Crumpler receives award. Carolyn Weatherford Crumpler, former executive director of Woman’s Missionary Union and a past moderator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, received the annual Courage Award from the William H. Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society during the CBF general assembly in Charlotte, N.C. Crumpler is the third woman to receive the award, first presented in 1993, honoring the legacy of a president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary forced to resign in 1899 for reasons of academic integrity.
BUA president named to CBF task force. René Maciel, president of Baptist University of the Américas in San Antonio, was named to a 14-member task force to study the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s structure and funding. CBF Moderator Hal Bass named Jean Willingham of St. Petersburg, Fla., and David Hull of Huntsville, Ala., as co-chairs of the task force. Other members are Alan Culpepper of Stone Mountain, Ga.; Ray Higgins of Little Rock, Ark.; Larry Hovis of Pfafftown, N.C.; Tony Hopkins of Greenwood, S.C.; Stephen Cook of Danville, Va.; Ruth Perkins Lee of Auburn, Ala.; Hollyn Holman and Kasey Jones of Washington, D.C.; Susan Deal of Orlando, Fla.; Laura Hoffman of St. Louis, Mo.; and Connie McNeill of Atlanta, Ga.
Kentucky seminary relocates. The Baptist Seminary of Kentucky is moving to the campus of Georgetown College. Launched in 2002 in the education building of Calvary Baptist Church in Lexington, Ky., Baptist Seminary of Kentucky since 2005 has rented space on the campus of Lexington Theological Seminary, which is affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The move to Georgetown College comes on the heels of another milestone. Member institutions of the Association of Theological Schools voted to grant associate-member status to the seminary. Associate membership status in the ATS, the first of three categories leading to candidate and finally accredited membership, signifies a seminary has been around long enough to have graduated its first class of master-of-divinity degrees, has an adequate number of qualified professors working full time in post-baccalaureate theological education and a student body of sufficient size to provide appropriate peer-learning opportunities. Accreditation allows students to transfer credits to other accredited schools and to qualify for federally funded student loans.
Canadian Baptists appoint leader. Leaders of Canada’s largest Baptist body have, for the first time, appointed a non-Anglo to their top executive post. Canadian Baptist Ministries—an association of four regional and language-based Canadian Baptist conventions—named Sam Chaise as the group’s next general secretary. He previously was director of the William Carey Institute at Carey Theological College, a Baptist school in Vancouver, British Columbia. Chaise—who was born in England, raised in Ontario, educated in Saskatchewan and British Columbia and has served in western Canada his entire ministry—is of Indian descent. Chaise will take over Oct. 1 for Gary Nelson, who became president of Tyndale University College and Seminary, a nondenominational Christian school in Toronto, July 1.