Background

• Ph.D. (Columbia University)
• B.S.  (Columbia University)

Areas of Study

• Clergy concerns
• Gender, spirituality and leadership in faith communities
• Denominational policies

Biography

Adair Lummis is Faculty Associate in the Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary. Since completing the Ph.D. in sociology at Columbia University  (1979), she  has had an office at Hartford Seminary. Her broad areas of study are: clergy deployment, competence and health; incorporating racial/ethnic minority clergy into mainline denominations; gender, spirituality and leadership in communities of faith; and denominational policies in mission and ministry.

Based on grant-funded empirical research, she has published five co-authored books:  three of which are on clergy women and men, one on Muslims in America, and one on women’s feminist spirituality groups. Based on grant studies and on contract research (when permission granted), she has also published a substantial number of articles and book chapters, and presented nearly 40 papers at professional meetings. She has recently become the editor of Review of Religious Research, a longstanding academic social science journal that publishes articles based on empirical research focused on contemporary religious beliefs, practices, and trends, nationally and internationally.

As an instructor, she sees sociology as providing the concepts and methods to explore particular areas of religion, especially from students’ different perspectives of faith, gender, age, occupation and life experiences.  In the last several years, she had taught courses from a sociological perspective on: “Women and the Future of the Christian Church”; “Denominations, Do We Need Them?; “Pagans, Witches and/or Christians”; and “Tackling the Issue: Retaining Young People in Mainline Congregations.”