Episcopal Divinity School

Student Convener: Milly Morrow

Faculty Advisor: Karen Montagno

9 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

Tel: 617/868-3450 Toll Free: 866/4EDS-NOW

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What is your regular meeting time and place?

Our chapter meetings are once a month, usually on the 1st or 2nd Tuesday from 5pm – 6pm in the Student Lounge on the lower level of Washburn Hall. Other meetings for specific events are announced as they are scheduled via email to the EDS campus community.

How many people attend?

Our chapter meetings usually have between 10 and 15 people present. Over the past year, probably 25-30 different people have participated in planning or carrying out one of our chapter’s events, some of them on many occasions.

How does your chapter coordinate with other campus groups?

Our school community is very small (less than 100 students) and we are one of the few active and visible campus groups. We mostly use email to communicate!

What challenges does your chapter face?

At EDS this Spring it will be important to gather further information concerning what interests campus community members and what activities they feel they would like to commit to participating in through the society. Gathering this information and more widely publicizing events on campus, and in our larger community, are strategies to overcome the challenges of low attendance and lack of visibility. In order to deal with the possible issue of an over-extended coordinator of the society, EDS has chosen to utilize a new structure including a convening committee of three students, rather than a singular coordinator who is responsible for the total group logistics. With this structure, the three student conveners will be mutually responsible for the visioning, facilitating and publicizing of the larger groups work. We are also working on developing a renewed structure for valuing and offering different levels of participation in the work of the Beatitudes Society. In this way members can feel free to identify the level at which they want to participate, either as a core member, participant or supporter. By offering this structure on a informal level, we provide the members with choices and the group with a level of transparency regarding expectations it can have of it’s membership – thus knowing the amount of energy available to accomplish the agenda of the society.

What kind of social justice projects does your chapter participate in?

Currently a group of members are participating in direct service projects in New Orleans. The chapter has supported members who advocate with workers in the city of Boston on worker justice/ worker rights issues. The chapter facilitates meetings of students interested in learning about new issues that impact their ability to do justice and reconciliation work. This past semester the chapter introduced the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” to the student body and facilitated a discussion following the film. In the EDS chapter, our hope is to focus on three levels of social justice work: direct service, advocacy and education/liturgy.

What conversation models do you use for reflection/faith sharing? For example, how do you talk about what you care about?

The EDS Chapter utilizes “sharing circles” to facilitate fair and equal dialogue among members. The circle contains all members present, a trained facilitator, a timekeeper and a process watcher. The dialogue is assisted by what the facilitator refers to as a “talking stick” which signifies to the group who is speaking and thus who has the attention of the group. In this way, every member is heard and the group discussions are grounded and effective.

What worship and prayer practices does your group use?

We pray together at every meeting and one member provides the group with a mediation or reflection in the spirit of the Beatitudes and discussion prior to business. Also, as a small community, EDS is blessed to have weekly opportunities for prophetic worship together as a group.

What else would you like to share about your chapter?

Come visit us sometime!

Milly Morrow convener of the EDS chapter:

"I am pleased to be serving as a co-convener for the EDS chapter of Beatitudes Society. My partner and I recently moved to Cambridge from East Tennessee where I was born, raised and attended college. I am a master level social worker and have been working for the past twelve years as a counselor for trauma survivors and with children and families living with mental / behavioral health challenges. My vocational call is toward hospital or prison chaplaincy and work with programming and adult education in the Episcopal Church. I look forward to the work of the society as it creates safe space for students to gather, form community and strive collectively toward visions of peace, justice and compassion."

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