Beverly Dale is not your typical Christian minister. She has been noted for her support of women's rights, gay rights and graduate student unionization, and for her opposition to the war in Iraq. "I'm a public theologian," Dale says, "who reflects publicly and theologically about social issues of the day." "Rev. Bev," as many students affectionately call her, recently celebrated 15 years as the executive director of the Christian Association. "Bev is the best," says Nina Harris, program coordinator at the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Center. "She's one of the biggest cross-cultural allies on campus, and she's really been [an advocate of] progressive religious thought." Like many of her colleagues at the Christian Association, Dale often finds herself challenging traditional Christian stereotypes. A year and a half ago, for example, she began a series of discussions entitled, "Erotic Power." "If you don't have a theology that is actively engaged in the headline issues of today, you don't have a theology," she insists. At the same time, Dale says, many people are "ignorant of the church's rich history of social justice on behalf of the oppressed." "Few people know that it was people of faith meeting in the churches in Berlin that provided the impetus to bring down the Berlin Wall," she says, citing similar examples from the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and the opposition to South African apartheid. Dale is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). After graduating from Illinois State University, where she studied sociology, she pursued a doctor of ministry degree from the Chicago Theological Seminary. "I find campus ministry so exciting, because the issues are always changing, the students are always changing, and I like that," Dale explains. "There's always something new to bring one's theological piece to." She has mixed feelings about student life at the University. "I'm impressed with the caliber of students who come here [and] who have a commitment to making the world a better place," she says. "However, I don't think Penn uses [its] diversity - well at all." As for herself, "I have a lot of hats" at Penn, Dale says. In addition to pastoral counseling, interfaith work and facilitating groups at the Christian Association House, Dale says she takes it upon herself "to name injustices in the community." As such, she has spoken at campus rallies for Take Back the Night, Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania and QPenn. She was honored by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights in 1998 for her support of the Philadelphia City Council's Domestic Partnership bill. She was also instrumental in the 1999 sale of what is now the Arch Building to the University. Still, Dale says that her accomplishments are not as important as her students. "I'm a farmer's daughter from Illinois," she says. "What I do is plant seeds. And I don't often get to see the harvest." "What gives me joy is when alumni return and say that I helped them in their spiritual journey. - That's the harvest," she says with a smile. "And that's really heartwarming."
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