Biography
Angela D. Sims is the first woman President of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (CRCDS) and the first African American woman President to lead any Rochester-area college. Prior to joining CRCDS July 1, 2019, she served as Vice President of Institutional Advancement and Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor in Church and Society at Saint Paul School of Theology in Leawood, KS.
Sims’s research examines connections between faith, race, and violence with specific attention to historical and contemporary ethical implications of lynching and a culture of lynching in the United States. Her research has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the Louisville Institute, the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, and the Institute for Oral History at Baylor University and has been featured in the New York Times religion section and PBS’ Religion & Ethics News Weekly. She is the author of Lynched: The Power of Memory in a Culture of Terror and co-editor with Katie Geneva Cannon and Emilie M. Townes of Womanist Theological Ethics: A Reader.
Candidate Statement
Higher education necessitates an ability to adapt to unforeseen circumstances with increasing agility that is marked by concern for the professional status of AAR members and the institutions at which we serve. With a charge to represent the needs and interests of the general AAR membership to the Board of Directors, service as an At-Large Director is an opportunity to use my knowledge and skills broadly in support of the guild’s mission. My experience as an administrator and professor will inform my work with the Board.
As a member of the AAR, I serve or have served on the Finance Committee, Theological Education Committee, and the Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr. Steering Committee. As a past member of the Womanist Approaches to the Religion and Society Steering Committee, I participated in writing the self-study document in preparation for a five-year periodic review. My primary responsibility was to document the group’s relevancy beyond our own primary targeted audience as well as to update a bibliography of publications released since 2005. At the 2016 annual meeting, I served as a reviewer for the Ethics Section. If chosen to be an At-Large Director, I would be honored to serve the AAR as it fosters excellence in the academic study of religion and enhances the public understanding of religion.