For Immediate Release

Princeton Seminary Recognizes Oxford University Professor with Distinguished Alumna Award

Princeton, NJ, June 21, 2006–Marilyn McCord Adams, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, England, received Princeton Theological Seminary’s Distinguished Alumna Award at its annual Reunion Banquet on May 19. The award ceremony capped the two-day reunion for graduates from across the decades. She was selected in recognition of her leadership in academic life and scholarship, and in the Episcopal Church.

Adams, who received her doctorate from Cornell University, joined the faculty at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1972. She received two Masters of Theology degrees from Princeton Seminary, in 1984 and 1985. She remained at UCLA until 1993, serving as chair of the Philosophy Department from 1985–87, before moving to Yale University to serve as professor of historical theology. In 2004 Adams was appointed by Her Majesty the Queen to be the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University.

Adams is known for her scholarship, especially her treatments of the Trinity, Christology, soteriology, the problem of evil, sacramental theology, and issues facing the contemporary church. Her published works include Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God (Notre Dame University Press, 1987), What Sort of Human Nature? The Metaphysics and Systematics of Christology (Marquette University Press, 1999), and William Ockham (Cornell University Press, 1999). She has been invited to give several prestigious lectureships, including the Alexander Robertson Lectures at the University of Glasgow, the Gifford Lectures at St. Andrew’s University, and the Warfield Lectures at Princeton Seminary. She has also received several prominent fellowships, most recently the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Luce Fellowship.

As a priest in the Episcopal Church, Adams has served in several different parishes in both California and Connecticut in the areas of adult education, pastoral care, preaching, liturgy, and training lay Eucharistic ministers and lay callers. As part of her duties at Oxford she is canon of Christ Church, where she performs the liturgy, preaches, and administers chapter duties.

Princeton Theological Seminary was founded in 1812 as the first seminary established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. It is the largest Presbyterian seminary in the country, with more than 700 students in six graduate degree programs.