Tag Archives: Student Life

Introducing the 2020-2021 HDS Admissions Graduate Assistants: Meet Atéha!

06 Tuesday Oct 2020

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Post by Atéha Bailly 

Hello! My name is Atéha Bailly. I am an incoming MDiv student and I’m happy to be starting work in HDS Admissions!  

Photo Courtesy of Atéha Bailly

Before coming to HDS, I spent a year working in Portland, OR after finishing my undergraduate studies in Religious Studies. During this time, I had the privilege of attending the 2019 Diversity Explorations Program. It was an invaluable opportunity in my discernment process, and it allowed me to spend time with a bunch of brilliant and talented students from universities across the country.  

During my application process, I was definitely not expecting to be attending school in a virtual environment. I have never taken classes online before, so it likely will be a bit of a learning curve. So far, the faculty and staff at HDS have been understanding of the unique challenges this time of pandemic poses which helped alleviate some of my anxiety about this transition.  

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Introducing the 2020-2021 HDS Admissions Graduate Assistants: Meet Kate!

05 Monday Oct 2020

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Post by Kate Hoeting 

Hi everyone! I’m a second year Master in Theological Studies student with an area of focus in Women, Gender, and Sexuality. I’m excited to return to the HDS Office of Admissions for another year of working as a Graduate Assistant! 

Just before coming to HDS, graduated from Carleton College in the great state of Minnesota where I was born and raised. Although I majored in religion, I was surprised by my own path—I grew up non-religious and hadn’t been interested in religion before coming to college. I’m non-religious/unaffiliated/whatever to this day, and I’ve found HDS not only a great place to study religion but also to think about how my own identity relates to my work. 

While in college, a few experiences cemented my path to divinity school. I started the life-changing work of volunteering as an abortion doula through the Carleton Advocacy Network of Doulas (CAN-DO), which I helped co-found in college. As an abortion doula, I supported patients in-clinic during the procedure. This meant showing up for patients however they needed me—I did everything from holding hands and passing tissues to chatting about Netflix. I could see the parallels between doula work and chaplaincy, and I felt excited by the idea of learning more about hands-on spiritual care and counseling at HDS. I was more interested in the MTS than the MDiv, and I loved that HDS allowed MTS students do field education and enroll in chaplaincy-oriented courses. 

Kate moderating a panel of abortion doulas and providers // Photo courtesy of Kate Hoeting
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Meet Our Incoming Students, Part 2

01 Tuesday Sep 2020

Posted by in Why I Chose HDS

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Editor’s Note: This post is part two of our three-part series that showcases incoming students. As we’re posting this article, these incoming students are beginning shopping week, during which students are welcome to drop in to as many classes as they want before they finalize their schedules for the semester. This is part two of a three-part series—you can also check out part one and part three.

Urmila Kutikkad, MTS ‘22 studying grief, body, and trauma within South Asian religious traditions 

At HDS, I am hoping to focus on themes of grief, body, & ritual as they play out in the spheres of gender/sexuality and South Asian studies. Much of this draws on work that I have been doing in the past year for progressive Hindu organizations (Sadhana and Hindus for Human Rights), as well as a prison abolition/restorative justice NGO in Bangalore. Although my relationship with faith growing up was fraught, I’ve gotten space to breathe and explore faith on my own terms in the past few years. Through this process, I have seen some of the most radical and beautiful social justice work being done on the grounds of faith, and my hopes of deepening this sort of work within Hinduism caused me to apply to HDS. 

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Meet Our Incoming Students, Part 1

27 Thursday Aug 2020

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Editor’s Note: We had such an impressive collection of applicants this year, so we’re launching a three-part series to introduce you to some members of our incoming class! We’re publishing this post to celebrate student orientation, which is happening online this week. During student orientation—online or in person—students have the opportunity to get to know their fellow classmates, explore student organizations, and meet their faculty advisors. This is part one of a three-part series—you can also check out part two and part three.

Annie Hanock, MDiv ‘23, studying spiritual caregiving and multifaith chaplaincy 

As a nonreligious person, I was originally really drawn to HDS as a nonsectarian divinity school where I would be able to take part in theological study without committing to a specific religion or practice myself. Although I’m not entirely certain what path my studies as a Master of Divinity student will follow, I do hope to become a multifaith chaplain, and I look forward to learning more about spiritual guidance and counseling, liberation theologies, and religious spaces/communities in general as conduits for revolutionary change. Although COVID has made it pretty much impossible to prepare for my first year at HDS as I had originally imagined I would, I have been really lucky to be able to dedicate a lot of time throughout these past couple of months to some hardcore personal/spiritual reflection (usually while sewing potholders or knitting dishtowels in preparation for my move to Cambridge), which I hope will help guide me as I begin my studies. 

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Summer Field Education with Faith in Public Life

12 Wednesday Aug 2020

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Post by: Melissa Cedillo, MTS ‘21 

As an HDS student, summers are an exciting time to delve further into your studies in any number of opportunities, including participating in Field Education or studying a language in the Summer Language Program (SLP) or completing research through fellowships. Though two units of field education are required for MDiv students at HDS, MTS students who are interested are welcome to engage in field education as well. In this post, second year MTS student, Melissa Cedillo, reflects on her summer field education experience as a Harvard Presidential Public Service Fellow (HPPS) working with Faith in Public Life (FPL). 

Melissa Cedillo (MTS ‘21) 
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Interview with Kerry Maloney, HDS Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life

04 Tuesday Aug 2020

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Post by: Kerry Maloney, HDS Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life (RSL) 

Kerry Maloney has served the HDS community since 2004 as HDS Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life and, prior to this role, as the Associate Director of Ministry Studies. In this particular moment, we thought it would be helpful to hear from the HDS Chaplain about the different ways the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life has responded to the challenges present in the work of our community today. If you are in need of some spiritual resources, we encourage you to explore the “Spiritual Resources During the COVID-19 Pandemic” created by RSL. 

Kerry Maloney, HDS Chaplain and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life (RSL) 
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Q & A with Malini Srikrishna, President of the HDS Student Association (HDSSA)

27 Monday Jul 2020

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Post by: Malini Srikrishna, MTS ‘21 and President of HDSSA (2020-2021) 

Malini (MTS ‘21) is a licensed social worker, entrepreneur and minister of love. Her area of focus is Liberation Theology, Business Ethics and Spiritual Care (an area of focus which Malini created herself). The HDS Student Association provides students a voice in the administrative and policymaking procedures of the School and facilitates discussion among students, staff, and faculty. The elected student officers meet monthly with the Dean to discuss student concerns and issues that affect the entire community and provide opportunities for conversation among students, faculty, and staff through roundtable discussions and Town Hall meetings.  

Malini (MTS ‘21) 
President of HDSSA 
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Reflections on Activism, Organizing, and Angela Davis

13 Monday Jul 2020

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Post by Eboni Nash, MTS ‘21  

Eboni Nash is a second year MTS student, who recently interviewed professor and activist Angela Davis. In addition to her academic pursuits at HDS, she serves as Social Justice Chair for the HDS Student Association (HDSSA), the Office of Student Life Ambassador for Diversity & Inclusion, an Organizer for the Harvard Prison Divestment Campaign, and Vice President of Events/Organizing for Harambee, the HDS student organization for students of African descent. 

Where were you when it happened? I imagine this question, much like 9/11, will be asked of us by the younger generation. Where were you when the COVID-19 pandemic struck? For me, I was on a plane heading back to my mother’s house for spring break. I decided to go early to be able to celebrate my niece’s birthday, when I received the email notifying me not to come back to campus.  

Just like that, 2020 took another unexpected turn that forced us to adjust quickly. During our stay-at-home orders, I found myself wondering what I could do and how I could still be useful so far from my networks. After weeks of contemplating and eating entirely too much, I realized that organizing was still very possible.  

For the past three years, I have considered myself an organizer and activist. Starting with food justice, I directed a local nonprofit in Nebraska that helped feed low income families of elementary school students over the weekend. This exposure to food-insecurity, education surrounding the poverty-line, as well as hot zones for food deserts, really took hold of my heart. I eased deeper into social justice soon after when I spent a summer interning at Sunshine Enterprises in Chicago. 

Eboni Nash (MTS ‘21) // 
photo courtesy of Eboni Nash 
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Reflecting on My Last Year at HDS

28 Thursday May 2020

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Editor’s Note: Tessa Steinert Evoy is graduating today, May 28th, 2020, with a Master of Theological Studies. The Office of Admissions is grateful to Tessa for all her hard work over these past two years serving as an Admissions Graduate Assistant, and we wish Tessa the best of luck on her post-HDS adventures! 

Post by Tessa Steinert Evoy, MTS ‘20 and Admissions Graduate Assistant   

I certainly would not have expected to be ending my MTS degree this way; however, these past few months have only made me appreciate the people of HDS who I have spent the last two years getting to know more. It all began in a classroom that slowly cooled as the sun dipped behind the clouds on a June night in the French course for Summer Language Program. Our classroom was often filled with laughter and the sound of rustling wrappers as we passed around packages of cookies. For me, transitioning from teaching eighth and ninth graders, SLP was a perfect bridge to the full HDS experience, a bit like dipping your toe into the HDS pond. On those sweltering days of orientation I saw the familiar faces of my SLP summer nights as we met the other students we would get to spend the next two years learning from. It is these people that I miss the most during our virtual learning.  

Tessa walks past Divinity Hall with fellow student  
Alex Jensen MDiv ‘21 // photo courtesy of HDS COMMUNICATIONS 
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Why was HDS the right fit for you?

16 Wednesday Oct 2019

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Editor’s Note: Here in the Office of Admissions, one of the most common questions we hear is, “How can I write a strong statement of purpose?” One thing strong statements of purpose tend to do is show how HDS is the right place for them to do the work they hope to pursue. Strong statements of purpose also tend to tell us about the applicant’s general background information, how this background has prepared them for graduate study at HDS, and their vocational or career objectives. We also want to emphasize that because our applicants have such diverse goals and interests, and because our programs are so flexible, there is no singular type of applicant who would be the “right fit” for HDS. Rather, we’re looking for applicants to show us how HDS is the right fit for you! 

You can learn more about the details of the statement of purpose here. To help you brainstorm for your statment of purpose, we’ve gathered a collection of current HDS students who’ve told us about why they chose HDS.  

Mary Perez (MDiv ‘22): I’ve found a space that honors and supports the integration of my intellectual and spiritual life. In the HDS community, I am free to be myself⁠—in the complexity of my identity, in my questions about my faith tradition, and in my wonderings about how to live my vocation.

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