Honorees 2015–16 The 2016 recipients of the Peter J. Gomes STB ’68 Memorial Honors
CYNTHIA L. G. KANE, MDIV ’96, lieutenant commander in the Chaplain Corps of the United States Navy, is currently stationed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, Newport News, VA. Her formal ministry has included posts as a hospital chaplain at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and ministry internships at the First Parishes in Concord and Bedford, MA. She was ordained by the latter in 1997. She was the first official chaplain at Ferry Beach, Saco, ME. After completing a CPE residency at Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu, HI, she was invited to serve as director of the Campus Ministry Program for Unitarian Universalist Students in the Joseph Priestly District of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Commissioned to the Chaplain Corps of the United States Navy in August 2001, she completed chaplain school in Newport, RI, and then reported to the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head, MD, where she also was assigned to the USMC Chemical Biological Incident Response Force (CBIRF) and Arlington National Cemetery. A graduate of Tulane University and the University of San Diego, as well as HDS, she has received numerous awards, including the Joint Service Commendation Medal and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal. She served aboard USS John C. Stennis, Bremerton, WA, from 2004 to 2006, and was sent on individual augmentation to the Joint Task Force Command overseeing detainee operations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2005–06. Her following tours were as deputy director, Spiritual Fitness Division, Navy Region Southwest, San Diego, CA, and then plank-owner command chaplain, USCG Sector Northern New England, Portland, ME. VALARIE K. KAUR, MTS ’07, is a lawyer, filmmaker, activist, entrepreneur, and Sikh thought leader. She has made awardwinning films and led national campaigns to advance progressive issues: racism and profiling, gun violence, immigration detention, solitary confinement, net neutrality, LGBTQ equality, and hate crimes against Muslims and Sikhs. She is a regular television commentator on MSNBC and opinion contributor to CNN, NPR, PBS, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The Hill, and The New York Times. She founded the Groundswell Movement of 200,000+ members, the largest multifaith online organizing community in the United States. A prolific public speaker, she has addressed audiences at
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the White House, the Pentagon, the Parliament of the World’s Religions, and on more than 250 U.S. college campuses; she was the first Sikh to deliver Stanford’s baccalaureate commencement address and the College of St. Benedict’s commencement address. As a senior fellow at Auburn Theological Seminary, she often preaches on “revolutionary love” as a political and moral force that can dismantle structures of injustice. She has traveled with the U.S. State Department as a keynote speaker throughout Myanmar, aiding its transition from dictatorship into democracy. She has reported on the military commissions at Guantanamo and clerked on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She is also a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School, where she founded the Yale Visual Law Project to train law students to make films that change policy. She is currently the Media and Justice Fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, where she co-founded Faithful Internet and advocates for Internet freedom. BETSEE PARKER, MDIV ’85, is a philanthropist, Episcopal priest, international public health and civil rights advocate, preservationist, arts and education patron, and owner of several award-winning show horses. She is a leader of the Millennium Villages Project (MVP), a collaboration of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, the United Nations Development Programme, and Millennium Promise to end extreme poverty throughout the world. At MVP, she has supported the creation and adoption of sustainable development models in Guinea, Ghana, Senegal, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Togo, and Sierra Leone, among other nations, and has helped improve the lives and health of thousands of people in Africa. Prior to joining MVP, she worked with first responders and pathologists as part of the recovery effort after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. She also served as head chaplain of the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and as a leader of the multifaith chaplaincy team at Ground Zero. A longtime owner of show horses that compete at the highest levels, she has several times been named Owner of the Year by the United States Equestrian Foundation. She has been awarded honorary doctorates of humane letters from the State University of New York and from Niagara University. In addition to international development, her philanthropy extends to educational institutions, the arts, and youth in U.S. equestrian events, among other causes.
