Eden Seminary is in the midst of saying farewell and best wishes to Professor Laurel Koepf, Hebrew Bible and Religious Education. Dr. Koepf has accepted a position with McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago to direct their Doctor of Ministry program and teach as Administrative Faculty in the area of Hebrew Bible. She concludes with Eden at the end of May 2023.
Over the past dozen years, Professor Koepf has been a leading progressive scholar in the areas of the Bible and Childhood Studies, as well as Gender, Sexuality, and Race. She has brought administrative strength to Eden’s faculty in developing rubrics of assessment and improvement for the Doctor of Ministry degree as well as with Eden’s masters degrees. She served for a period as Associate Academic Dean and as chair of several faculty committees. She has been the faculty liaison to Common Ground, the LGBTQIA student cabinet group. In recent years, Dr. Koepf has drawn on her work as a Christian Educator (prior to joining the Eden Faculty) and added teaching in the area of Religious Education to her portfolio to support the Eden Faculty in resourcing the curriculum. As an ordained minister in the UCC, Dr. Koepf has represented the school well as a curricular leader in the UCC’s Our Whole Lives (OWL) Human Sexuality Educational curriculum for all ages.
While this transition is a loss to Eden’s community of learning and faith, we celebrate with Dr. Koepf a move that will contribute to the life she is building with her family in Chicago.
