Sarah B. Drummond becomes dean of Andover Newton Seminary
She is the first woman to lead the school in its 212-year history.
Sarah B. Drummond becomes dean of Andover Newton Seminary on July 1. The first woman to lead the school in its 212-year history, she is professor of ministerial leadership.
She succeeds Martin Copenhaver, who retired June 30 after leading the school since 2014. His tenure included the process that led to the school’s 2017 agreement to affiliate with Yale Divinity School and move from Massachusetts to Connecticut.
“Sarah Drummond has a stunning constellation of gifts,” Copenhaver said. “She is what we want our graduates to become—bold, creative, grounded, irrepressible, faithful, and fun.”
Drummond was chief academic officer—a role she has held since 2011— and led the school’s transition to being embedded at Yale. All of the legal and fiscal parts of that process are anticipated to be finalized in 2022.
“I am eager to bring my knowledge of administration to a time in Andover Newton’s arc of change when we need to anchor the seminary in a new setting and culture,” Drummond said.
Prior to joining the Andover Newton faculty in 2005, Drummond was executive director and campus minister for University Christian Ministries at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she earned her doctorate in urban education. She is also a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Divinity School.
She is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. Her most recent book is Dynamic Discernment: Reason, Emotion, and Power in Change Leadership.
