The name of Dr. Kathy Winings (class of '87) will be familiar to many UTS graduates throughout the world. She has taught a Seminary class on Models of Teaching for the past seven years and is also well known for her work with the International Relief and Friendship Foundation (IRFF), the Women's Federation for World Peace (WFWP) and in ministry to the second generation of our movement. When the UTS Board of Trustees considered the recommendation of her appointment to the position of Director of the Doctorate in Ministry program, they saw all of this involvement as a clear advantage, strengthening UTS's connection to the wider movement. They had no hesitation in confirming her appointment.

The D. Min program went from dream to possibility in June 1996 when Father directed that $1 million should be donated to UTS for this purpose. For the past 18 months, President Shimmyo and Dean Mickler have been pondering the requirements of the program and with Dr. Winings' appointment in October 1997, the actual groundwork could begin. For the past two months, she has been researching other D. Min programs and talking to their directors. She has particularly focused on New York programs which have been accredited through the State Education Department (SED). Her immediate tasks, she says, are to "pray and develop a draft of the program." She will be helped by Dr. Lloyd Hartley of Lancaster Seminary in Pennsylvania who has been retained as a consultant. Ideally, says Dr. Winings, this draft will be submitted to the SED in Spring but she places an emphasis on the word "ideally." "Speed is important," she said, "but quality is more important. We need a quality program which is suited to the needs of our movement."

Dr. Winings sees the doctoral program as being quite different to the masters programs which the Seminary currently offers. "At the doctoral level, the emphasis is more on peer learning rather than the usual lecture format," she said. "In other words, the students themselves generate and share their understanding." The average D. Min class, she says, has 10 to 20 students who work in small cooperative groups.

Another major difference will be that generally, the doctoral students will spend little time on campus. "I envision a program which will not be residential with regular classes, but rather will be made up of a series of intensives," she said. With recent technological advances in distance learning, Dr. Winings sees many possibilities here.

Dr. Winings considers the Seminary's present facilities and resources to be more than adequate for the new program. "We have a great faculty here that can more than handle it and Tom Bowers has been expanding the library collection ever since this program was announced."

Dr. Winings says she has enjoyed her years of teaching here at UTS and hopes to continue teaching as much as possible. In addition to the class in Models of Teaching, her recent courses have included Practical Ecumenism, Youth Ministry, Campus Ministry and Homiletics and she has also supervised the internship program in which students spend one trimester working in the field. She also plans to continue as Executive Director of IRFF which, with its 80 chapters all over the world and close relations with United Nations officials and mainline religions, will provide an extensive web of contacts for the D. Min students. IRFF also features prominently in her ideas on how to reach the younger generation. Generally, she says, today's young people are not motivated by ideas or words but tend to be more visually and pragmatically oriented, which means that service is an invaluable part of ministry.

At the time of writing, Dr. Winings was in the process of moving out of New York City to the Tarrytown area in order to be closer to Belvedere where she is actively involved in education and curriculum development for the second generation. This also places her in a convenient location to fulfill all of the many responsibilities which she is called upon to fulfill and which will make her such an asset to UTS.