Wendland-Cook Program Leadership
Joerg Rieger, PhD
Founding Director
Distinguished Professor of Theology | Cal Turner Chancellor’s Chair of Wesleyan Studies | Affiliate Faculty, Turner Family Center for Social Ventures, Owen Graduate School of Management
For more than three decades he has worked to bring together theology and the struggles for justice and liberation that mark our age. His work addresses the relation of theology and public life, reflecting on the misuse of power in religion, politics, and economics. His main interest is in developments and movements that bring about change and in the positive contributions of religion and theology. His constructive work in theology draws on a wide range of historical and contemporary traditions, with a concern for manifestations of the divine in the pressures of everyday life.
Author and editor of 27 books and over 200 academic articles, Rieger has lectured throughout the United States as well as internationally, including presentations in Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, Mexico, South Africa, Zimbabwe, China, Cambodia, Thailand, the Philippines, India, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Belgium, England, Israel/Palestine, and Russia. He is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church.
Gab Lisi
Assistant Director
B.A. Xavier University | M.Div., Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York | MSL, The Ohio State University
George Schmidt, PhD
Researcher
B.A. DePauw University | M.Div., Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York | Ph.D. in Theological Studies, Vanderbilt University
Aaron Stauffer, PhD
Researcher
BA Religion, St. Olaf College | M.Div., Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York | Ph.D. in Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York
Vanderbilt Divinity School Program Committee
Ellen Armour
E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Chair in Feminist Theology, Director of the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality
Benny Overton
President UAW Local 737, Co-founder of the Southwest Center for Cooperative Development, Vice Chairman of NOAH Nashville
Stacey Floyd-Thomas
E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Chair in Ethics and Society; Associate Professor of Ethics and Society on leave Spring 2019
Forrest Harris
Associate Professor of the Practice of Ministry
Director of the Kelly Miller Smith Institute on the African-American Church
Vonda McDaniel
President, AFL-CIO Central Labor Council Nashville