Building on the success and experience of last year's virtual conference, the Sixty-Seventh Annual Convention of the College Theology Society was held virtually again due to the continuing context of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Once again, this meeting was and the following report is different from past events in important ways. Via Zoom, 240 members of the College Theology Society (CTS) joined 13 members of the National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion (NABPR) and 23 non-members and guests to participate in the conference from Thursday, June 3, to Saturday, June 5, 2021. Members and guests wrestled with the theme “The Human in a Dehumanizing World: Re-Examining Theological Anthropology and Its Implications,” organized by cochairs Jessica Coblentz (St. Mary's College) and Daniel P. Horan, OFM (Catholic Theological Union). Key essays from the conference will be published by Orbis Books under the conference title and the editorial leadership of the conference theme cochairs. The society is profoundly grateful to the online coordinating team of Dana Dillon (Providence College) and Katherine Schmidt (Molloy College) for their work facilitating the smooth functioning of Zoom throughout the conference. We are also grateful for the service of Andy Getz as Executive Director of Conventions, who stepped back from the role in March 2021, and to Dan Rober (Sacred Heart University) for beginning his service in this position in June 2021.
In continuation of a decades-long tradition, the CTS met in conjunction with the NABPR. Between the two groups, members presented eighty-five papers with nine paper responses, and eighteen people participated in seven panel discussions across fifty-one sectional meetings. In addition, the convention included three plenary presentations, as well as a presidential address from the respective presidents of each group. The opening plenary address, given Thursday evening, was “Love for the Annihilated: A Black Theological Reading of Angela's Memorial,” by Andrew Prevot of Boston College. On Friday afternoon, Cristina Traina of Fordham University offered the second plenary address, “‘The Power of Anger in the Work of Love,’ Revisited: Feminist Anthropology and Emotion.” Saturday morning, Karen Kilby of Durham University (UK) offered “Sin and Suffering Revisited: A Conceptual Exploration.” Saturday afternoon Mark Medley (Baptist Seminary of Kentucky), president of the NABPR, gave his reflections on the theme “Dangerous Waters,” and later the same evening Mary Doak (University of San Diego), president of CTS, reflected on “Studying and Teaching Religion in Dark Times.” All in all, 117 individual presentations were part of the program.
Significant community spaces for gathering were created using the virtual tools available. Saturday evening there was a liturgy of prayer hosted by society members, and Saturday night there was a virtual after-party. Throughout the conference, participants gathered between sessions in the virtual lounge to meet friends, old and new, and to discuss ideas. And, faithful to tradition, many members participated in a virtual 5K!
The awards ceremony and opening business meeting launched the conference on Thursday evening by honoring members of the society for scholarship and teaching. As usual, there were many books and articles submitted by members of the CTS for the Awards Committee. Ryan G. Duns, SJ, received the Best Book Published in 2020 award for Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age: Desmond and the Quest for God (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2020). Lucas Briola was awarded the Best Article Published in 2020 honor for “Praise Rather Than Solving Problems: Understanding the Doxological Turn of Laudato Si' through Lonergan” (Theological Studies 81, no. 3, September 2020). Trevor B. Williams (Villanova University) received the Susan G. Perry award for best essay submitted by a graduate student for “Trinitarian Animality.” The 2020 winner of the Monika Hellwig Teaching Excellence award, which was not awarded last year, was given to Colleen M. Carpenter (Saint Catherine University). She was joined in the honor by the 2021 recipient of the society's teaching award, Mara Brecht (Loyola University of Chicago). Special thanks are due to the other members of the Awards Committee chaired by Howard Ebert and to the Monika Hellwig Teaching Excellence Committee chaired by Tobias Winright for their hard work.
As for the business meeting, reports were briefly presented. Vice President Tobias Winright (St. Louis University) announced the election results and new appointees to committees. Julia Brumbaugh (Regis University, CO) was elected as vice president, and Kathryn Lilla Cox (University of San Diego) and Nancy Rourke (Canisius College) were elected to serve as new members of the board. Outgoing Vice President Tobias Winright thanked other CTS members for their willingness to run for office, and he thanked outgoing board members LaReine-Marie Mosely (Notre Dame of Maryland University) and Katherine Schmidt (Molloy College) for their service. He noted that Janice Thompson (King's College) and Julia Brumbaugh served on the Committee on Nominations, both for the first of two-year terms. Julia Brumbaugh's election as vice president means she will be unable to continue on the Committee on Nominations, so her position will need to be filled this fall. Winright enthusiastically thanked the Awards Committee, chaired by outgoing committee member Howard Ebert (St. Norbert College), for their outstanding and strenuous labors serving the CTS through this committee. Other committee members include James Bretzke, SJ, Benjamin Peters, Michael Fagge, and Mary Ann Zimmer. Benjamin Peters will chair this committee next year. Ebert, Fagge, and Zimmer will rotate off the committee, so the board will need to find three new people to serve. The Committee on Teaching and Learning was chaired by Winright, who served with John Sheveland and William Clark, SJ. Winright observed that the Resolutions Committee did not receive any resolutions for consideration. As is customary, he proposed that two outgoing members of the board, LaReine-Marie Mosely and Katherine Schmidt, serve on the Committee on Resolutions. Finally, Winright reported that he received no new information about any regional meetings.
Long serving Director of Research and Publications William Collinge (Mount St. Mary's University) stepped down from the role and advised the new director, Reid Locklin (University of Toronto), in the duties of this role over the last year. Gratitude for Collinge's long and excellent service was shared by Winright, Locklin, and other members of the board and the CTS community. Locklin, taking up his new duties, shared that the 2020 Annual Volume, Human Families: Identities, Relationships, and Responsibilities, edited by Jacob Kohlhaas and Mary Doyle Roche, was mailed on or about April 30, 2021. For this upcoming volume, the CTS has renegotiated its contract with Orbis Books due to reductions in the number of copies that will be taken by the Theological Book Network. The new contract will maintain the current practice of providing each active member of the society with a copy of the annual volume. Locklin also reported that since the last board meeting, there were no requests to reprint material for which the CTS holds the copyright.
Treasurer Stephen Okey (Saint Leo College) reported a very tight operating budget in November 2020, which resulted in a reasonable surplus of approximately $4,800 at the time of the convention. Okey explained the overall improved budget situation as resulting from how lower dues in 2019 and 2020 correlated to lower costs for publications, as well as lower costs for travel for the board and events at the American Academy of Religion due to COVID travel restrictions. The 2020 convention ran a surplus of about $2,000. Revenue and costs for the 2021 convention, as of June 2021, are in line with 2020. Donations to the annual fund in 2020 were $635, and as of June 1, 2021, donations to the fund amounted to $600. This annual fund provides convention scholarships, none of which were requested this past year. In 2020, Okey, in consultation with the Executive Committee decided to change our payment processor. Initially, this change resulted in a reduction in dues collected because members had to resubmit their credit card information rather than have their membership renewed automatically. As a result of this, dues collected for 2020 were roughly 23 percent lower than in 2019. In 2021, however, dues rebounded by 20 percent, suggesting people are choosing automatic renewal. The remaining significant expenditures for the rest of 2021 will be the cost of the annual volume (which should be between $6,000 and $10,000) and the dues sent to Horizons (this will be $8,010, which is 30 percent of the 2020 dues). At the end of this academic year, Okey will complete his time as treasurer of the society. If any member is interested in becoming treasurer, please contact him.
Secretary George Faithful (Dominican University of California) shared in his report that 2021 saw a 16.5 percent increase in active memberships (470 in 2021) over last year (405 in 2020), which had seen a 19.6 percent decrease in active membership from 2019 (504). Although 470 active memberships were renewed in 2021, another 847 members exist whose membership dues are overdue or whose membership has lapsed for nonpayment of dues. Among the paid-in-full or active members, there are: 99 graduate student members, 50 associate members, 302 full professional members, 14 joint memberships, and 5 lifetime members. Membership increases were seen across graduate student, associate, full professional, and joint members, with the greatest increase (33 of 65) occurring within graduate student memberships. According to Faithful, some factors contributing to this rebound in membership in this current year included an extraordinarily well-publicized and well-executed online conference, as well as increased facility with the new payment system. Faithful also proposed the society consider adding a membership category for emeritus/emerita faculty.
Horizons editor Elena Procario-Foley (Iona College) reported that during the period June 2020 to May 2021, the two issues of volume 47 were published with a total of 428 pages, 45 manuscripts, and 73 book reviews. CTS members were encouraged to respond positively to requests from the editorial staff to write book reviews and conduct peer reviews of submitted manuscripts. Procario-Foley also drew attention to the Teaching Anti-Racism Pedagogical Roundtable by Christopher Pramuk and Joseph Flipper in the June 2021 issue.
At the November 2020 board meeting, the CTS board created an Ad Hoc Committee for Decentering Whiteness, chaired by Simon Aihiokhai (University of Portland). Aihiokhai reported that the committee has begun meeting and will collaborate with the cochairs of next year's convention, which will be on the theme “Why We Can't Wait”: Racism and the Church.
At the concluding session on Sunday evening, Brian Flanagan (Marymount University) was inaugurated as the new president of CTS. The society expressed its gratitude to both Mary Doak, the outgoing president, and to Flanagan for his willingness to serve.
