Grace Cathedral names Jane Alison Shaw as dean
Episcopal News Service. June 25, 2010 [062510-05]
ENS staff
Episcopal Diocese of California Bishop Marc Handley Andrus and the Grace Cathedralboard of trustees in San Francisco announced June 25 the appointment of the Rev. Canon Dr. Jane Alison Shaw as the cathedral's next dean.
"Jane Shaw's spiritual depth, commitment to the gospel, theological vision and leadership skills make her uniquely qualified to help guide Grace Cathedral into its second century," Andrus said in a cathedral press release. "In her, we have found an individual who understands both the gifts and challenges of the cathedral, and one who will be able to reinforce Grace Cathedral's mission and ministry to the congregation and to the community."
Shaw said in the release that she was "greatly honored by Bishop Marc and the leadership of Grace Cathedral's vote of confidence to name me its next dean."
"A cathedral's dean is asked to stand at the nexus of many worlds, including the cathedral congregation, the chapter and staff, the board, the diocese, the city and more. I look forward to interacting with and communicating between these different worlds," she said. "My vision is of a church that engages deeply with the culture and the world in which it finds itself. I greatly look forward to working in the Episcopal Church, with which I have long had a deep connection. It will be a privilege to work in this vibrant branch of the Anglican Communion."
She succeeds the Very Rev. Alan Jones, who retired in February 2009 after serving the cathedral for 25 years.
Shaw joins Grace Cathedral from the University of Oxford in England where she has served as the Dean of Divinity and a fellow of New College. She has taught history and theology at the university for 16 years; she has been at New College for nine years.
The cathedral's release said that Shaw is "known internationally for her exceptional talents in the communication of Christianity in the public sphere," noting that in Great Britain, "she has been successful in bridging differences in governance and policies pertaining to inclusion."
Shaw has served as theological consultant to the Church of England House of Bishops, and is canon theologian at Salisbury Cathedral and an honorary canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.
Since the late 1980s, Shaw has studied or held academic positions at several United States institutions of higher education. She earned a master of divinity from Harvard Divinity School in 1988 and a doctor of philosophy degree in history from the University of California at Berkeley in 1994. In 2006, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Episcopal Divinity School. In the 1990s, she taught at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, the Episcopal Church-affiliated seminary in Berkeley, California. Shaw has been a visiting professor at U.C. Berkeley, Emory University and Florida Atlantic University.
Retired Diocese of Virginia Bishop Peter Lee has been Grace Cathedral's interim dean since October 2009.
Shaw's appointment comes a century after the installation of the Grace Cathedral's first dean, the Very Rev. James Wilmer Gresham, who served the cathedral for almost three decades, from 1910 to 1939.