Faculty News: Sr. Barbara Green, OP

On November 21-23, Sr. Barbara attended the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in New Orleans. The SBL is the largest and probably most representative association of academic biblical scholars in the world. Sr. Barbara was invited to offer a paper in a section called Writing/Reading Jeremiah, since she has been working on that prophet for about three years and presented two papers on the book of Jeremiah at last year's SBL meeting in Boston. Her paper "Sunk in the Mud: Literary Correlation and Collaboration between King and Prophet," focused on the material where the prophet interacts with the last king of Judah, Zedekiah (350 verses, with the main portion in 38:14-28). Sister’s thesis was that the apparent opponents—the prophet Jeremiah and the king Zedekiah—deeply resemble each other and are in fact comprehensively interlocked (each is, at a given moment, described as "sunk in the mud";) their common striving makes visible a project larger than either of them: the characterization of prophecy and the survival of God’s biblical people; the failure of Jeremiah’s speech offers insight into coercive language. The paper concluded with the implication that the interlocked characterization heightens the prophet’s inability to do his apparent job well; at a moment he might have spoken effectively his word—lacking empathy—seems to boomerang; maybe that’s the point for his re-readers, then and now.

Current Student Profile, Hannah Mecaskey

My explorations of Catholicism intensified during my undergraduate studies at a Baptist Bible school, propelling me to consider my graduate studies at a Catholic institution. Hoping for a philosophical exploration of faith, I began searching for a small school fostering a dialogical academic tradition in an intellectual community. The DSPT was a lucky find, its numbers, mission statement, and the approachability of faculty and staff convinced me that these people were sincere in their academic questions and faith traditions. The degree of openness between classmates and professors has demonstrated to me a working model of academic and spiritual community that has inspired various approaches I plan to pursue with my own future students.

Part of my academic journey my first year as an MA Theology Candidate was preparing myself to finally embrace the Catholic Church as my immediate family. My questions have changed since entering the Church this past May, but the Marian devotion and heartfelt adherence of the Dominican community to Church teaching have begun to inform not only my course of study, but my spiritual life as well. I feel very welcome in the Dominican community as a fellow sojourner in theological pursuits, and as a sister in the larger body of Christ.

Current Student Profile: Jacob Washabaugh

I come from a small farm town in the western part of the Sacramento Valley. A few years after high school I joined the United States Navy as a communications electrician, and was honorably discharged after four years of service on a guided missile frigate. Shortly after my military service I began work as a union electrician, but I was not satisfied with this profession. I wanted to do something that would have a positive impact on others. At the age of twenty-six, i decided to leave the trades and a good paying job, and return to school in the hope of earning my PH.D in order to teach at the university level. I'm the first person in my family to recieve a college degree, and i am currentlypursuing my M.A. in Philosophy at the DSPT. When I was looking into Master's Programs, it was important that I find a school that bases its appraoch to learning on Catholics principles, and a school that approaches modern ideas and problems with the philospcial and theoligical ideas of of the Catholic faith. I believe I've found that at the DSPT. Every clas I have in opened with an invocation, and there is an oncampus Mass where students come together in communion with Christ every Tuesday. We are taught by devout and academically accomplished Domincans who desire to help their students in the pursuit of truth. I really enjoy the small class size, and tha small campus whicvh gives the school a real sense of community. It really is a great academic environment. I enjoy, and value, my time in class as well as outside of class. DSPT was an excellent choice for higher education and I look forward to the coming semesters.

Culture of Philantropy: Sunday in Spain

On October 18th, we held our annual fund kickoff event at the DSPT campus. Although the weather was cool and not particularly Mediterranean, we nonthless celebrated an ode to a traditional Spanish afternoon, replete with Paella, Spain-themed tables, Sangria, community and good times. The auction raised over $20,000 even with the not-so Spanish weather.

A few highlights: Mike Bentovogilio won the Gourmet Dinner for 10 with Fr. Michael at Marilyn Knight's home in Tiburon. Eunice Jackson's bid prevailed on the weekend retreat with Fr. Sweeney, O.P. at the spectacular Sweetwater property in Guerneville, CA. Eileen Bitten sponsored a student for a semester for our "Fund-a-Need.: Maria Vickroy-Peralta won a Tuscan Dinner for Eight with Fr. Chris Renz and Joe Vanderlit walked away a Monterey Get-away and other prizes.

To see a video synopsis of the event along with interview highlights including DSPT President, Fr. Michael Sweeney and current DSPT students, please click here.

Faculty News: Fr. Michael Sweeney, OP

Just recently, on October 27th, Fr. Michael traveled to Holy Family Cathedral in Anchorage, Alaska to deliver a talk about the state of Catholic Education in America and why DSPT is so exceptional. His presentation was entitled "Reading the Signs of the Times: Dominican Education and the Challenge of Contemporary Culture." The presentation will be announced at www.dspt.com with a link to the full text if yor are interested in viewing it. It will be available within the coming week.

Father Michael Sweeney, OP, will be presenting a paper at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture's 10th annual fall conference The Summons of Freedom: Virtue, Sacrifice, and the Common Good taking place November 12-14. Father Michael's presentation, "Expressing the Good," will address the problem of the insufficient grasp of the good in our culture resulting in the inability to understand or apply the notion of the common good, and will suggest principles of a pedagogy that could address this problem.

For full schedule of the conference, go to

www.nd.edu/~ndethics/events/fallconfs.sof.documents/abstract.pdf

or

ethicscenter.nd.edu/events/fallconfs/sof/sof.shtml

DSPT and the World Parliament of Religions

Sr. Marianne Farina, CSC and 3 of her students from the Christian-Muslim Dialogue course have been invited to attend the Parliament of World Religions on December 3-9, 2009 in Melbourne, Australia.

This delegation will be part of the consultation on "Educating Religious Leaders for a Multi-Religious World." The goal of this consultation is to address ways that seminaries foster significant teaching/learning opportunities for the development of a new generation of leaders equipped to serve in the challenging milieu of today's mult-cultural, multi-religious world. The planning team of the World Parliament of Religions chose 15 seminary institutions to participate because of each institution's significant and creative studies in dialogue and comparative religions.

It is hoped that throughout this consultation, these schools will make their experience available to other theological communities. The attendees will write a final document to be shared with national theological associations and institutions in the United States.

For more information go to www.parliamentofreligions.org/index.cfm

Support the DSPT through Online Shopping

Giving Cart and Amazon.com

Did you know that you can help raise money DSPT through online and retail purchases?

Givingcart.com is a portal for Catholic internet shoppers. When you register for a free membership, you choose the Catholic project or charity that will benefit from your transactions, with the option to change your beneficiary at any time. A running tally keeps you posted on how much money you have raised for your charity as well as the total amount raised by all GivingCart.com members.

eScrip.com is a fund raising program where participating business contribute a percentage of your purchases to the school, group, or organization of your choice. Just register any one or all of you existing retail cards (Safeway card, etc.) as well as debit and credit cards for use in the program. To learn more, go to www.eScrip.com. To register, go to the eScrip Registration Page and enter GroupID# 500000450 for the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology.

Amazon.com

For DSPT students as well as those looking to support the school, we have an Amazon store which donates a percentage of your purchase directly towards us! Just go to http://astore.amazon.com/dspt-20 and start shopping. This page contains course specific listings as well as having Faculty Recommendations, Faculty and Alumni Publications and a "Thomism Bibliography" with writings by and about St. Thomas Aquinas. In addition, if you click on the Amazon logo on the upper left hand corner of our storefront site, you will be taken to the main Amazon website where you can purchase any other items you might be interested in with the same benefits of supporting the school