Luther Seminary is pleased to welcome new faculty and staff.

Cody J. Sanders, Ph.D., will join the faculty as associate professor of congregational and community care leadership on July 1, 2023.

Sanders’s scholarship focuses on pastoral theology and counseling, with emphasis in chaplaincy, spiritual care, death-care practices, and LGBTQ+ experience. He has served as pastor at Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts; affiliated assistant professor of pastoral theology and chaplaincy studies at Chicago Theological Seminary; American Baptist chaplain at Harvard University; advisor for LGBTQ+ affairs in the Office of Religious, Spiritual, and Ethical Life at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and as a faculty member for the Center for Chaplaincy Studies.

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Samuel Zalanga, Ph.D., joined the seminary as director of inclusion and belonging in January. He reports to the vice president for inclusion and belonging, overseeing programs and activities under the seminary’s accountability, belonging, inclusion, diversity, and equity (ABIDE) commitments. He also provides support and collaborates with all departments to implement the inclusion and belonging aspects of the strategic plan.

A former Fulbright Scholar, Zalanga has more than two decades of higher education experience with a background in undergraduate and graduate teaching and scholarship in sociology, diversity, and social work. As a tenured professor at Bethel University, he led teaching abroad experiences and served as chair of the department of sociology and reconciliation studies.