Saturday Spotlight: Rev. Sofía Betancourt, Ph.D.
About Rev. Sofía Betancourt, Ph.D.
Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt serves as Associate Professor of Unitarian Universalist Theologies and Ethics at Starr King School for the Ministry. She holds a Ph.D. in religious ethics and African American Studies from Yale University. Her academic work focuses on environmental ethics of liberation in a womanist and Latina feminist frame. She served for four years as the Director of Racial and Ethnic Concerns of the Unitarian Universalist Association, and briefly as its Interim Co-President. Betancourt’s ministry centers on work that is empowering and counter-oppressive. Betancourt holds a B.S. from Cornell University with a concentration in ethnobotany, an M.A. and M.Phil. from Yale University in religious ethics and African American studies, and an M.Div. from Starr King School for the Ministry.
Learn more about Sofía here.
What do you like about teaching at Starr King?
“As a professor, I am proud that my formation rests in Starr King School for the Ministry’s ongoing commitments to educating to counter oppression and to student-centered learning. My own teaching is firmly grounded in these traditions and further reflects my commitment to an actively engaged pedagogy that seeks to rehumanize and resacralize both ministry and the scholarly life. I believe in educational environments that support students in acquiring the standard fundamentals of the area of study while not being bound nor limited by the ways in which those fundamentals can at times reify the privileges and oppressions too often found in the academy. From those foundations I am further committed to broadening the field of intellectual engagement to centralize those scholarly voices overlooked and silenced by the mainstream academy.
Here at Starr King, I have the opportunity to empower students to teach, minister, research, and organize in ways that affirm and promote multiple cultural locations and learning styles, while still remaining true to their own authentic voices and experiences. Here we strive to build classrooms that are grounded in the sacred and held in theological covenant; where the wisdom gained from accountable multi-religious approaches prepare students for religious leadership in today’s world.”