41 to graduate at May 13 Commencement – Two women receive honorary doctoral degrees

The Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest will award honorary doctoral degrees to two women graduates of Smith College and the Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco will preach the sermon at its May 13 Commencement.

The Very Rev. Alan Jones will present the sermon for the 41-member Class of 2008 that represents 17 Episcopal dioceses from Hawaii and Los Angeles to Southwest Florida and Virginia. The graduating class includes 8 denominations and persons from Pakistan and Mexico.

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, prominent Jewish New Testament scholar and author, and Leila Clark Wynn, a member of St. James’ Church in Greenville, Mississippi, will receive the honorary doctor of humane letters degree.

Dr. Levine is professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Department of Religious Studies and Graduate Department of Religion. Holding a B.A. from Smith College, an M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University and an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the University of Richmond, Levine has held office in the Society of Biblical Literature, the Catholic Biblical Association and the Association for Jewish Studies.

Her most recent publications include The Misunderstood Jew: The Churchand the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus, the edited collection – The Historical Jesusin Context – and the fourteen-volume series, Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings. The author of scores of essays and articles and frequent lecturer throughout this country and abroad, Professor Levine taught at Swarthmore College before joining the Vandebilt faculty in 1994.

Professor Levine presented the Harvey Lectures last year at the Seminary of the Southwest. Read her lecture

A native of Austin, Wynn has served on several diocesan committees since she came to Mississippi in the mid-1950s. Millsaps College, where she has been a trustee for two decades, awarded her an honorary doctorate in recognition of her public service. Her philanthropic interests are centered mostly in Mississippi and she serves on several boards in support of Southern culture and literature.

Wynn has donated her collection of William Faulkner first editions to the University of Mississippi and has served on the supporting board of the Faulkner Center in Oxford. She is editor of The Time Has Come: The Greenville literarytradition – a selection of readings from works by early Greenville writers. Wynn earned the master’s degree from the University of Texas, in addition to her bachelor’s degree from Smith.

Her service to the Seminary of the Southwest includes work on its development board for several years. Her gifts have helped rebuild the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina, supported education at three institutions of higher learning and bolstered the work of her parish and diocese.