The College Theology Society held its sixty-fourth annual convention at Saint Catherine University in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Thursday, May 31–Sunday, June 3, 2018. A total of 211 members gathered to consider the theme “‘You Say You Want a Revolution?’: 1968–2018 in Theological Perspective.” The National Association of Baptist Professors of Religion (NABPR) met with the CTS once again this year. The College Theology Society presented forty-nine sections offering eighty-nine papers and five panels. The program also included three plenary addresses and one plenary panel. The convention opened officially on Thursday evening with Willie Jennings of Yale University Divinity School delivering a plenary address entitled “The Christian Imagination and the Origins of Race.” On Friday, Julie Hanlon Rubio of Saint Louis University offered the second plenary address, “Sex, Gender, and Revolution: Where Was Theology?” Christopher Pramuk of Regis University presented the third plenary address on Saturday morning, “Hope Sings, So Beautiful: Graced Encounters along the Color Line.” A plenary panel on Saturday on the topic “The Crisis of Contingent Faculty in US Higher Education” featured Gerald Beyer of Villanova University, Claire Bischoff of Saint Catherine University, and Steve Werner of the Werner Institute.
At the Saturday afternoon business meeting, CTS president Shannon Schrein, OSF, reported two new initiatives of the board, an exploration of ways to make attendance at CTS meetings more accessible to members with young children and those with issues with mobility, as well as a new proposed joint membership with the Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies. She encouraged members to donate to the Fr. Gerard S. Sloyan Annual Fund, which helps to support members who apply for financial assistance to attend annual meetings. Vice President Johann Vento reported on the three regional meetings of the College Theology Society that took place this past year in the Philadelphia, Boston, and Pittsburgh regions. Vento also announced the following election results: Mary Doak as president-elect, George Faithful as secretary, and LaReine-Marie Mosely and Jessica Wrobleski as at-large board members. On behalf of the board, Vento announced the following nominations to working committees for the coming year: Nancy Rourke and Dan Rober to the Nominating Committee, Ben Peters and Mary Ann Zimmer to the Awards Committee, and Brian Doyle and Karen Enriquez to the Resolutions Committee. All proposed committee appointments were unanimously approved by the membership. No resolutions were received for this year's meeting.
Secretary Nicholas Rademacher reported that overall membership has increased over last year. There are 541 total paid/active members as of May 29, 2018, up from 511 the year before. Of the total active members, 370 are full members, 9 are joint members, 56 are associate members, 101 are graduate student members, and 5 are lifetime members. He reported that his second term as secretary ends in June 2018 and welcomed new secretary George Faithful. Treasurer Stephen Okey reported that the overall financial situation of CTS remains strong. Revenue from dues for 2018 is $30,840 through May. There was a healthy surplus of $7,040.27 from the 2017 meeting at Salve Regina University in Rhode Island. He expects another surplus from the 2018 convention. Okey reported that the Gerard Sloyan Annual Fund is far short of its $3,000 annual goal at only $550 at the time of the 2018 meeting.
Horizons editor Elena Procario-Foley reported that the June 2018 issue of Horizons was in print and online, and on its way to the membership. She reported a strong rate of submission but noted an ongoing need for more submissions from women. Procario-Foley gave information about the relationship with Cambridge University Press, which publishes Horizons, emphasizing the good rate of digital downloads of Horizons articles internationally, and the 20 percent discount on all CUP publications in religious studies and theology available to CTS members. Chair and Editor of Research and Publications William J. Collinge announced that the 2017 Annual Volume, American Catholicism in the 21st Century: Crossroads, Crisis, or Renewal, was mailed to members earlier in the spring. He reported that the CTS archives housed at Catholic University now has at least one copy of all previous annual volumes, and let the membership know that he is in possession of multiple volumes of several previous annual volumes in case any members should want them.
Executive Director of National Conventions David Gentry reported that 211 members are attending the 2018 convention. The 2019 meeting will be at Mount Saint Vincent College in Riverdale, New York, where Eileen Fagan will be the local coordinator. The 2020 and 2021 meetings are tentatively slated to be held at the University of San Diego, California, and Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, respectively.
At the banquet on Saturday evening, Nancy Rourke of the Awards Committee presented awards for best book, article, and graduate student essay. This year's book award went to Paul Lakeland for The Wounded Angel: Fiction and the Religious Imagination (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017). The best article award was presented to Elisabeth Vasko for “‘Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers’: Resisting Stigma and Embracing Grace as Dis-ease,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 31, no. 1 (2017). The Susan G. Perry Award for the best student essay was given to Michael Romero for “The Male-Female Polarity in Hans Urs von Balthasar's Reading of Genesis 1–2: Critique and New Analysis.” The Monika Hellwig Teaching Award was presented to David Cloutier from the Catholic University of America. The banquet ended with the presidential award by CTS president Shannon Schrein, OSF, to Anne Clifford, CSJ, the Msgr. James A. Supple Chair of Catholic Studies at Iowa State University, for her extraordinary service to the College Theology Society, to the profession, and for bringing science, theology, and lived experiences into greater dialogue.
