Harvard Divinity School selects first Black woman as dean
Marla Frederick (photo courtesy of Emory University)
A cultural anthropologist of the Black religious experience has been named dean of the Harvard Divinity School beginning January 1.
Marla Frederick, a professor of religion and culture at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, will succeed David Hempton, who has served as dean of the divinity school since 2012.
Frederick will become the first woman and the first Black woman to lead the school in its 207-year history. (Preston N. Williams, acting dean from 1974-75, was the school’s first Black dean..)
