spiritual care coordinator at Genitiva Hospice in San Marcos, TX, and is a retired minister whose career also includes hospice chaplaincy and freelance writing.

He earned the BD (later MDiv) from Andover Newton and an MEd from Keene College and was ordained as a UCC minister, serving congregations in Vermont and Texas as pastor or minister of education. He also served as a counselor for the National Job Corp Program in Texas for several years and has taught as an adjunct instructor at Texas Lutheran University.

Peter’s freelance writing career has included religious and secular publications, including the San Antonio News Express and Houston Chronicle, Children’s Ministry and Church Educator magazines, newsletter and grant writing for the Salvation Army, the Faith Practices curriculum for United Church Press, and the books Youth at Risk (Pilgrim Press, 2003), Mom Mumbles and Pop Can’t Pee: A Real Life Adventure with Aging Parents (Lucas Park Books, 2013), and Fire Island Taxi Driver (Lucas Park Books, 2015).

He is a founder and has served as director of the Children’s Museum of New Braunfels, TX, and has worked with Volunteers in Medicine Inc. (helping establish a free medical and dental clinic for the under- and uninsured), has helped coordinate Salvation Army services at a county-wide level, has directed numerous work camp programs for youth and adults in locations such as the Back Bay Mission, New Orleans after Katrina, and along the Texas/Mexico border, and has helped organize computer-based tutoring for at-risk students.

Peter was honored with a Humanitarian Award in 2006 by the New Braunfels Chamber of Commerce and has helped advocate for bike and hiking trails in his home of Comal County, TX. His wife, Ariel, passed away four years ago after 44 years of marriage. His recreation time includes hiking and visiting historic sites, spending time with his two daughters and two granddaughters, and working on his bucket list.

Karen Hodges is a Christian minister and interfaith chaplain, who is approved for ordination in the United Church of Christ, a practitioner of Iyengar Yoga, a student of Zen Buddhism, a Reiki Master, and a lifelong artist. Her life’s work is to care for people in crisis, mentoring caregivers, and teaching people how to access their innate capacity for caring and healing.

As a chaplain, Karen brings 10 years of trauma, hospice, grief, and chaplaincy experience to her work with caregivers, clinicians and especially those who are facing the spiritual and emotional issues related to dying, grief aging, sickness, and homelessness.

Since 2012, Karen has served as the Parish Visitor at the Second Church in Newton, creating a ministry of prayerful care and presence. She serves as a volunteer interfaith chaplain for Chaplains on the Way in Waltham and has served as a interfaith chaplain for Family Promise in Natick. Her ongoing relationships with people whose basic needs for housing and health care generally are not adequately met, inspire her work for systemic change, particularly around issues relating to homelessness, mental illness, and treatment for substance abuse.

Karen serves as the president of The Protestant Chaplaincy Council serving Newton Wellesley Hospital and community ministry in the surrounding Metro West area. Karen completed her undergraduate degrees at the University of Lowell (1982) and Northeastern University (1997).