Love comes to Candler
Jan Love, chief executive of the Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, has been named dean of Candler School of Theology, beginning in January 2007. She will be the first female dean in the history of Candler, one of thirteen United Methodist seminaries in the country.
“As one of the most widely recognized United Methodist leaders on the ecumenical, interfaith, and global stage, Jan Love is the right person at the right time to lead Candler,” says President Jim Wagner. “The school is a world leader in theological education and religious studies, a molder of the church’s social conscience, and an agent of reconciliation and change as it serves the United Methodist Church in particular as well as the broader church in the world.”
Love has led the Women’s Division of the UMC, the administrative arm of the one-million-member United Methodist Women organization, since August 2004. The organization has an independently elected board of directors, a staff of about one hundred, and annual expenditures of approximately $30 million. “I’m honored that a globally recognized theology school has invited me to be its leader,” says Love. “Candler is situated within a distinguished research university, and what I find most exciting is the combination of a school of theology deeply committed to the formation of Christian leaders within a university that acknowledges the significance of religion in public life.”
Love has an undergraduate degree from Eckerd College and a master’s and doctorate in political science/international relations from the Ohio State University. She was a faculty member at the University of South Carolina from 1982 to 2001, where she was associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies, associate professor in the Department of Government and International Studies, and graduate director of international studies.
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