Patty Speier receives inaugural McDonald Award for teaching

Patty Speier, teacher and executive director of Seton Cove in Austin, is the first recipient of the Durstan R McDonald teaching award at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest.

"Gifted and innovative teacher, insightful spiritual director and model of lay ministry, you have enhanced the life of the Seminary of the Southwest, as well as the wider Austin community, since graduating from ETSS in 1995," read the citation that accompanied the award.

The seminary faculty established the award to honor the Very Rev. Durstan R McDonald, dean-emeritus, on the occasion of his retirement last spring. Each year, the faculty will choose a recipient whose life and ministry manifest the strong elements of good and creative teaching that distinguishes McDonald's teaching. Dean-emeritus McDonald is teaching one class a semester this year at the seminary.

Speier has headed Seton Cove - a local interfaith organization that serves people seeking to integrate spirituality into their daily lives - since 2000. She currently teaches a class on "Fiction, Faith, and the Journal: Examining Theology through the Writers" at the Seminary of the Southwest. She also teaches at Seton Cove, the Austin Presbyterian Seminary, the Austin Lay School of Theology and area churches.

The full text of her citation reads:

"Gifted and innovative teacher, insightful spiritual director and model of lay ministry, you have enhanced the life of the Seminary of the Southwest, as well as the wider Austin community, since graduating from ETSS in 1995.

"After serving as lay ministry coordinator at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Austin, you moved downtown to St. David's Church where you made significant contributions to the spiritual welfare of that congregation as director of spiritual formation programs. Since 2000 you have been executive director of Seton Cove, a local interfaith organization that serves people seeking to integrate spirituality into their daily lives.

"As a spiritual director and teacher, you specialize in the use of literature and writing for spiritual growth and ethical development. Adept at skillfully integrating spirituality with literature, you teach from extensive reading lists in your classes, enabling students to soon realize just how much literature truly expresses spirituality. Your passion for teaching - as clear as a "Thomas Merton Moment" -enhances the classes you teach at the Seminary of the Southwest, Seton Cove, Austin Presbyterian Seminary and the Austin Lay School of Theology.

"It is especially appropriate that we honor you tonight during the regularly scheduled time of your MAPM class - 'Fiction, Faith and the Journal: Examining Theology through the Writers.' We celebrate your gifts of teaching as we present to you the first Durstan R McDonald Award."

Patty Speier, center, with members of her seminary MAPM class and colleagues from Seton Cove