Conversation Circles for Chaplains of Color

Leaders in spiritual care from multiple disciplines and settings will serve on the project’s Advisory Board in 2021:

The Rev. Marilyn J. D. Barnes currently serves as a Vice President of Mission and Spiritual Care in the Advocate Aurora Healthcare System and is an Associate Minister at Cathedral of Grace St. John African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Aurora, Illinois. Rev. Marilyn, as she is affectionately called, believes in journeying with others as companion, guide and friend. Rev. Marilyn is a Transforming Chaplaincy Research Fellow. Her research interests include, religious and spiritual coping among African-American women, and the sustainability with the use of Spiritual Care Encounter Simulation in Clinical Pastoral Education and chaplain continuing education.

Rev. Marilyn holds a Bachelor of Science Degree and a Master of Science Degree in Computer Science. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in Pastoral Care and Counseling and a Master of Public Health Degree with a concentration in Epidemiology. Rev. Marilyn is an ordained Itinerate Elder in the AME Church and a Board Certified Chaplain through the Association of Professional Chaplains.

Rev. Marilyn has presented at numerous conferences. Her publications include the seminal chaplaincy research, “What do I do? Developing a taxonomy of chaplaincy activities and interventions for spiritual care in intensive care unit palliative care,” (BMC Palliative Care, 2015) which developed a normative language for chaplains and is currently being incorporated into chaplaincy practice in a variety of settings in the US and around the world, “Symbols of Comfort for a Journey of Grief,” (Illness Crisis and Loss, 2014) an article focused on the use of ritual during the initial grieving process, and “Spiritual Care Encounter – Journeying with a Grief Stricken Family” (Simulation in Health Journal of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare, 2017).

Reverend Kirstin C. Boswell Ford is University Chaplain and Dean of Multifaith Engagement at Elon University. Prior to this role, she was Associate Dean of Student Support Services at Brown University. Her former roles have included serving as Chaplain to the Institute and Director of the Office of Religious Life at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and theProtestant Chaplain at both Brown University and Bentley University and the Director of Operations for The International Association of Black Religions and Spiritualities at the University of Chicago. Reverend Boswell Ford has served in congregational ministry for almost twenty years and is an American Baptist clergy person holding a Master of Divinity from The University of Chicago Divinity School. She is currently completing her PhD at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where her writing focuses on Womanist Theology and analyzing the call narratives of African American clergywomen.

Boswell Ford’s publications include Boswell, G. H. & Boswell-Ford, K. (2010). Testing a SEM Model of Two Religious Concepts and Experiential Spirituality. Journal of Religion and Health, 49 (2), 200- 211; Boswell-Ford, K. (2009). Self and the Home-Place: Self-identity and God in African American Culture. In D. Hopkins and M. Lewis (Eds.), Another World is Possible. (pp.313-330). London: Equinox Publishing; and Boswell-Ford, K. (2007). Self-identity and African American Women. Paper presented at the Aboriginal Community Development Association, Adelaide, Australia.

Barbara D. Savage is an historian and the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought in the Department of Africana Studies of the University of Pennsylvania.  She was the Vyvyan Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History at the University of Oxford in 2018-2019. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in twentieth century African American history; the history of American religious and social reform movements; the history of the relationship between media and politics; and black women’s political and intellectual history.

Her book, Your Spirits Walk Beside Us: The Politics of Black Religion (Harvard University Press, 2008), is an historical examination of debates about the public responsibility of black churches and the role of religion in racial leadership. That book was the winner of the prestigious 2012 Grawemeyer Prize in Religion. She also is the author of Broadcasting Freedom: Radio, War, and the Politics of Race, 1938-1948 (University of North Carolina Press, 1999) which won the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Award for the best book in American history in the period 1916-1966. In addition, she is co-editor of Women and Religion in the African Diaspora (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) with R. Marie Griffith. Savage is currently at work on an intellectual biography of Professor Merze Tate, an African American woman who pioneered in the fields of diplomatic history and international relations during her tenure at Howard University from 1942 to 1977.

Savage received her doctorate in history from Yale in 1995, and also holds a law degree from Georgetown University and an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia. Prior to entering graduate school, she worked in Washington, DC as a Congressional staff member and as a member of the staff of the Children’s Defense Fund. During graduate school, she served as Director of Federal Relations, Office of the General Counsel at Yale University.

Dr. Asha Shipman is the Director of Hindu Life and Hindu Chaplain for Yale University. Dr. Shipman earned her advanced degrees from the University of Connecticut. She is an experienced educator, having taught for almost two decades at the high school and university levels. She joined the Yale University Chaplain’s Office in 2013 and in 2016 became the second (and only female) Hindu chaplain with a full-time university appointment in the US. Her Hindu Life Program at Yale offers a space for worship and connection as well as a safe space to consider the contemporary relevance of Hindu philosophies and practices. A pioneer in the field, she is a frequently sought out as a speaker, writer, and consultant on Hindu chaplaincy in higher education. Dr. Shipman is a contributor to the first book on Hindu chaplaincy in the US entitled “Hindu Approaches to Spiritual Care” and the author of “Hindu Chaplaincy in US Higher Education,” a recent article published by the Journal of Interreligious Studies. Dr. Shipman is the Chair of the newly formed North American Hindu Chaplains Association. She is on the Advisory Council for Convergence, an advisor for the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab, a campus fellow of Campus Chaplaincy for a Multifaith World, and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Connecticut Valley Hindu Temple Society.