<p>**Addendum to post #679, with regard to the number of ministers: Not counting the Harvard Div School graduates; just the Harvard College graduates (since Div School admission and undergrad admission operate differently).</p>
<p>Connected with that: A quick count of my acquaintances yielded 12 graduates of Yale Div School, all of whom went into the ministry (counting 2 who became Directors of Christian Education rather than preachers; both women). As far as I know, none went to Yale as undergrads, though. A similar quick count of my acquaintances yields 0 graduates of Harvard Div School who have gone into the ministry. Perhaps a limitation of my perspective.</p>
<p>I have somehow formed the impression that Harvard Div had appointed an atheist as the Dean, within the recent past. (Could be a false impression–will check & let you know). </p>
<p>I am not prejudiced against Unitarians! Two of my relatives are Unitarians (or at least, lapsed Unitarians).</p>
<p>Question out of ignorance: Do priests and rabbis call themselves ministers? I know this is a common term for Protestant clergy.</p>
<p>In answer to post #681, I don’t know about the dean, but Harvard has two chaplains who are “Humanist,” one of whom clearly identifies as atheist. One seems to come from a Jewish background and one from a Christian one. [People</a> | Harvard Chaplains](<a href=“http://chaplains.harvard.edu/people]People”>Chaplains | Harvard Chaplains)</p>
<p>I admit the idea of a chaplain for atheists seems kind of odd to me.</p>
<p>But then Harvard has a Zoastrian chaplain too.</p>
<p>I didn’t (nor did Yale) refer to religion or divinity majors of some sort. And not all Unitarians are atheists.<br>
Question: if a few of us know good folks out of Harvard, does that mean that’s all there is? Like, wow, good to know?</p>
<p>I don’t think Harvard was looking for the person who would be the world’s greatest stay at home mother–even though I think that option should be available to women (and to men, mutatis mutandis) and I think it would certainly count as success. </p>
<p>I don’t know how broadly Harvard defines “success” and I tend to be a lot more skeptical than you are but if success is the goal, I’d imagine someone at the school might factor in this sort of success as well. “Stay at home” mothers and fathers often serve as community organizers, unpaid board members of important community and charitable organizations, support schools through hours of unpaid work, run fundraisers, blood drives, etc., and ultimately serve as school board and government officials. Intelligence and drive figure prominently into this life and it’s an important piece that’s often taken for granted and/or overlooked by those who too quickly dismiss SAHMs and Ds.</p>
<p>I bet SAHMs have more children than working mothers on average, and since intelligence is an important, largely inherited attribute, it is certainly not a waste if Ivy League women marry men of similar abilities, become SAHMs, and have large families.</p>
<p>Each time “inherited intelligence” comes up, it seems to be associated with certain levels of SES, education, status. What really says the blue collar family cannot be genetically highly intelligent, as well? How do you even guage what constitutes inheritable intelligence? Their degrees? Likewise, is it intelligent to make sooo many assumptions, rest on anecdotes and explain or defend with “well, I think?”</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen as a student and volunteer translator during middle/high school parent-teacher conferences, from US popular culture at large, and the experience of many college friends who went into K-12 teaching…the above would be regarded as a bit of a cruel joke considering the serious lack of respect and extreme low regard/stigma with which the teaching profession is held in US society…especially among many in the upper/upper-middle class. </p>
<p>I’m also wondering if community workers feel the same considering the not so long ago snide comments many Americans made publicly about whether it is an occupation to be taken seriously and not a pastime of radical university students with too much free time on their hands.</p>
<p>Wait, I don’t think <em>any</em> Unitarians are atheists. </p>
<p>You referred to “ministers” coming from Yale, lookingforward. Of course, they don’t have to take their undergraduate degrees in religion. History, sociology, psychology, classics, languages would all be good undergrad majors. I just doubt that Harvard is admitting very many undergrads with the professed intent of becoming ministers–nor Yale, either, for that matter, despite the presence of their Div School.</p>
<p>Admittedly, I only know a small subset of Harvard graduates. The ones I know are lawyers, people at the level of Deputy Secretary of XX and up, and venture capitalists + Harold Koh, I think. (Actually, with few exceptions, they are also the <em>only</em> people I know who are at the level of Deputy Secretary of XX and up or venture capitalists.) The Harvard grads I knew once but lost track of are unlikely to have gone into the helping professions. I’m glad to hear that some of the Harvard grads are doing that.</p>
<p>(Edit: This excludes Harvard grads I know in the sciences, who are preponderantly professors.)</p>
<p>Long before Bill Clinton made popular the question of “what is is,” I had noticed that it lay behind a disagreement between two friends of mine. The Harvard grad talked about what a university “is” operationally, in terms of the functions that it actually performs in society. The non-Harvard grad talked about what a university “is” in terms of the ivory-tower idea of a university.</p>
<p>No Q, I said Yale says they look for future leaders and has a broad definition of what leaders are, covering more than captains of industry, etc.</p>
<p>And Unitarians can be atheists, agnostics, deists, Buddhists or whatever floats their boats. </p>
<p>Cobrat, you really think a strong person who dedicates time to service, is worried about what the gen pub thinks, in their limited fashion? Regardless of what some of your friends & family feel? Some Yale grad with leadership skills would be so easily dissuaded?</p>
<p>Btw reality check. What was true in our college (or hs) days, or what friends have to say about their former experiences, is not always accurate today.</p>
<p>OT but I’ve been catching up on this thread and this comment caught my eye. I’m pretty sure this story is apocryphal. I don’t know how old your friend is, but I can assure you that there has not been (if there ever was) a required course in “Gracious Living” at Wellesley in 60 years. Not even in the Mona Lisa Smile days (as many alumnae, including Judith Martin, "Miss Manners’ herself, pointed out when that movie was released).</p>
<p>^^^
Before I click on the above link, can you tell me if the author posts his or her own SAT score? Because I certainly wouldn’t want to expend any effort looking over an article unless I can be certain the author meets my minimum SAT score criteria. :D</p>
<p>“lookingforward, I would be very interested to know the number of ministers who have graduated from Harvard in the past 10 years.”</p>
<p>That’s a good question. Looking at my network, there are less than 200 Veritones, including the current undergrads. But there are three ordained ministers among them that I know of. (Classes of '99, '00, and '03.)</p>
<p>If I understand correctly, divinity major is very popular with premeds or is it that divinity majors decide if they can’t take care of your soul, they go after the wellbeing of your body?</p>
<p>Beliavsky and lookingforward, that is very illuminating about Unitarianism. I did not know that–who says you can’t learn things from discussions on CC?</p>
<p>I was thinking more about Unitarianism from a theological standpoint (e.g., as in the Wikipedia entry on Unitarianism which classifies its Christology as nontrinitarian, its soteriology as Arminian, and its anthropology as Pelagian. Wikipedia however notes that a “disambiguation” of the term Unitarian is needed, which is where the atheistic Unitarians come in.</p>
<p>The reason that I brought up Unitarianism was that I had the impression that Harvard Div School was aligned with the Unitarians (theologically speaking). However, looking at the Div School web site, I see that they adopted a new mission statement in 2008, so I am not sure whether they still keep that alignment or not.</p>