Symposium Program

Thursday, March 6, 2025

7:00 pm to 8:30 pm  Opening Plenary Session:

Chancellor Shuly Rubin Schwartz (Jewish Theological Seminary), “Partner, Pioneer, Principal: Female Jewish Religious Leadership in North America”

8:30 pm to 9:30 pm Opening reception (dessert)

Friday, March 7

9:00 am to 11:00 am Paper Session One: “Innovating Conservative Traditions”

Prof. Jill Peterfeso (Guilford College), “Evolving RCWP: Ministerial Modeling and Practicing New Priesthoods”; Prof. Michal Raucher (Rutgers University) “Pastoral-Rabbi: How Orthodox Women Rabbis are Feminizing the Orthodox Rabbinate”; Prof. Nancy Ross (Utah Tech University) and Prof. David Howlett (Smith College), “ ‘You might change your mind!’: Early Responses to Women’s Ordination in the 1980s RLDS Church”

11:00 am to 12:30 pm Lunch and Break (catered for speakers; pizza lunch for others)

12:30 pm to 1:30 pm Plenary Session:

Prof. Donyelle McCray (Yale Divinity School), “The Apostle Pauli and the Spirituality of Risk-taking”

1:45 pm to 3:15 pm Panel Discussion: Voices of Women Religious Leaders in the Valley

Panelists: Rev. Sarah Buteux, First Churches of Northampton; Sis Clare Carter, the New England Peace Pagoda; Rabbi Ariella Rosen, Congregation B’nai Israel, Northampton; Kim Alston, Muslim Student Adviser, Smith College

3:30 pm to 5:30 pm Paper Session Two: “Work, Authority, and Policy”

Dr. Mae Speight (independent scholar), Mainline Women in Campus Ministry, 1950-1975″; Prof. Eileen Campbell-Reed (Union Theological Seminary), Where Did Women Go? And Are They Coming Back? Post-Pandemic Exploration of Ministry Jobs“; Rev. Mihee Kim-Kort (Indiana University), The Other Pastors: Towards Legitimacy and Authority”; Prof. Cammie Jo Bolin (University of Albany — SUNY), “Clergywomen, Women’s Ordination, and “Women’s Issues”: Women’s Representation in American Religious Congregations”

5:30 pm to 7:00 pm  Dinner (catered for speakers; more substantial snacks/light dinner for others)

7:00 pm to 9:00 pm Film Screening, “The Philadelphia Eleven” (2024)

Q&A following with director Margo Guernsey (Emerson College)  and introduced by President Sarah Willie-LeBreton (Smith College).

Saturday, March 8

9:00 am to 11:00 am Paper Session Three: “Feminist Storytelling”

Prof. Kate Common (Methodist Theological School of Ohio), “Forging Voice: Pioneering Scholars in Religion”; Dr. Tham Tran (University of Massachusetts – Lowell), “Reflections of a Vietnamese Buddhist Leader on Leadership Through the Four Positive States of Mind: An Autoethnographic Study”; Prof. Kate Dugan (Springfield College), ” ‘NFP is Pro-Women’: Catholic Women and 21st-century Reproductive Health”

11:00 am to 12:30 pm Lunch and Break

12:30 pm to 1:30 pm Closing Plenary Session:

Dr. Celene Ibrahim (The Groton School), “Muslim Feminist Thought Leadership and Feminist Theology”