It did not take long for Reverend Doctor Serene Jones to become accustomed to hectic New York City living, the backyard of her new job. After her November inauguration, Jones became the sixteenth president of Union Theological Seminary—the first female ever to hold the position.
“There’s a constant sense that the best and worst is always right outside your door,” Jones said about the transition to New York life.
After seventeen years on the faculty of Yale Divinity School—serving as Titus Street Professor of Theology and chair of women, gender, and sexuality studies—she left to pursue her interests in global change and social justice at Union. She said she hopes to further develop Union programs to educate religious leaders to be socially conscious and globally aware.
After a few months on the job, Jones has already started putting her vision into action. Along with UTS professors Gary Dorrien and Cornel West, she teaches a class called “Christianity and the Deepening U.S. Crisis,” a course that covers the U.S. market crisis, social oppression, and Christian responses.
“I’m very concerned about the massive global shifts that are taking place in religious communities and the need for new models of theological education to prepare religious leaders to address this cataclysmically changing world,” Jones said. She also intends to push UTS to be more active in the city and surrounding neighborhoods.
As the first female president of Union and a women’s studies scholar, Jones brings her expertise to a seminary traditionally led by men. “I’ve been really interested in women and religion, and how it is that women think about faith issues, how women think about leadership, and how women relate to the traditions,” she said. Jones said she hopes to work with Columbia’s women and gender studies department.
Union, an affiliate of the University, maintains a close relationship and allows cross-registration with Columbia, relationships Jones and professors on both sides of the street say have remained strong.
While only three Union professors also teach at Columbia, the relatively small UTS faculty—a total of fifteen professors—means that there is a proportionately high number of faculty shared across the schools, though the UTS professors do not teach on the undergraduate level. The chair of religious studies at Columbia, Mark Taylor, is jointly appointed as a member of Union’s faculty.
John McGuckin, a professor at Union who also teaches Byzantine Christian studies at Columbia, said that staff relationships are amiable across the board.
“There are very warm relations between colleagues in the two schools—not just between those three Union faculty members, but across the faculty,” McGuckin said.
Jones already seems confident that Union’s liberal environment is a good fit for her. “It’s definitely the seminary with the strongest reputation for being both very liberal and academically very rigorous,” she said.