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Status of Women in the Profession Committee Activities
The SBL Status of Women in the Profession Committee was constituted to assess the status and encourage the participation of women in all professional areas of biblical studies. In pursuit of this mandate, the Committee continues its efforts in areas of mentoring and networking, opening the Society to greater participation by women, and calling attention to the ways in which the Society through its various activities speaks to and about women.
CSWP has an active Facebook page that facilitates discussion.
Advocacy with SBL
CSWP advocates for the development of programs and policies that support the full inclusion of women in the activities of SBL. CSWP collaborates with other women's groups and program unit chairs to design and implement programs focusing on issues specific to women. Also, it assists in developing policies and monitoring complaints of sexual harassment and ethical misconduct.
At the Survivor Session we conducted an interview of four professors/deans who are involved in tenure-related decisions at their institutions: Alice Hunt, Risa Levitt Kohn, Adele Reinhartz, and Greg Sterling. We began with questions about their institutions, the tenure requirements, the process and other institution-related questions and answers. Our discussion then moved to a discussion of instances that went smoothly and those that didn’t and why. Throughout, the panelists were able to discuss not only personal experiences but also their vast institutional knowledge in order to give us a complete picture of tenure. We spent the last 45 minutes or so on audience questions, which were both theoretical and practical. The audience found the discussion very interesting and although the number of participants was small, almost each person came up to me some time during the conference to tell me how much they learned from it and how much they appreciated our having done the session.
Mentoring
Each year at the SBL Annual Meeting, CSWP honors women who have been excellent mentors to women in the field. These mentors have provided invaluable guidance, advice, and encouragement. They serve as role models and assist other women in navigating career choices, building professional networks, and developing strategies for work-life balance. CSWP honors mentors in order to recognize their contributions and to encourage mentoring relationships.
During the SBL Women Members’ Breakfast at the 2008 Annual Meeting, we presented a mentor award to:
Carol Meyers, Duke University
If you would like to nominate a mentor, please send your nomination with a descriptive letter of endorsement to Risa Levitt Kohn. Nominations must be received by March 1st. Nominations received after the deadline will be considered for the following year.
Networking
Women's Breakfast 
The Women's Breakfast offers women scholars an opportunity to network, meet friends, and hear enlightening and engaging presentations.
The mentoring awards are announced at the breakfast.
Student Orientation
The CSWP sponsors an annual student coffee where women students gather for an hour of sharing stories and strategies for success.
Listserv:
CSWP maintains a moderated list serve for SBL women members. This list serve is devoted to the discussion of a variety of topics related to the status of women engaged in biblical scholarship. The list includes senior and junior faculty, administrators, and graduate students. To subscribe, send a blank email to:
sbl-cswp-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
For the listserve archive, see:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sbl-cswp/
Increasing Participation
Members of CSWP:
- Nancy
Bowen (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary) is Associate
Professor of Old Testament at Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana.
She served as co-chair of the SBL Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible Section
for six years and is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church.
- Claudia
Camp (Ph.D, Duke; M.Div., Harvard) is John F.
Weatherly Professor of Religion at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth,
Texas. She is the author of Wise, Strange and Holy: The Strange Woman and
the Making of the Bible (2000), Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book
of Proverbs (1985), and other articles on feminist criticism of the wisdom
and narrative literature of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. She joined CSWP in
2007.
- Deborah A. Green (Ph.D.,
University of Chicago) is the Greenberg Assistant Professor of Hebrew Language
and Literature at the University of Oregon. Her research focuses on the history
of interpretation from the Hebrew Bible through rabbinic interpretation
(midrash). She is currently working on a monograph, The Aroma of
Righteousness, that explores images related to perfume and incense in
rabbinic literature and attempts to synthesize these images with the
archaeological record in Palestine. She is also co-editor of Commemorating
the Dead: Texts and Artifacts in Context: Studies of Roman, Jewish, and
Christian Burials (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008) and Scriptural
Exegesis: The Shapes of Culture and the Religious Imagination: Essays in Honour
of Michael Fishbane (Oxford: University of Oxford, forthcoming 2009).
- Mignon Jacobs (Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University) is
the Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible and Old Testament and Accreditation
Liaison Officer at Fuller Theological Seminary. She joined the School of
Theology Faculty in June 1997. Jacobs’ publications include the books Gender, Power, and Persuasion, Conceptual
(2007); Coherence of the Book of Micah
(2001), and the chapters “Favor and Disfavor in Jeremiah 29:1-23: Two
Dimensions of the Characterization of God and the Politics of Hope” in Probing the Frontiers of Biblical Studies
(2009); “Sin, Silence, and Suffering in the Conceptual Landscape of Psalm 32”
in Text and Community (2007); “Toward
on Old Testament Theology of Concern for the Underprivileged” in Reading
the Hebrew Bible for a New Millennium: Form, Concept and Theological
Perspective (2000).
- B.
Diane Lipsett (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill) is the Assistant Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins.
Her teaching and research interests in New Testament and Christian Origins
include: conversion, gender, asceticism, and desire; the ancient novel in relation
to early Christian narratives; ancient parables; and reception history of the
Gospels. She is the author of Desiring
Conversion: Hermas, Thecla, and Aseneth (Oxford University
Press, 2011 – released November 2010). Her current project, on how the Gospel
of Matthew’s parables were interpreted in the second and early third century,
is funded in part by a Lilly Theological Scholars’ Research Grant from the
Association of Theological Schools (2010-11).
- Shively Smith is
a Ph.D. Student in New Testament Studies at Emory University.
- Rannfrid I.
Thelle (Dr. art, M.A., Oslo), is the author of Ask
God. Divine Consultation in the Literature of the Hebrew Bible (2002). She
has taught at the University of Oslo and at Luther College, and currently lives
and works in Wichita, KS. Her current research projects include a study on
Deuteronomy and a project about the excavation of Babylon. Through the
Women’s League of the Norwegian Labor Party, Thelle is responsible for a
project of democracy development called “Women Can Do It”.
- Seung-Ai
Yang (Ph.D. University of Chicago Divinity School) is an
Associate Professor of New Testament at Chicago Theological Seminary. She is
co-editor with Rita Nokashima Brock, Jung Ha Kim and Kwok PuiLan: Off
the Menu: Asian and Asian North American Women's Religion and Theology(Westminster
John Knox, 2007).
- Molly Zahn (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame) is an Assistant Professor in the Department
of Religious Studies and Undergraduate Director at the University of Kansas.
Her areas of interest include the Hebrew Bible, the ancient Near Eastern world,
early Judaism (especially the Dead Sea Scrolls), early Christianity, and the
historical relations between Christianity and Judaism. In her research, she
focuses on the issue of interpretation: how religious communities read and
renew their sacred traditions in light of their own experiences and
circumstances. She has published several articles on scriptural interpretation
in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in later layers of the Hebrew Bible. Her first
book, Rethinking Rewritten Scripture: Composition and Exegesis in the
4QReworked Pentateuch Manuscripts, is forthcoming from Brill.