BUSTH Announces Distinguished Alums for 2020
July 16, 2020 – The Boston University School of Theology (BUSTH) is pleased to announce this year’s Distinguished Alumni/ae for 2020. A list of previous winners can be found on the BUSTH website.
“The 2020 Distinguished Alums are extraordinary. They have crafted new paths of ministry with migrants and people living on the streets, local churches, neighborhoods, children, denominational bodies, people living in crisis and post-crisis trauma, and contexts crying for justice and ecological wellbeing,” said Mary Elizabeth Moore, dean. “We are honored that they left their marks on BUSTH and now serve as daring witnesses to the “Kin-dom of God.”
A celebration of these alums and their achievements will be part of a special virtual Community Day, scheduled for September 16. Please check our Alum Events page in the coming weeks for information on how to join us via Zoom.
2020 Distinguished Alumni/ae
Bishop LaTrelle Easterling (2004, MDiv)
Reverend Allen Ewing-Merrill (2000, MDiv)
Reverend Cristina Rathbone (2009, MDiv)
In the category of Emerging Leader:
Reverend Katie Cole (STH 2012, MDiv, SSW 2012, MSW)
2020 Distinguished Alumni/ae Biographies
Bishop LaTrelle Easterling (2004, MDiv) was appointed bishop of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church in 2016, and she was the first woman bishop of that Conference. Upon arriving in the Baltimore-Washington Conference, she founded The Seeds of Security ministry, or SOS, which benefits people in crisis who are seeking to leave abusive relationships. Prior to being elected bishop, she served as Dean of the Cabinet of the New England Annual Conference and as a superintendent, leading 57 congregations in the Boston Hope District. A delegate to General and Jurisdictional Conference in 2012 and 2016, Bishop Easterling serves on a number of boards and agencies. She also serves as the President of the Northeast Jurisdiction Multi-Ethnic Center, the Anna Howard Shaw Board of Boston University School of Theology, and Boston University School of Theology Dean’s Advisory Board. A strong proponent of education, Bishop Easterling received a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and a Law degree from Indiana University School of Law. She graduated summa cum laude in 2004 with a Master of Divinity from Boston University School of Theology.
Reverend Allen Ewing-Merrill (2000, MDiv) is an advocate and community builder. He is the Executive Director of The BTS Center, the organizational successor to Bangor Theological Seminary. A Maine native, he has most recently served as the Co-Pastor (with his wife, The Rev. Sara Ewing-Merrill) of HopeGateWay, a United Methodist Community in Portland. He is also the founder and former convener of Moral Movement Maine, a network that advocates for social justice in the state, and he serves on the Board of Directors of the Maine Council of Churches, where he served for several years as Vice-President. A graduate of the University of Maine (Orono), Ewing-Merrill taught high school English before attending the Boston University School of Theology. He graduated magna cum laude in 2000. After a pastorate at First United Methodist Church of Hudson, MA, he was appointed as co-pastor of the former Chestnut Street United Methodist Church, which subsequently became HopeGateWay. From 2011-2016 he also served as Executive Director of Hope Acts, a faith-based nonprofit focusing on immigrant support and addiction recovery.
A former journalist, Reverend Cristina Rathbone (2009, MDiv) matriculated at Boston University School of Theology after a profound conversion experience and in response to a call to serve vulnerable populations. She advocated for such populations in her journalism (author of two books, A World Apart: Women, Prison, and Life Behind Bars, and On the Outside Looking In: A Year in the Inner-City High School) and continues to do so in her ministry as an Episcopal priest. Her career has always been oriented around recognizing and restoring human dignity. After seminary, she began working at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston as a canon missioner. She became been a pastor to downtown Boston’s homeless community, developing and nurturing numerous ministry programs and gatherings that combine to form the cathedral church’s MANNA (Many Angels Needed Now and Always) community, with and for people who are experiencing homelessness or who have been unhoused. She was ordained in the Episcopal church during her time at St. Paul’s. Most recently, ‘Tina’ worked with asylum-seekers in Ciudad Juarez to birth a cross-border chaplaincy with the Episcopal Diocese of Rio Grande, that seeks to serve all people in transit through Mexico to the U.S.
Emerging Leader
Reverend Katie Cole (2012, MDiv, SSW 2012, MSW) is the Director of Children and Youth Ministries at Fourth Presbyterian Church in South Boston. Katie grew up in North Carolina and attended UNC Chapel Hill, where she did not study music, religion, or social work, but found herself doing all three all of the time. Reverend Cole moved to Boston from North Carolina in 2008 to pursue her MDiv and MSW at Boston University. She had every intention of moving back South after finishing, but her adventures in Boston with the community at Fourth Presbyterian Church, as well as her organizing work with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, compelled her to stay a little bit longer. She was ordained on March 4, 2018. In 2018, Rev. Cole began the program Peace by Piece, a program for post-traumatic healing that provides free monthly trauma support programming using a community-based approach to foster recovery and healing from all sources of post-traumatic stress, grief, or losses of all types.