ABSW WELCOME NEW STAFF MEMBERS

ABSW welcomed three new staff members this past year.

The new Director of Recruitment is the Rev. Debra Mumford, a 1997 M.Div. graduate. Mumford was Director of Recruitment at the Pacific School of Religion until last year when she left to begin a Ph.D. program in homiletics and the New Testament at the Graduate Theological Union with a doctoral fellowship from the Fund for Theological Education.

She earned her Master of Arts in Biblical Languages from the GTU in 2001 while continuing her affiliation with ABSW and received the Jessie Day Drexler Scholarship Prize upon graduation from ABSW.

While working on her M.Div., Mumford served as Youth Minister, Assistant Pastor, and Interim Pastor at Church By the Side of the Road in Berkeley. After graduating from ABSW, she worked as an outreach coordinator for the Chaplaincy to the Homeless in Berkeley. She subsequently served as the Director of Operations for the Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland.

In addition to working part time at ABSW, Mumford is a visiting professor at Patton College in Oakland and continues to preach and teach at churches throughout the Bay Area. She believes one of her primary purposes in life is to spread the Gospel through her gifts and to equip the people of God for ministry in a dynamic world.

Eileen M. Harrington is the new Director of Communications and Foundation Relations. She joined the staff full time after working with ABSW as a consultant on foundation fund raising last year.

Harrington completed her M.Div. and M.A. at the Pacific School of Religion in 2001. Currently, she is enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the GTU, focusing on the critical issues of globalization, ecology and women. She has received three Newhall Teaching Awards from the GTU and will continue teaching courses this fall and spring.

Previously, Harrington worked as a social worker and nonprofit manager for 15 years in Washington, D.C., and in Seattle with people on the margins of communities. Her long history of social justice ministry and activism coupled with her theological studies has reaffirmed her favorite biblical passage: “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)

Annie Russell joined the seminary staff as Registrar in June 2003. In addition to managing enrollment, grades, and international students for ABSW, Russell is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the GTU. Her research interests focus on American women’s religious history, the leadership roles of women in social reform movements of the early 20th century, and the interrelationship of religion, American culture, and baseball.

She was awarded the Bogart Teaching Fellowship this year by the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, a GTU consortial school. She is an active member of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.

Russell has more than 20 years experience as a broadcast sales representative and human resource manager.