Hilda Mason Teaching Fellows
Student-Taught Courses at Starr King: History and Philosophy
For many decades Starr King degree students, under the auspices of the Curriculum Committee and the faculty, have taught courses at the school. The School views such practice teaching as an integral aspect of graduate theological education, in keeping with the understanding that professional education appropriately involves supervised practice of the profession. The School’s students practice pastoral care and chaplaincy work in Clinical Pastoral Education programs and sites; they practice parish ministry in congregational internships and fieldwork; they practice community ministry and religious leadership for social change through community internships and fieldwork; they practice teaching at the School as well as in congregations and community settings.
Hilda Mason
Recipient of an honorary doctorate from Starr King School for the Ministry, and former trustee of the school, the Honorable Hilda Mason (1916-2007), teacher, civil rights activist and city council member, was a prominent leader in Washington, D.C. In her later years, she would introduce herself as everyone’s “grandmother” — because that is how she saw herself!
Born in a split log cabin in 1916 in rural Campbell County, Virginia, Hilda Mason strove constantly to broaden access to resources for all. She first became a teacher of “colored” students in racially segregated Altavista, Virginia, in the 1930s and ’40s. After moving to the District of Columbia, she taught in the public schools which, through the 1950s, also were segregated. Determined to impress upon her students high academic standards, Hilda compensated for the lack of resources in her classroom by purchasing special supplies and equipment and supporting field trips out of her own pocket.
In 1957, Hilda met Charles Noble “Charlie” Mason, Jr., a wealthy DC figure at All Souls Unitarian Church, which was then and remains a center of progressive activism in the District of Columbia. In between picketing the D.C. Transit Company to demand an end to its racist hiring practices and protesting the Whites-only membership policy of the YMCA, Hilda and Charlie engaged in a long courtship and married in 1965. Hilda and Charlie’s coming together was but also a lifelong partnership in a continuing struggle to agitate and advocate for justice for the most vulnerable in our society.
Hilda’s career as an educator grew and expanded. She became a staff member at the LaSalle Laboratory School and the progressive Adams Morgan Community School Project. Outside the classroom she helped organize a school chapter of the Washington Teachers Union and fought for equal treatment for Black students and teachers. In the mid-1960s, she organized a rent subsidy project and summer enrichment program for children in the neighborhood around All Soul’s Church.
In 1971, Hilda was elected to the D.C. Board of Education where she fought for better access to early childhood education for poor children, reduced class sizes and parity of resources for schools in low-income neighborhoods with prosperous ones. During this time, she became an ally of Council Member Julius Hobson, a leader of the DC Statehood Party. Like so many residents of Washington, D.C., Hilda was outraged that U.S. citizens in the nation’s capital did not have full voting representation in the United States Congress so she pushed for the District to become the 51st state. When Julius Hobson died in 1977, she was elected to his at-large seat on the City Council and was reelected in 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1994. As a member of the DC Statehood Party, she was a constant advocate for home-rule for the District of Columbia.
She lost her bid for a sixth Council term in 1998 but she didn’t retire from helping people. Hilda and Charlie continued their long-time practice of making “loans” to young people to help with college costs and to families struggling to buy food or pay utility bills. They were instrumental in establishing the University of the District of Columbia School of Law and were great patrons of the institution. They contributed large sums to provide scholarships for students attending the school. In 2004, the Board of Trustees of the school honoured them by naming its library the Charles N. and Hilda H. M. Mason Law Library. Her heart was always open to those who were struggling for justice; she had a profound sense of the interconnectedness of oppressions and was very supportive of LGBTIQQA issues, HIV issues, etc.. She attended as many public school graduations as she could and encouraged young people from foster homes and group homes to call her “grandma” so they felt someone loved them and was interested in their welfare.
Hilda Mason did these things because they were the right things to do. She did them because if there was an injustice, she felt compelled to dismantle it.
For information on how to apply, current students should refer to the Student Handbook.
Hilda Mason Teaching Fellows
2024-2025
Kelly Ann (KA) Nelson
Active Imagination for Chaplains (Summer 2024)
Kelly Ann (KA) Nelson has a lifelong love of unconventional learning and was able to develop her pedagogy while she was an educator at the Exploratorium Museum. During this formative time, KA built a foundation in inquiry based, experiential, and embodied insight which she subsequently brought as a director with San Francisco Night Ministry and staff chaplain with Marin Health. Notably at SFNM, KA had the privilege of developing a spiritual care curriculum and educating both lay providers as well as CPE students. As a chaplain, KA has been able to feel into the growing edges of this challenging profession, marrying her penchant for Jungian theory with pastoral care. KA discerned her call to ministry in 2018. Since then she has traversed this path in earnest, returning to school to obtain her AA in Arts and Humanities from City College of San Francisco in 2019, BA in Religious Studies from Chico State University in 2020, and is on track to graduate with her M.Div. as well as receive interfaith ordination from the Chaplaincy Institute in Spring of 2024. In her spare time she can be found with her animal and plant companions, drinking tea, or singing.
Yvonne C. Garrett
21st Century Eco-Humanism & Eco-Naturalism (Fall 2024)
Yvonne C. Garrett (she/her) is a non-theist 21st Century Humanist, Ethical Vegan, and second generation UU. She holds a Ph.D. in History & Culture from Drew University, two MAs (NYU), an MLIS (Palmer), a Certificate in Designing OLS (Parsons), and an MFA-Fiction (The New School). She works in administration at The New School, where she is also a Shop Steward for Teamsters Local 1205. She is Senior Fiction Editor at Black Lawrence Press and has taught at Manhattanville College and the Brooklyn Vets Center. Student Minister at Community Church of New York, she is an aspirant for the UU Ministry pursuing an M.Div. at Starr King where she is also on the Chaplaincy track. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, she lives in NYC.
2022-2023
Jennifer Springsteen
Writing to Counter Oppression and Create Community (Summer 2022)
Jennifer Springsteen is an educator and a writer. She has taught high school literature, service-learning and civic engagement to teachers and administrators, and co-founded PDX Writers, a literary arts organization teaching and coaching writers. Her philosophy is that every person is a writer, and every writer deserves a safe environment in which to experiment, learn, and develop craft. Jennifer’s fiction has been published in numerous literary magazines and won national and state awards; she is represented by the Nelson Literary Agency. Jennifer is a 3rd Year Masters of Divinity student with Starr King School for the Ministry and a ministerial candidate. She writes and studies in NE Portland with her husband and teenage daughter.
Sara Elizabeth Dyer-Santa Cruz
Roll for Enlightenment: Exploring the Spiritual Power of Tabletop Role-Playing Games (Fall 2022)
Sara Elizabeth (she/they) is a 2022-20223 Hilda Mason Teaching Fellow. They identify as a queer, Southern, white, neurodivergent femme with a flair for the dramatic. Sara Elizabeth holds an undergraduate degree from Salem College in Women’s Studies with a concentration in Advocacy. Born and raised in Texas, Sara Elizabeth stumbled into Unitarian Universalism while living as an adult in the Boston area. This unexpected bliss has led to a career as a religious educator with Sara Elizabeth currently serving as the Director of Lifespan Religious Exploration at a Boston area UU church. Even before this career turn, Sara Elizabeth has been working with children and adolescents since they themself were barely old enough to be considered an adult. Years of working with kids and teens has taught them the importance of using play as a way to discover yourself and the world around you, something they think has never been more needed by the adults in our modern world. Sara Elizabeth is on track to graduate from Starr King School for the Ministry with their MDiv in the Spring of 2023 and continue their hopeful journey towards ordination in the Unitarian Universalist tradition. They currently live in Rhode Island with their wife, vast collection of board games, and menagerie of animal companions..
2021-2022
Lauren Martinez
Indigenous Roots in Diaspora (Fall 2021)
Lauren (they/them) is a current Starr King School for the Ministry 3rd year student pursuing both their MASC and Masters of Divinity degrees. They received their BA in Psychology and Biology from Denison University in Granville, OH, and grew up in Southern, OH (Cincinnati); the land of the Miami Peoples, one of the many indigenous nations in the area. Their central pursuit and passion have always been deep inquiry and curiosity involved in the underlying understanding of who we are and what it takes to remember who we are at a spiritual/metaphysical, mental, and physical level at the intersections of socialized inherent and formulated constructs towards healing and transformation. Lauren is openly in 12 step recovery and uses this lens of spiritual development to break the normative boundaries of healing with Spirit, ritual weaving, and creative facilitation work. Their spiritual background like the African diasporic reflections touches many traditions from Earth-Based spaces and traditional indigenous ceremonies to modern and traditional metaphysical connections in astrology, tarot, channeling, mediumship, and esoteric mysticisms. They are also involved in social restorative antiracism justice work for their full-time work and live on the land of the Ohlone People in Berkeley, CA. Other identities they use to filter their work through are Black, Queer, Non-Binary, Trans-Masculine, more than human. .grandchild of the great migration, wanderer.
Leora Cockrell
Indigenous Roots in Diaspora (Fall 2021)
Leora (she/they) grew up on Wopumnes-Nisenan-Mewuk land in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California. Leora identifies as a white, disaporic, genderqueer, Jewish, rurally-raised settler. Leora received their bachelor’s degree in Sustainable Agriculture and minor in Gender Studies at UC Davis. After working in the food system for five years and experiencing spiritual crises, Leora returned to her Jewish heritage and community to reclaim the Indigenous roots of Judaism and support the sovereignty of Indigenous people where she lives. Leora will be a graduate of the Masters of Social Change Program at Starr King School for the Ministry in the spring of 2021. They currently live on Lisjan, Ohlone land in the East Bay. To learn more about her beloved spiritual and political community and work visit Jewsonohloneland.org.
2020-2021
Juniper Kilpatrick
Survivor Politics and Transformative Justice (Fall 2020)
Juniper Kilpatrick (they/them) is the 2020-2021 Hilda Mason Teaching Fellow. Their mission in life is to create a world free from abuse. Their passionate lifelong journey has been to learn about healthy relationships and community and to share that with others. As an avid anarchist, they believe that it is our work to create the world we wish to see through our actions.
They are an autistic, nonbinary Jewish witch, writer, and parent to a young child. They completed their undergraduate degree in Anthropology in 2013 at Portland State University, then went on to complete an herbalism program in 2014, and started their MDiv at Starr King in 2015. They are a Virgo sun, Sagittarius moon with a Libra rising and currently reside in the unceded Chinook lands also known as Portland, Oregon.
Meg McGuire
Ecology of Awakening Immersion (Summer 2020)
Meg McGuire is a 2019-2020 Hilda Mason Teaching Fellow and a candidate for Unitarian Universalist ministerial fellowship. Her lifelong UU faith inspires her commitment to spiritually grounded education and movement toward collective liberation. Shaped by her experience with anti-oppression organizing and facilitation, as well her academic background in feminist, queer and critical theory, her teaching and facilitation emphasize dialogue, praxis, and varied modes of teaching and learning. Prior to discerning a call to ministry, Meg spent five years working as a labor organizer with hotel and restaurant workers in New York City and northern New Jersey. She strives to integrate this background in organizing and economic justice work into her ministerial formation. In Fall 2019, Meg will teach a course which explores the interplay between labor and spiritual leadership and the relevance of a labor framework for social movements, vocational discernment and organizational management.
Meg holds an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from Wesleyan University and a certificate in Justice Ministry Education from Auburn Seminary. She is currently a second year Masters of Divinity student at Starr King School for the Ministry.
2019-2020
André “Dragon” Little
Indigenous Bodies (Spring 2020)
Born in Mountain View, California, Dragon (aka André Pardee Little) is a highly-melanated, male-bodied, autochthonous student of history, nature, art, social justice, and holistic health. His pedigree has traceable roots as long as pre-colonial America and his pride is as wide as all the diverse skin and experience of every continent that his ancestors still express through this being. With deep interests in Gnosticism, esoterica, indigenous and dharma studies, Dragon is completing his MASC degree this ‘19/20 school year. He has taught in K-12 classrooms, organized and hosted community “edutainment” open mic performance art events, led Occupy Oakland street protests, appeared in Time Magazine, facilitated housing for traveling and houseless activists, provided free massage and wellness to West Oakland communities, managed housing and mental healthcare for autistic and developmentally delayed youth, and is progressing towards a professorship of humanities and world religions.
Meg McGuire
Labor and Leadership (Fall 2019)
Meg McGuire is a 2019-2020 Hilda Mason Teaching Fellow and a candidate for Unitarian Universalist ministerial fellowship. Her lifelong UU faith inspires her commitment to spiritually grounded education and movement toward collective liberation. Shaped by her experience with anti-oppression organizing and facilitation, as well her academic background in feminist, queer and critical theory, her teaching and facilitation emphasize dialogue, praxis, and varied modes of teaching and learning. Prior to discerning a call to ministry, Meg spent five years working as a labor organizer with hotel and restaurant workers in New York City and northern New Jersey. She strives to integrate this background in organizing and economic justice work into her ministerial formation. In Fall 2019, Meg will teach a course which explores the interplay between labor and spiritual leadership and the relevance of a labor framework for social movements, vocational discernment and organizational management.
Meg holds an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from Wesleyan University and a certificate in Justice Ministry Education from Auburn Seminary. She is currently a second year Masters of Divinity student at Starr King School for the Ministry.
2018-2019
Ariel Aaronson-Eves
Counter-Oppressive Agrarian Theologies – Introductory Intensive (January Intersession 2019)
Counter-Oppressive Agrarian Theologies – Local Land-Based Learning (Spring 2019)
Ariel Aaronson-Eves is a third year MDiv student and an aspirant for UU ordination. Prior to enrolling at Starr King she spent six years working in the fields as a farmer, experiencing everything from isolated cattle ranches to urban educational farms, growing everything from fish to flowers. As she worked the land with her body and connected with people through food and flowers, her spirituality and senses of self and community blossomed. She dreams of a world in which the intention and intimacy she experienced between her body, her food, and her environment can be experienced by all, and is called to explore deeper economic and systems change that may make this possible in a non-exploitative way. Called to “agricultural chaplaincy,” Ariel came to seminary to develop stronger pastoral care and organizing skills to better support farmers, and to explore how religious communities can connect people with the depth of meaning and magic latent in their food.
Developing her Hilda Mason course, “Counter-Oppressive Agrarian Theologies,” has allowed Ariel to explore alternative narratives to the relationship between human and land that are not always present in the local food movement, asking questions like “How does the ideal of the family farm invisibilize queer farmers?” and “How does racism serve to separate Americans from the land?” She is looking forward to developing a community of spiritual learners who can explore such questions together and go forth to ground a food movement based on the liberation of all.
Meg holds an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from Wesleyan University and a certificate in Justice Ministry Education from Auburn Seminary. She is currently a second year Masters of Divinity student at Starr King School for the Ministry.
2017-2018
Dr. Alexa Fraser
Death and Justice: A Case Study (Summer 2017)
Alexa Fraser is a 3rd year Starr King student, pursuing an MDiv and UU ordination. She is a former Quaker. She volunteers as a community mediator in her home county and has recently completed Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. She has a PhD in Environmental Studies and cares deeply about the social justice issues this course will cover.
2016-2017
Dr. Isabel Call
Humanizing Economics (Spring 2017)
Dr. Isabel Call is an economist and participatory methodologist working towards economic and environmental justice. Hailing from east Tennessee, she has lived in cooperative communities in the Sacramento area, Seattle, Indonesia, and northeast Ohio, and brings to her work a passion for investment in local communities and bridge-building between them. Her research has focused on international climate change policy and its implications for small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. As a student in the Master of Arts in Social Change program at Starr King, she is developing participatory action research and educational methods to bring the tools of economic analysis into the hands of spiritual leaders who can, together with their communities, use and reshape them to better serve our planet.
2015-2016
Kevin Mann
Antiracist Theologies & Praxis (Fall 2015)
Multi-Religious Unitarian Universalism defined as Spiritually Alive, Radically Inclusive and Justice Centered, shapes Kevin’s ministry and his call to professional religious leadership. Grounded in theologies of anti-racism, anti-colonialism, anti-ableism, feminism, and queer liberation, and rooted in experience with parish, pastoral and community ministry, he strives towards building bridges of interdependence and mutuality through multiracial, multicultural community empowerment and collective solidarity.
Kevin is studying to become a fellowshipped UU minister and will complete his Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Social Change degrees at Starr King School for the Ministry in 2016/2017. Kevin is training with the Chaplaincy Institute to become an Interfaith Board Certified Chaplain and has served one unit of Clinical Pastoral Education at CA Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. Kevin currently serves with: the Faithful Fools Street Ministry as the Community Advocacy Intern, the Journey Towards Wholeness Anti-Racism Committee of the First Unitarian Church of Oakland, and is active with the UU Church of the Philippines and Parter Church Council.
Patricia Malarkey
CANCELED: Working Through Work Issues (January Intersession 2016)
Pat is a 2015 graduate of Starr King’s Master of Arts in Social Change (MASC) degree program. She has been working in Corporate America for over 30 years and is called to help ameliorate the suffering that occurs in Corporate America’s workplace.
In her intensive class, “Working through Work Issues,” Pat will share her experiences in the American workplace and will highlight the history of the American Dream, the mortgage crisis, the US Labor Movement, workplace issues – including layoffs, workplace bullying, harassment and discrimination – and income inequality. The focus will be on what we, as religious leaders, can do to help congregants, family and friends who come to us with workplace problems and on what we can do to make working conditions better.
Pat’s recent employment history includes working as a Senior Data Analyst at a mortgage data provider and at a Government Sponsored Entity (GSE), and as an Applications Manager and Senior Programmer / Analyst at a union-owned insurance company. She speaks fluent Assembler, COBOL and SAS.
2014-2015
Hassaun Jones-Bey
Wading in Troubled Waters: Music, Spirit, and Community in the African Diaspora (Fall 2014)
Hassaun was initially attracted to Starr King through his involvement with the Children’s Music Network, an association of musicians, educators, parents and others, which was co-founded by the late folk musician and social activist Pete Seeger. While attending Starr King, Hassaun focused on African Diaspora religion and Howard Thurman’s interpretations of the Negro Spirituals, with a particular interest in how the creators and singers of the Spirituals managed to assert their humanity through sacred and secular institutions in which their humanity was denied. Hassaun’s Hilda Mason Fellowship enabled him to share this interest, which he continues to pursue, with his fellow students, both within Starr King and from the broader GTU.