On October 14, 2009, Andrew Wooden was granted a Honorary Degree from Yale University Divinity School. Below is the text of his acceptance speech.
Gratitude to Berkeley Divinity School at Yale
Refectory Talk at YDS
Andrew Wooden
October 14, 2009
The way I am feeling is best expressed by John Steinbeck in 1962, “There may be doubt that I deserve this award over other men [and women] of letters whom I respect and hold in reverence, but there is no question of my pleasure and pride in having it for myself.”
There is plenty of doubt in my heart about deserving this award As the Misfit says in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” “I can’t make what all I done wrong fit what all I gone through in punishment.” Seriously, the award should go to Berkeley trustee, Dr. Steven Bush and his wife Dr. Peggie Ann Findlay who are the real founders of my school. Or Berkeley chair, Carl Anderson, or other benefactors who make work like mine possible--or to classmates, Rev. Susan Richmond and Rev. Betsy Anderson who are priests who continue to keep the Gospel alive.
Then I quite seriously realized that this award is not for me; it is for all of us who have dedicated our lives to education. I became a volunteer for Berkeley’s new program in Educational Leadership and Ministry because I believe that Berkeley and YDS are ideally suited to train leaders for schools, and that ministry in schools and colleges is profoundly important. Dean Britton asked me to speak about why this place prepares us for such leadership.
Mission is an important word in education—it is related to vision and purpose, but for us sitting here at YDS, mission has a deeper meaning. Mission connotes ultimate concerns, it requires dedication, self sacrifice, it suggests new territory, and of course, mission is associated with conversion.
My Episcopal church in Albuquerque has just formed a mission church in a rural town in New Mexico and it reminds me of my school that was just forming in 1995, my last year as a student here. When you are involved in a new church, a new school, or a new ministry (ELM at Berkeley in this case) you realize that the mission and purpose of your work is most apparent at inception. As you help build something new and lasting the work is transformative. We will never have the regret that T. S. Elliott describes, and that President Benno Schmidt quotes in his inaugural, with these words, “We had the experience, but missed the meaning.” You see, if it hadn’t been for this place I wouldn’t have dropped what I was doing and left a wonderful—though all too safe life at Choate Rosemary Hall—to take up the meaningful work of helping to build a new school. I also would not have done it without classmates who were poised to take on important roles of service who inspired me to jump.
I arrived here in 1993 as a secular humanist and almost immediately became a “religious humanist.” We who were raised New England Congregationalists (At Yale you know our history) are often slow to embrace Anglicanism. If my great, great, grandfather knew I was going to become a vestry member of an Episcopal Church he would have jumped off the Mayflower. Enough about me—Dean Britton asked me to talk about how this place shapes people for educational ministry.
First it is the faculty. Even the secularist, President Bart Giamatti said of “mother Yale,” “Everyone in this hall can recall certain voices, the voices of teachers who changed the ways we live our lives.” Notice that Giamatti doesn’t just say “changed our lives” he says “changed the ways we live our lives.” Before coming to this place I believed in trying to do things well, but it was here that teachers—and classmates--helped me hear the call of doing good—not only doing well. My eyes were opened during a Friday sermon in this place by the idea of our potential as co-creators. It was new then, but thanks to this place it is now second nature. As Margaret Farley says, once you see it you will never again not see it.” Nor will I ever forget the voice of Leandor Keck before his “preliminary remarks” in New Testament pausing to pray that we would discern God’s voice in scripture. It was in Marquand on Easter Monday Peter Hawkins preached on the final verses of John’s Gospel when I first apprehended Jesus with me and felt directly God’s love. How much it means when your professor writes a small piece of marginalia on your paper that simple says, Andrew, you now understand.” But, I am not talking about me; I am talking about the voices in this place. The voices dedicated to helping students find their best selves and to help us realize our God given potential. This is preparation for ministry in a parish or a school.
I can also testify for the education. The course work here, and downtown, is second to none. Here, we learn to read, reflect, think, write, and speak well. Yale is good at educating leaders for church communities; that same education translates well to leading educational communities. My morning meeting addresses at my school are in essence sermons. Before my training here, all problems looked political, but as Giamatti said, “all issues are moral, only the solutions are political.” Before Yale I thought my job was teaching Shakespeare—after Yale it was teaching children to understand Shakespeare. In short, we believe that there is meaning in scripture, great texts, great thought, and throughout the world. As Tony Kronman, the Director of Yale’s Great Books Program, writes in his book Education’s End, “Our lives as a whole can be meaningful to us only in relation to something larger and more lasting than ourselves.” The work educators do with conflict and competing interests is at heart, a matter of ethics. The constant work at improving relationships and helping people grow and change is of course pastoral counseling.
It is more than nostalgia to recognize the role of this place’s history in the fabric of our shared community and culture. In 2002-2003 I was back here as a research associate writing a “History of Yale’s Moral Purpose” drawing mostly on Yale’s original mission and history and the way that Yale presidential inaugurals have kept the moral tradition alive. Although it may be obvious that Yale’s original mission “to develop educated leaders for church and civil state” is more YDS’s purpose than that of the modern university, a close study of the Yale’s history links the work we do today to the original charge and what I believe is the essence of my school’s core values.
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To this point, as recently as 1964 Yale President Kingman Brewster stated that “our original, and still our central purpose, is the training of young [people] for a life of learning and service.” Or in 1937 when President Seymour said, “I am not for a second forgetful of our students, it was for their training that Yale was founded.” Berkeley at Yale still believes in helping students prepare for leadership in church and civil service—and no service is more civil than raising future generations of decent, moral, educated, citizens.
Finally, one learns community at Yale through daily chapel and coffee hour. The sound we make singing together gives us knowledge of what many voices can produce when in unison. We feel welcome when a professor suggests that class discussion can continue at lunch in the refectory. We study together, not at others’ expense. We feel joy when we all dedicate ourselves to something worthy. And we express great gratitude to be welcomed back to this most amazing place when receiving an award from people I respect, revere, and love. Thank you.
