Class of 1996 Profile: Colleen Wessel-McCoy

As part of the celebration of the 15th anniversary of the YTI Class of 1996, YTI alumni are interviewing each other, discovering and recording what is happening in the lives of our YTI family today. If you are a member of the class of 1996, and would like to participate in this project, contact Sara Toering at sjtoering@gmail.com

Colleen is interviewed here by Sara Toering:

After graduating from Agnes Scott in 2001 where she studied religion and social justice, Colleen moved to Chicago and lived in the Interfaith Service House that grew out of the E Pluribus Unum Project, an interfaith leadership development summer institute Colleen and several other YTI 96ers attended in Washington, DC in 1997 and 1998. Colleen worked as a community organizer in Chicago for three years before heading to New York where she obtained her Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. While at Union, Colleen helped form the Poverty Initiative (www.povertyinitiative.org) that seeks to develop religious and community leaders to build a movement to end poverty led by the poor. In addition to working with religious communities and seminarians, the cornerstone project is the Poverty Scholars Program, which brings together leaders from poor-led grassroots organizations for intellectually rigorous, human rights based leadership development towards building a movement to end poverty. Colleen has now been working in and with the Poverty Initiative for over seven years, and it is that work that animates the ethics and New Testament PhD studies she is currently pursuing at Union Theological Seminary.

When asked how YTI affected her life, Colleen immediately commented that YTI, the program, staff, and scholars, took her seriously as a learner and a thinker. That dynamic inspired and encouraged her to continue in what she understands as her call to be an educator and to work with pedagogy and leadership development. YTI also introduced Colleen to feminist theology and the ways in which theology and the Bible can be liberating. In many ways YTI led Colleen to her particular course of study (religion/justice) in college and ultimately to seminary and to the work she does with the Poverty Initiative. Colleen shared her strong belief that any of her peers could have benefited from the educational experiences we had at YTI, and part of her vocational focus is asking the question-what if everyone were educated in a YTI-like fashion?

When I asked her to share some of the questions she is exploring at this stage in her life, Colleen identified several issues that demonstrate a great deal about the shape of her life and its commitments. Colleen is asking what it means to be a person of faith in a world in economic crisis. She believes that Christians are called to work toward solving the problem of suffering--and she is asking how do we best go about solving suffering at its root by exploring the notion of leadership, scholarship, and vision in response to suffering. Who should put forth the ideas, analysis and solutions to suffering? Those most affected by a given problem have both the ability and impetus to take the lead in providing solutions that eliminate rather than mediate the injustice Finally, as a partner to John and a parent to Myles, Colleen's commitment to solving problems in inequality has taken on a particularly personal character. Colleen described working to raise her son in a low-income household and shared that she sees his future bound up with the lives of others. Inequities and uncertainty regarding health care, education, and jobs will directly shape Myle's life--and this reality has provided an urgency to Colleen's fire to end poverty and inequality in this generation