Emilie M. Townes
Emilie M. Townes has broken through significant glass ceilings in her distinguished career in religion and academia. She was the first African-American woman to serve in her current role as the Dean of the Vanderbilt University Divinity School, where she is also the Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society. In 2005, Dr. Townes was the first African-American woman elected to the presidential line of the American Academy of Religion, and then served as its president in 2008. She was also the first African-American and first female Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the Yale Divinity School, where she was also a professor. ″I cherish working with very committed faculty, staff and students who do not question the importance of creating a more just world-they try to live it every day. It is rare to find a job that matches my personal commitments so well, yet continues to challenge me to grow and keep unearthing the ways that gender, sexuality, race, class, and more are deeply human things rather than problems or issues we need to hide or disdain,″ she says. A Baptist clergywoman and current president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion, Townes has published widely on Womanist spirituality and continues to study women and health in the African diaspora. -KL
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