Bishop Burgess of Boston Appointed Yale Professor
Diocesan Press Service. December 8, 1975 [75432]
NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- The Rt. Rev. John M. Burgess, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, has been appointed Professor of Ministry at the Yale University Divinity School and Berkeley Divinity School, the Episcopal seminary at Yale.
Bishop Burgess, the only black clergyman to head an Episcopal diocese in this country, will retire from that post in January and will assume his new Yale appointment next September.
"Bishop Burgess has been a great spiritual force within the church," Dean Colin Williams of the Yale Divinity School stated. "We believe he will bring that force to the School. We know him to be a great pastor and we expect him to counsel and support our students in their search for identity as men and women before God. All our students need role models of men and women who have served the church faithfully and well, as they are being called to do themselves. Bishop Burgess is such a man. Yale is proud of his appointment. "
Within his responsibilities as Professor of Ministry for the whole School, Bishop Burgess will have a special assignment to develop the Black Church Studies Program. This assignment involves his designing and coordinating curriculum as well as leading Yale's effort to recruit black students and working with black churches.
Michael Allen, Dean of Berkeley Divinity School and Associate Dean of the Yale Divinity School, emphasized that "Bishop Burgess' background in sociology and urban studies, his wide experience in the church at large, and his close relationship with developments in the black church make him an ideal person to work with black students. At a time when black congregations in urban areas are growing, and American urban Christianity looks for new black leadership, we have a responsibility to help educate that leadership. We know Bishop Burgess will lead us in that task."
A native of Grand Rapids, Mich., Bishop Burgess received his bachelor's and his master's degrees from the University of Michigan, and his B.D. degree from the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Mass.
He was chaplain to Episcopal students at Howard University and a canon of the Washington Cathedral before becoming archdeacon of Boston in 1956, where he served until he was elected Suffragan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. He assumed the position of Bishop of the diocese in 1970.