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  • Quick Note: More on Cherry Hill Seminary Graduation Ceremony

Quick Note: More on Cherry Hill Seminary Graduation Ceremony

Jason Pitzl-Waters —  March 1, 2011 — 5 Comments

As I mentioned recently, Cherry Hill Seminary held the first graduation ceremony under their new program at the Sacred Space Conference in Maryland. On hand for the ceremony was a team from PNC-Washington DC (aka Capital Witch). They have put together this very nice video report.

“One of the first events of Sacred Space 2011 was hosting the first event graduation ceremony of Cherry Hill Seminary. Six students graduated from the ceremony with three in attendence. We had the chance to sit down with Cherry Hill staff and talk about the importance of the graduation and their work moving forward in the field of higher education for Pagans.”

Kudos to David and the team at PNC-Washington DC, and congratulations to the six Cherry Hill Seminary graduates! To find out more about CHS’s educational offerings, please check out their web site.

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Jason Pitzl-Waters

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  • http://www.cherryhillseminary.org Holli Emore

    It really was a fantastic occasion. Thanks, Pagan Newswire Collective, for the great job you did covering the event, which was hosted by Sacred Space Conference – also a fantastic event!
    By the way, I want to make a couple of clarifications to the narration above. CHS has indeed graduated some certificate students in the past, under the old program. Last weekend's were the first to receive certificates in recent years, under our new program.
    Also, Dr. Kraemer's comment that there are no Pagan professionals out doing the work she described was intended to acknowledge that so far few to no one actually advertises to hire Pagan professional chaplains, social workers, pastoral counselors, etc., but that will change as we build the educational resource to satisfy those professional credentials.
    Of course, you need not be aiming for one of those professional careers to experience the personal growth and training we offer, at graduate, certificate and public levels.

    • http://www.facebook.com/chkraemer13 Christine Hoff Kraemer

      Holli, yes, thanks for clarifying that for me. There are definitely Pagans working in the helping professions already, often for secular agencies. Still, Pagans deserve to have more ready access to specifically Pagan professionals. Right now, Pagans rely heavily on unpaid volunteers for ministry services, and with the movement growing as quickly as it is, that won't be workable forever.

      I think that nonprofessional clergy are going to retain an important role in a grassroots movement like Paganism. There's increasing demand in the Pagan community, however, for professional services that require formal training and demand more time and energy than a volunteer can reasonably give. As interfaith and Pagan organizations begin to create those professional positions, CHS graduates will be preparing to step into them.

      As Holli says, CHS also has something to offer Pagan clergy and practitioners who are not seeking professional positions. Those of us who serve in volunteer leadership roles in our communities need many of the same skills and knowledge that professional clergy do. We aim to help Pagan leaders at all levels of experience serve their communities in more effective ways, as well as contribute to the development of a thriving Pagan intellectual culture.

  • Charlton Hall

    Great to see this!

  • Aline O'Brien

    Thanks for this great coverage! I'd like to correct a tiny inaccuracy. Technically, this is not the very first CHS graduation. It is the first graduation of students from our newer programs. There are two graduates of certificate programs from an earlier set of criteria. I do not want to negate the hard work that both of those earlier graduates did to earn their certificates. Both are women, one from Upstate NY and the other from Tallahassee, FL. That said, this is a huge step in the ongoing endeavor that is the first Pagan seminary ever, anywhere in the whole world! Congratulations to first six to graduate from our current programs! Oops, I see that our able Executive Director has already pointed this out.

    This is your seminary, my Pagan colleagues. We are receptive to suggestions, volunteer help, enrollment, and monetary support.

  • http://www.hecatedemetersdatter.blogspot.com Hecate

    OT: Westboro Baptist Church wins at SCOTUS, but the opinion makes clear that the win relates to the tort claim at issue and that the Court might rule differently on laws that generally restrict picketing at funerals:

    Maryland now has a law imposing restrictions onfuneral picketing, Md. Crim. Law Code Ann. §10–205
    as do 43 other States and the Federal Government. See Brief for American Legion as Amicus Curiae 18–19, n. 2 (listing statutes). To the extent these laws are content neutral, they raise very different ques-tions from the tort verdict at issue in this case. Mary-land’s law, however, was not in effect at the time of the events at issue here, so we have no occasion to consider how it might apply to facts such as those before us, or whether it or other similar regulations are constitutional