Kitty Blackburn is the dean of Keymark Theological School. She was initially a historian, but after her first book (and tenure) she became a full-time administrator. She is very well-respected outside of KTS, but is sometimes under-appreciated within the school. She is particularly thoughtful about questions surrounding theological education. Indeed, she has a tendency to fill her conversations about theological education with verbal footnotes and summaries of key arguments. When asked about the habit, she winked and said, "A dean is always trying to educate someone."

Tom Bruno, the chair of the Curriculum Committee, has taught the "denominational distinctives" courses at KTS for two decades. He was the first African-American hired at the school and retains an elder statesman status. As the professor who has been at the school the longest, he is the institutional memory. Most of his comments to colleagues come either as stories or as questions. He could have been the dean before Kitty Blackburn was hired but decided that administration was not his calling.

Derek Concord is in his second year as an ethics professor. He came at age thrity-one to KTS with a law degree (Yale Law School) and a sterling recommendation from his Ph.D. advisor at Duke. There was quite a battle in the faculty over his hiring -- a battle that he knows only a little about. The theology and philosophy faculty lined up against those in the practical disciplines. Only when the historians (under Kitty Blackburn's sway) voiced support did his nomination become secure. This was not the first time, however, that the various academic disciplines lined up in opposition over a search. The philosophers' camp tends to be older, white, more theologically-progressive and denominationally-distinct, while the practical camp tends to be younger, ethically-diverse, denominationally-varied and more traditional in theology.

Michael Lancaster is a well-known theologian and philosopher, known for writing dense and heavily-footnoted tomes. Known by students as a difficult grader, he often lectures from a manuscript (even in seminars) and has the highest academic standards of any KTS professor. He regularly asks students to re-write sub-standard papers and will continuously extend incompletes so long as a student continues working actively on the paper. He was on the search committee for the ethics position that Concord eventually filled -- and voted against Concord's appointment. Lancaster also opposed a faculty resolution encouraging the use of teaching methods that "appeal to a diversity of learning styles." His response, "There is no substitute for struggling with texts."

Alicia Valencia is an associate professor about to get tenure (all that remains is board approval). An Old Testament professor, her recently-published With an Eye Toward Home: The Exilic Longing (Oxford University Press) has received excellent reviews for combining detailed scholarship with a contemporary perspective on the ethnic experience. She admires Prof. Concord's Yale Law degree as much as his Ph.D. from Duke because of her experience with the law school while she was getting her Ph.D. at Yale. Describing herself as a "technological klutz," she has said privately that she could never imagine herself using a computer in teaching.