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HDS Admissions: Student Blog

Tag Archives: Alumni

Interview with Margaret Okada-Scheck, Associate Director of Admissions

01 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by HDS Admissions Blog in HDS Interviews

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Admissions, Advice, Alumni, ask students, Career, Community, Diversity, DivEx, Social Justice

Post by Margaret Okada-Scheck, Associate Director of Admissions 

Editor’s Note: Meet Margaret, the HDS Associate Director of Admissions! Margaret has a wide range of responsibilities in the office, including leading the planning for our Diversity and Explorations Program, an opportunity for current undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds to learn more about the programs offered at HDS. Below you can read about Margaret’s dedication to supporting students, her professional experiences and about her dog, Bingo!

Photo courtesy of Margaret Okada-Scheck

Tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you want the HDS community & prospective students to know about you?  

Hello! My name is Margaret Okada-Scheck (she/her/hers) and I’m the Associate Director of Admissions in HDS Admissions. I’m originally from Queens, New York, and got my BA from the State University of New York at Buffalo. I am Asian American (of Japanese descent), married to a German man, and we have a 15-month-old boy whom we adopted last year.  

I’ve been working in graduate admissions for about 12 years and have been in my role at HDS for 2 years. My primary responsibilities include recruiting prospective students, running the communications and marketing for HDS Admissions, and managing the Diversity and Explorations (DivEx) program. 

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Interview with HDS Admissions Staff Assistant, John Rzasa

21 Monday Sep 2020

Posted by HDS Admissions Blog in HDS Interviews

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Admissions, Advice, Alumni, Career, HDS People

Post by John Rzasa, Admissions Staff Assistant 

Editor’s Note: Meet John, the HDS Admissions Staff Assistant! When prospective students email admissions@hds.harvard.edu, John is the staff member who responds to your questions. In this article, we asked him a few questions so that you all could get to know him! 

Photo Courtesy of John Rzasa

Tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you want the HDS community & prospective students to know about you? 

My name is John Rzasa, and I am the Staff Assistant for the HDS Admissions Office.  I have been in the role for a year and a half at this point, and previously worked at the Harvard Law School (HLS) for just over four years.  Outside of work, I enjoy writing, watching ‘B’ movies (or lower, all the way down to ‘Z’), and cats. 

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Welcoming our New Director of Admissions, Odeviz Soto

24 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by HDS Admissions Blog in HDS Interviews

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Advice, Alumni, Career, HDS People

Post by Odeviz Soto, Director of Admissions 

Editor’s Note: This summer, we’re welcoming a new member to the Admissions team: Odeviz Soto, our new Director of Admissions. In this article, we asked him a few questions so that you all could get to know him! 

Tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you want the HDS community & prospective students to know about you?  

Thank you for starting with this question. Here is a little bit of my background. I was born in Cuba and immigrated to Hialeah, Florida at the age of ten. As a first-generation student and member of a family with low socioeconomic status, I was in for a shock when I enrolled at Harvard College, but I absolutely loved my time there. I studied colonial and postcolonial history and was drawn to see how religion was used either as a tool of oppression or liberation in different contexts. After teaching for one year at a boarding school in Salzburg, Austria, I returned to Cambridge for my Master of Divinity degree at Harvard Divinity School. It was at HDS that I learned that anything can be done in a ministerial manner and that I wanted higher education administration to be my ministry. Therefore, I am thrilled to return and once again be a member of such a wonderful community. 

A picture of Odeviz taken via Zoom 
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A Former HDS Student Reflects on the Anniversary of Reformation Day

08 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by HDS Admissions Blog in Experiential Learning

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Alumni, Christianity, Ministry

Guest Post by Pastor Robin Lutjohann, MDiv 2013

Harvard Divinity School is a place that will change you if you let it. I started by pursuing

robin

Robin Lutjohann, photo from author.

the two-year MTS degree with the intention of researching and teaching the history of Christianity. By the time I left, I was well on my way to becoming a Lutheran pastor. During the three years I spent at HDS, I lived in a protest camp in downtown Boston (Occupy!); switched my program; learned how to do ministry from people who lived on the streets of Cambridge and directed a soup kitchen. Also, I learned a couple of languages; wrote many papers; got baptized in the Charles River; fell in and out of love a couple of times; got engaged; met some of my best friends. Through all these and countless other encounters, I experienced at HDS what the Christian tradition calls “conversion” — a “being turned around” from one direction to another. So many of my friends and colleagues from HDS experienced something similar, entering the school with one vision and leaving with a very different one.

I have experienced the Divinity School as a kind of incubator for discernment. The sheer diversity of perspectives, traditions, and practices surrounding us here required us to examine our paths and question our motives at every turn. We took nothing for granted. Which is why, when folks ask me why I went to HDS and not to a Lutheran seminary, my answer is:

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Photo Credit: Rose Lincoln, Harvard Staff Photographer

“I am not sure I would be a Lutheran pastor today if I had gone to a Lutheran seminary. But in this multi-faith, multi-vocational context, I was forced to give an account for myself, for my story, and for my chosen tradition.” Others’ questions spurred on my learning. It is not too much to say that I learned from my Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, Baptist, Jewish, and other friends about what it means to be a Lutheran.

Despite our diversity of paths, one thing united us: HDS taught us that this institution educates “learned ministers.” All of us — academics, social workers, monks, nonprofit or government leaders, teachers, and students, and, yes, even pastors — were encouraged to think of ourselves as “learned ministers.”

One year into my pastorate at Faith Lutheran Church, back in my old neighborhood close to HDS, I am rediscovering the strength of this core idea. It contains a compelling ethos, holding together academic excellence and responsibility in the world.

Often, I wonder: what do most people think when they hear the phrase “learned minister?” Maybe they picture something like the statue of William Ellery Channing

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Photo Credit: Rose Lincoln, Harvard Staff Photographer

facing Arlington Street Church in downtown Boston. His eyes and chest raised heroically, 19th-century-windswept-Jane-Austen-novel hair casually blowing in the breeze, one hand clutching an academic robe (as if to shield the man against the onslaught of the world’s moral depravity), the other solidly in possession of that which grounds all of his work: the text. It is the image of the Preacher, the Pulpit Prince, who exercises leadership through his golden-tongued eloquence and moral example.

It is an image conjured for the sake of public gardens and portrait galleries. But it has little to do with what I have known a “learned minister” to be. Even Will Channing’s actual ministry and character was so much more interesting than it was heroic, much more embattled and conflicted, weak and strong at once, swept along by events, attempting to be witness to the Light he had glimpsed, but ever failing to do so completely, ever the sinner, even while a saint to us.

In 200 years of its history, HDS has expanded the definition of “minister” to include all forms of service to neighbor and world. While both some traditionalists and some secularists may bristle at this identification, it is actually quite faithful to its original intent. “Minister” is a Latin word that simply means “servant.” Its Greek equivalent “diakonos” is used by St. Paul in his letters not to describe an ordained clergyperson, but rather the role of the whole community seeking after the way of life that Jesus showed us — to serve others with compassion and to serve the world in seeking a just society, even in the face of the greatest adversity, even to the point of losing all for the sake of the world’s life. 

I see it as a fortuitous turn of events that HDS, in its increasing inclusivity over 200 years (towards other traditions, towards broader vocational directions), was forced to expand its definition of “ministry” and thereby virtually backed itself into a rendering of the term that is ironically more faithful to the biblical tradition at its roots, even while many students today would not claim this tradition as their own.

In fact, as a Lutheran, who is particularly mindful of Martin Luther’s reform movement as the 500th anniversary of its inception approaches in 2017, I am reminded of Luther’s own theology of vocation. Rather than ministry being the exclusive enclave of a few holy experts with lofty titles, who would have the power to dispense enlightenment and forgiveness, Luther wanted the entire people of God to own their ministry in daily life — cobblers, stonemasons, mothers and fathers, students, governors, and, yes, even pastors. “Each has the work and office of [their] trade, and yet they are all alike consecrated priests and bishops. Further, everyone must benefit and serve every other by means of [their] own work or office so that in this way many kinds of work may be done for the bodily and spiritual welfare of the community, just as all the members of the body serve one another [1 Cor 12:14-26].” (Luther’s Works 44:130) All were to be ministers of the Gospel! Luther once remarked that a Christian cobbler was not one who stitched little crosses on their shoes, but rather one who worked ethically, made an honest living, and exuded holiness in their ordinary tasks. 

So, there is no divide between the mundane and the theological. There is no barrier separating ministry and “secular” work. There is only the one service offered for the life of the world. The more we embrace this, the more faithful we will be to both the 200-year legacy of HDS and the(almost) 500-year history of the Lutheran reforming movement. I am delighted to think these two strands of tradition together, and I would invite anyone, regardless of affiliation, to join me

 

 

Start Visioning

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by Chris Alburger in Waiting to Hear

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Academics, Admissions, Alumni, BTI, Classes, Clubs, CSWR, Field Ed, HBS, HGSE, HKS, Housing, MDiv, MIT, Noon Service, Ph.D., Pluralism Project, Prospective Students, Research, Student Life, Thoreau, UU, Work-Study

Looking at Andover hall from the library. Photo by Chris Alburger

Looking at Andover hall from the library. Photo by Chris Alburger

As I was learning about HDS through the website and preparing my application, I started imagining what it would be like to actually be there. If you’ve applied for the Fall, I bet you’ve wondered that, too. And, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably anxious to hear back from Admissions in mid-March and wondering what to do with yourself until then. The anxiety was nightmarish for me, but that didn’t stop me from dreaming. I mean, if you’re gonna worry about the worst possible outcome, you may as well imagine the best, too, right? So stay positive and start visioning.

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Looking Out on My Final Semester at HDS

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by Sarah Lord in Graduating

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Academics, Alumni, Career Services, Classes, Community, Faculty, Field Ed, MDiv, Staff, Student Life, Study Abroad

IMG_2164

Looking at the HDS Green from the Andover lobby. Photo by Katelynn Carver

Monday, January 27th, 2014 was my last first day of school. I woke up, wished my roommate and fellow-3rd year MDiv a “Happy Last First Day of School!”, and prepared myself for a whirlwind progression of events: a phone meeting with my future employer, a class I was shopping on Apocalyptic Literature, work as a Graduate Assistant in the Office of Career Services, class at the Graduate School of Education, a quick break for dinner, and a live webinar conference course jointly offered through HDS and the Harvard Extension School. Continue reading →

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Cross-Registration and the BTI: Adventures Across the River

04 Wednesday Sep 2013

Tags

Alumni, BTI, Classes, Community, Cross-Registering

The Charles. Photo by Chris Alburger

The Charles River. Photo by Chris Alburger

“You need to take a class with Wildman.” That was the prevailing theme.

See, HDS isn’t just a part of the larger, multifaceted Harvard University community. It’s also a member of the Boston Theological Institute, or the BTI, which is a wonderful consortium of theological schools and seminaries in the greater Boston area where HDS students are welcome to enroll as cross-registered course members. I knew this when I came to HDS, but the idea initially seemed like more hassle than I was interested in diving into. Paperwork? Approval? Term-length discrepancies between schools? Earlier semester start dates? Commute times? Yeah, I figured. I’d just stick with Harvard and call it a day. Continue reading →

Posted by Katelynn Carver | Filed under Academics

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