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Flora Lamson Hewlett and the Hewlett Family
The Library serves as the academic core and the physical center of the shared effort that comprises the GTU. The building remains an architectural gem, serving all students of the consortium and members of wider community. This critical building would not have been possible without the lead gift from the Hewlett Family Foundation in honor of Flora Lamson Hewlett.
Flora Lamson Hewlett was born in 1914. She graduated from UC Berkeley in 1935 with a degree in biochemistry. In 1939, she married William Hewlett, one of the founders of Hewlett-Packard. They had had five children together and twelve grandchildren.
She was a major philanthropist, especially in areas of education and the environment. She was especially devoted to higher education, serving on the governing bodies of Stanford, San Francisco Theological Seminary, and the Graduate Theological Union. The GTU’s library, one of its greatest achievements, is named in her honour.
She also served on the Executive Committee of the World Affairs Council of Northern California and as a director of California Tomorrow, which worked to preserve the natural beauty of California. Flora Lamson Hewlett was also particularly attached to, and worked hard to preserve, the Sierra Nevada wilderness. She also served her own home Presbyterian parish as an Elder.
She died in 1977, though her memory and legacy live on through countless continued philanthropic endeavours made in her name both from her own foundation and the endeavours of her family.
Karen Lebacqz
A minister in the United Church of Christ, Karen Lebacqz was a professor of Theological Ethics at the Pacific School of Religion from 1973 until 2004. An accomplished scholar, she specializes in bioethics and professional ethics. She has also published a number of books including Justice in an Unjust World, Professional Ethics: Power and Paradox, and Ethics and Spiritual Care: A Guide for Pastors and Spiritual Directors. She holds degrees from Wellesley College and Harvard University. Later, she also received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in Sweden. In 1979, she provided the GTU’s annual Distinguished Faculty Lecture, titled "Toward a Feminist Ethic: A Schizophrenic Witness".
Professor Lebacqz has served on a number of commissions and boards at the national, state and corporate levels, including the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects and ELSI-based Genome Project at the Graduate Theological Union's Center for Theology and Natural Sciences. She has also served as president of the Society of Christian Ethics.
Robert Russell, Founder CTNS
The Center for Theology and Natural Sciences is a truly unique place. When Dr. Russell wanted to establish the Center, the GTU was the obvious place to start it. He is the author of Cosmology from Alpha to Omega: Towards the Mutual Creative Interaction of Theology and Science (Fortress Press, 2008).
He has been the P.I. of several CTNS international programs, including "Science and the Spiritual Quest" (SSQ) and "Science and Religion Course Program," (SRCP), and he is currently the P. I. of "Science and Transcendence: Advanced Research Series" (STARS). He has served on the John Templeton Foundation Board of Advisors since its inception and has been a judge for the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.
He holds a Ph.D. in experimental physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, an M.Div. and an M. A. in theology and science from the Pacific School of Religion (one of nine seminaries in the GTU consortium), an M. S. in physics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and he triple- majored in physics, religion and music at Stanford University.