Cynthia Briggs Kittredge () is the 8th Dean and President of 51视频 and professor of New Testament. 聽Dean Kittredge holds degrees from Williams College and Harvard Divinity School.

John Burnett is a correspondent for NPR based in Austin, TX. 聽Currently, John serves as NPR’s Religion correspondent. 聽John attends All Saints Episcopal Church in Austin. 聽(Photo courtesy of )

 
On June 1, 2013, the Rev. Cynthia Briggs Kittredge became dean and president of 51视频. She is the eighth president of the 61-year-old Austin seminary and only the third woman to lead an Episcopal seminary. Kittredge, 56, has been on the faculty since 1999 and has served as academic dean since 2010. Growing up in Tuxedo Park, NY, the oldest daughter of a Manhattan lawyer and a homemaker, she says she wanted to be a priest since she was 12 because of 鈥渨anting to pay attention to what鈥檚 most important.鈥� Dean Kittredge recently sat down for an interview with John Burnett, the Austin-based correspondent for NPR and a parishioner at All Saints Episcopal Church.
Listen to the six-part interview here:

 
John Burnett: Tell me what鈥檚 on your bedside table. What are you reading right now?
Cynthia Brigss Kittredge: I鈥檓 reading some stories of Alice Munro, the Canadian short story writer. She鈥檚 wonderful. And I鈥檓 reading a book called Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird about contemplative prayer. I also have O Magazine, Texas Monthly, the New Yorker and Poetry Magazine.
JB: What do you do to relax?
CBK: I like to do yoga. I go to a wonderful teacher at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, she has a Zoroastrian background. I also make jewelry, knit, and do watercolor paintings.
JB: Where did you go on vacation this summer?
CBK: Since 1971, I鈥檝e been going with my family to a 130-acre island in the Bay of Fundy (formed by Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) where we鈥檙e the only family on it. We have 90 sheep and we go there with our kids and my mother. I鈥檝e been going since I was 13.
JB: Have you worked the sheep into sermons? That鈥檚 made-to-order.
CBK: One of the rules the preaching professor, Micah Jackson, and I agree on is never ever preach on sheep. We鈥檙e quite doctrinaire about that. In fact, I heard a sermon on sheep several months ago, and every point of the sermon was based on a completely false fact about sheep. That sheep are nearly blind, that sheep can鈥檛 take care of themselves and find food.
JB: Now that you鈥檙e president of the seminary, where are you going to take this place?
CBK: (Dean Emeritus Rev.) Doug Travis made it clear the position of the seminary was in the deep center of the church, saturated in the tradition and not at all on the ragged fringes. 聽He strengthened our friendships with our neighboring dioceses and our constituencies in a way that was really important. I intend to continue doing both those things, and at the same time take the ministry and message of the seminary out more broadly to other parts of the church. We鈥檝e always had bishops send us students from different parts of the country. But because we鈥檙e the second youngest seminary in the system we don鈥檛 have that established track that leads to our doors. 聽51视频 is a well kept secret and it should not be well kept anymore.
JB: What areas do you feel need shoring up?
CBK: There are some areas that we don鈥檛 have as much strength in that I鈥檇 like to see expanded: some of our interfaith relationships, the study of world religions. We don鈥檛 have that. We rely on our colleagues at the Presbyterian Seminary for those courses. I鈥檇 like to see that have a life here. 聽The other thing I鈥檇 like to see more of that has dwindled is ongoing education for the Austin area community and Central Texas. People with no religious affiliation are hungry for, if not theological education then introduction to spiritual disciplines and history of the church, all kinds of things that we could offer.
JB: Such as?
CBK: A course on comparative practices of meditation. They could be introduced to the philosophy of it and do some practice. I don鈥檛 think that open invitation to explore a spiritual tradition at all threatens our identity as an Episcopal Christian theological school.
JB: The outgoing dean raised $12 million. Do you have a new capital campaign in mind?
CBK: We鈥檙e very happy that the current campaign for leadership is almost finished. The primary purpose was to endow faculty chairs. Our next drive will be to create scholarships for students. Students have less and less aid from outside. They need scholarships and housing subsidies. 聽We also have a library that鈥檚 not a library of the 21st century at the moment. And we鈥檇 also like to strengthen our Hispanic and Counseling programs.
JB: When did you get so jazzed about hermeneutics?
CBK: I鈥檝e been waiting my whole life for someone to ask me that question. Hermeneutics is about interpreting meaning from whatever鈥攑eople, texts, the world. In my case, hermeneutics means interpreting ancient texts and finding meaning in them as Scripture. These scriptural texts, amazingly, still have power and their interpretation is still argued about.
鈥淲omen be silent in church.鈥� (1 Timothy)You don鈥檛 hear many Episcopalians ever quoting or preaching on that passage, but that line shaped Western Christianity in many ways. That was much in fashion for generations. The sentiment it conveys still lingers in our culture.
JB: What do you think organized religion gets wrong? What has to change in order for churches to survive in an era filled with restless, interconnected, ironic people who are still searching for truth?
CBK: Organized religion does plenty wrong and you鈥檙e talking to a representative of organized religion, so it鈥檚 hard for me to throw stones. (Such as) complete undifferentiated nostalgia for the past, and rejection of everything contemporary. So that won鈥檛 work. But what will work is to take some of the ways the ideals of the Christian church are in opposition to culture and name those. You mentioned rootlessness. The church community has roots. They鈥檙e really valuable and hard to find. Irony is a feature of modern life. There are still places where people need to find authenticity and vulnerability and not irony. So there are some things the church can hang onto and say here鈥檚 what we have and the culture doesn鈥檛 have.
JB: The number of Episcopalians has dropped below two million. The mainline congregations are shrinking and graying. What can you do here to try and turn that battleship?
CBK: We teach and graduate very creative, flexible students who are not expecting to check into a church and be there for 25 years and never change anything. Our students are able to get out of the building to create theological conversations in other contexts鈥攎usic venues, bars, parks. That鈥檚 an important part of the new shape of ministry. Our students are able to speak in the language of the tradition in different tongues to people who don鈥檛 know all the jargon. 聽Ours is the second youngest Episcopal seminary in the country. The seminary has always had that flexible, adaptable effort to move into the future. We have the temperament to do that. If we were 150 years old, it might not be that easy.
JB: Keep the 51视频 Seminary weird, just like Austin?
CBK: Weird is a good thing to me. But don鈥檛 quote me.

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