Dawn Alitz, Luther Seminary’s new director for the Center for Lifelong Learning, officially started her position on Jan. 25. She replaced longtime director Sally Peters, who retired in December 2015.
Alitz’ new role certainly has some familiar aspects for her. She received her Master of Arts in lay leadership from Luther Seminary in 2003, and received her Ph.D. in 2009. Since graduation, she has taught in adjunct positions at the seminary, as well as with Augsburg College and Lexington Theological Seminary. Immediately prior to accepting her new job, she served as associate pastor of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Stillwater, Minn., where she directed the children, youth and family faith formation program.
Alitz will be coordinating Lifelong Learning programs which include KAIROS, the Lay School of Theology and the School for Lay Ministry, as well as events including the Mid-Winter Convocation, the Rethinking series, Working Preacher Presents: The Craft of Preaching and the Festival of Homiletics. She will also oversee Luther Seminary’s online learning resources, including Enter the Bible and Working Preacher.
“Education and faith formation have always been a really important part of what I do and how I live,” Alitz says. “As much as I love doing congregational ministry, I have realized that as the church changes, things have to change insofar as how we provide education for all of our leadership. I’ve even noticed that in how we raise leaders up in the congregation. In talking with friends who know me from various circles of faith formation and speaking, they saw this position come up and pointed me toward it and it turned out to be a very good fit.”
Alitz notes that she’s inheriting a vibrant and robust program, and she’s looking forward to adding to its strengths.
“I’m still of course learning the people and seeing what’s here, but I’m really excited,” she says. “I think that the Center for Lifelong Learning has the ability to be a playground or a testing lab for a lot of new ways of learning, and ways of engaging leadership and collaboration that the seminary proper with its degree programs and other restraints isn’t able to play with as easily.”
Alitz says her own lifelong love of teaching will also inform her actions with the Center.
“There are a number of attributes that I hope to be able to bring to this role,” she says. “One of my gifts is coaching, whether it’s coaching people here in small groups to help bring out their gifts in what’s already being done, or to coach in a way that brings together and mediates new collaborations. That’s a piece that I’m especially excited about.”
And Alitz adds that as the church continues to change, she hopes to find new ways for both teachers and learners to change in concert with it.
“Discipleship is a lifelong journey,” she says. “I believe Luther Seminary is well-poised to accept God’s invitation to explore the possibilities and opportunities that exist in a world where learning and Christian community may look quite different from what we’ve experienced in the recent past.”