Administration
- Founding Director - Rev. Dr. Gina Rose Halpern
- Co-Director - Rev. Jan Thomas
- Acting Managing Director - Rev. Dr. Suzanne Nichols
Core Faculty
- Rev. Amy Brucker (Dreamwork)
- Pollyanna Bush (Music)
- Diane J. Johnson, Ph.D. (Communication and Process)
- Rev. John Mabry, Ph.D (World Religions, Spiritual Direction, Interfaith Theology)
- Hana Matt (World Religions, Spiritual Direction, Practical Theology)
- Rev. Jürgen Schwing (Spiritual Care)
- Rev. Dr. Jeremy Taylor (Dreamwork)
- Rev. Megan Wagner (Spiritual Psychology and Practical Theology)
Adjunct Faculty
Board
Rev. Dr. Gina Rose Halpern
Founder and Co-Director of the Chaplaincy Institute for Arts and Interfaith Ministries, Rev. Dr. Gina Rose Halpern is also the author / illustrator of To Heal the Broken Heart, published by ChI Press in 2003. She is an internationally known visual artist, with works displayed around the world. She continues to exhibit her work, including exhibitions at Marin General Hospital and the Institute for Health & Healing. Since 1983 she has been the Executive Director for Healing Through the Arts, a nonprofit organization created to build bridges between the creative arts and the healing arts. Previously she also was the administrator of Antioch College's Buddhist Studies Program in India, leading educational groups in India and Nepal for ten years.
Rev. Halpern has been on the board of the Society for Arts in Healthcare, and designed healthcare facilities, including work for The Children's Hospital in San Diego. In 1995 she toured Russian pediatric hospitals as a clown with Patch Adams, MD and in Gesundheit Institute. She is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Creation Spirituality. Rev. Halpern has been on the faculty of John F. Kennedy University and the Naropa, Oakland - The University of Creation Spirituality. She is the author and illustrator of the bilingual children's book "Where is Tibet?"
Rev. Jan Thomas
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Rev. Jan Thomas, MSW, is an Interfaith minister and Co-Director of The Chaplaincy Institute. She has been a psychiatric social worker, environmental educator, editor, program director, and communications specialist. Initially focused in the mental health arena, after embracing a call to planetary stewardship she worked for 20 years in the non-profit sector on environmental and peace issues. Now as an interfaith minister and seminary administrator, her focus is on deepening the articulation of Interfaith values, models, tools, and inspiration for healing the religious-based schisms that divide our world.
Rev. Dr. Suzanne Nichols
Rev. Dr. Suzanne Nichols is the Acting Managing Director of The Chaplaincy Institute. She is an ordained Interfaith minister (ChI 2007) and holds a Masters in Theological Studies from the Pacific School of Religion. A long-time Oklahoman who transplanted to Berkeley to attend seminary, she previously spent 30 years as an attorney doing mostly public health work in state government. She now brings the skills from her wide-ranging experiences—as attorney, program administrator, mother, administrative law judge, executive director, and board member—to the work of administering and growing ChI.
Core Faculty
Rev. Amy Brucker
ChI Alum and former Co-Director of The Chaplaincy Institute, Rev. Amy Brucker is an interfaith minister and Founding Director of The Dream Studio. She holds a Masters Degree in Spirituality from Naropa University, served for several years as Creative Director of The Cosmic Mass with Matthew Fox, and has over twenty years experience in the field of dreams. She is a writer, artist, singer, drummer, storyteller, ritualist and dancer who loves to combine these disciplines when teaching and facilitating dreamwork. (www.amybrucker.com) She is a member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams and Spiritual Directors International.
Pollyanna Bush
Pollyanna Bush, ChI’s Music Director, specializes in the spiritual and healing dimensions of music. A performer since the age of five, her formal music studies were at College of Marin, Mills College in Oakland, and San Francisco State University in classical, choral, jazz, popular, and music theory. She has studied with renowned composer and Windam Hill recording artist, Alaudin Matthiey, and East Indian classical musician and master, Pandit Pran Nath. Under his guidance, she moved more deeply into the spiritual and healing dimensions of music. Ms Bush has worked in dance, as an accompanist, dancer/choreographer, and teacher. She trained in modern dance for 15 years, including work in New York City with the Martha Graham Dance Company. She has been choral director for "Sing for Your Life" at Grace Cathedral and the Interfaith Chapel in the Presidio, San Francisco. Her CD of original music, "Dying to Be Born", can be ordered through her website: www.pollyannabush.com.
Diane J. Johnson, Ph.D.
Diane J. Johnson, Ph.D., is the faculty for the Chaplaincy Institute's Process class, for shared reflection and integration of the monthly module learnings. President of Mmapeu Management Consulting, she has nearly thirty years' experience with not-for-profit, business and governmental organizations. She works primarily with social transformation organizations in the arenas of education, social equity, leadership, community development, arts and culture, and spirituality. Dr. Johnson's focus is on strengthening organizational capacity through meeting facilitation, organizational development, leadership training, cultural capacity consulting, and evaluation services. Her organizational roles have included development director, programs director, marketing specialist, public relations liaison, curriculum developer and program evaluator.
Rev. Dr. John Mabry
Rev. John R. Mabry, PhD, Director of ChI's Spiritual Direction program, teaches spiritual direction, world religions, and interfaith theology. He holds a masters degree in Creation Spirituality and a doctorate in World Religions. He has served as editor of CREATION SPIRITUALITY magazine, and PRESENCE: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPIRITUAL DIRECTION, and currently serves as managing editor for the Episcopal Diocese of California's PACIFIC CHURCH NEWS. He is co-pastor of Grace North Church in Berkeley, CA, a Congregational Catholic community, and director of education for the American Catholic Church. Current research includes early Jewish Christian literature, especially the Gospel of Thomas. He also sings for two Bay Area progressive rock bands, Metaphor www.metaphor.org, and Mind Furniture www.mindfurniture.com.
Hana Matt
ChI Faculty Hana Matt has taught World Religions and Deep Ecumenism at The Graduate Theological Union and at Wisdom University for eight years. For seven years she has worked as a Spiritual Director to clients of all religions. In addition, she teaches graduate courses in “Spiritual Direction and Pastoral Care in Each of the World Religions”. Her three years of studies at The Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley focused on the Bible, Christian Spirituality, Spiritual Direction, and Comparative Religion. For seven years she lived in Jerusalem and studied Jewish and Christian Spirituality, and Islam at The Hebrew University. Previously she spent two years studying Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Japan. For three years she studied Islam in the Islamic Studies Center in Hawaii. She also lived for two years in India, studying Hinduism at The Adyar Institute in Madras, and at Sattal Institute in Nanital, Uttar Pradesh. Her forthcoming book is Spiritual Direction From Each of The World Religions.
Rev. Jürgen Schwing
Rev, Schwing is the Director of Spiritual Care at Kaiser Hospital and Hospice in Walnut Creek,CA. He is the founder of the Open Channel Spiritual Care Training Program. He is an ordained minister and a board certified chaplain whose work is rooted in the Interfaith mystical journey as well as the arts. Rev. Schwing has an MA in Religion and the Personality Science and received is clinical training as a spiritual counselor at Stanford Medical Center and the California Pacific Medical Center. Kaiser Permenente has featured Rev. Schwing's work in Interfaith spiritual care in clinical video conferences throughout its system nationwide. He has taught at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, and has presented his practices at the National Association for Drama Therapy, the American Male Studies Association, and the Institute for Noetic Sciences.
Rev. Dr. Jeremy Taylor
ChI faculty Rev. Dr. Jeremy Taylor, Professor of Dreams and Archetypal Studies, Unitarian Universalist Minister and past president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (1995), has been an educator and pioneer in the area of dreams for over 35 years. He is the author of three books that integrate dream symbolism, mythology, and archetypal energy: Dream Work (1983); Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill: Using Dreams to Tap the Wisdom of the Unconscious (1992); and The Living Labyrinth: Exploring Archetypal Images in Myths, Dreams and the Symbolism of Waking Life (1998). He has been a featured guest on NBC and PBS, has taught at The Institute for Transpersonal Psychology, JFK University, Wisdom University, and throughout the world—most recently in South Korea and Peru. His website is: www.jeremytaylor.com. For descriptions of his books and tapes, see www.jeremytaylor.com/pages/jeremybooks.html.
Rev. Megan Wagner
Rev. Megan Wagner, M.A. is a therapist, spiritual director, artist, Kabbalah teacher, interfaith minister, ritual leader, and teacher of spiritual psychology. As founding director of the Tree of Life Training, she guides students, clients and groups to greater health and wholeness, using a blend of Western therapy and the creative arts of drumming, chanting, storytelling and ritual. Rev. Wagner has done intensive studies in Family Systems, Depth Psychology and Christian and Jewish Mysticism. In London, England, she served as a minister at the American Church, directing the counseling services, teaching holistic spirituality and leading creative worship services. While in London she trained with Kabbalah Master Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi. She has a special interest in women's rites of passage and for ten years has been leading women's groups to the island of Crete. A member of the Board of Directors of the International Kabbalah Society, she has lectured on Kabbalah in England, Spain and in the USA, where she runs a Kabbalistic School of the Soul with her husband, Rev. Jim Larkin.
Rev. Wagner is also the author of The Sapphire Staff: Walking the Western Mystical Way, a guide to the Tree of Life process. The Tree of Life Training is a holistic model of healing that combines modern Western therapy techniques with the ancient healing arts of drumming, chanting, storytelling and ritual. For more info: www.TreeofLifeTeachings.com.
Adjunct Faculty
Charles Michael Burack
Charles Burack, Ph.D. (ChI Adjunct Faculty) is Chair of the Department of Liberal Arts and Director of the B.A. Psychology Program at John F. Kennedy University, where he specializes in interdisciplinary studies in psychology, spirituality, and literature. He has also taught integrative approaches to sacred literature, Jewish mysticism, creative writing, creative power at work, and working visioning at St. Mary’s College, UC Berkeley, and California Institute of Integral Studies. Dr. Burack is a widely published writer-poet, award-winning scholar, and author of two books and dozens of essays, poems, prayers, stories, and meditations. He is also a spiritual counselor, interfaith chaplain, and career/creativity coach. He holds a Ph.D. in English from UC Berkeley and an M.A. in Human Development from the University of Chicago. A graduate of the Spiritual Directors Institute (Mercy Center) and a former rabbinical student, he is a volunteer interfaith chaplain at Kaiser Permanente Hospital and is active in interfaith education, arts, and counseling.
Jane DeCuir, MA
Jane De Cuir is a performance artist, musician and visual artist. She has taught traditional crafts, singing, drumming and movement in various schools since 1993. A Metis (mixed blood ancestry) of Native American (Cherokee, Lakota), European and African heritage, Ms. De Cuir has studied Native American drumming and singing with Richard Dobson, movement and dance with Olivia Corson and Luisah Teish, improv theater with Ruth Zaporah, and voice with Judy Davis. She has also performed in the cross-cultural groups Adesha, Tampat, and Drumfire.
Rabbinical Pastor Shoshana Phoenixx-Dawn
Rabbinical Pastor Shoshana Phoenixx-Dawn, ChI Adjunct Faculty, is a longtime hospital and hospice chaplain and an active member and leader in the Jewish community. Currently she is the Director of Older Adult and Volunteer Programs for Jewish Community Center of the East Bay. A graduate of Chochmat HaLev's Immersion in Jewish Spiritual Leadership program, she is the author of The Phoenixx Hagaddah. Shoshana uses poetry, storytelling, art, crafts, music and American Sign Language in her work to teach community and college-based courses, including courses on grief, mourning and healing from a Jewish perspective, spiritual care for hospitalized patients and terminally ill patients of all faiths, and spiritual assessment strategies for healthcare professionals.
Shakina Reinhertz
Shakina Reinhertz, author of Women Called to the Path of Rumi, has been a student of Sufism for thirty years and is initiated as a teacher in the Mevlevi Order of America and the Sufi Order International. She has taught at universities and spiritual communities, sharing the mystical path of the dervish through stories, zikr, and Sufi practices.
Her professional experience includes over twenty years of experience in education and social service work, with an emphasis on women's issues. She has been a guest presenter on Sufism at Colgate University, City College of San Francisco, Rochester University, and Wisdom University. The heart of her practice is Sacred Dance; her teachers have included T.Y. Pang, Chitresh Das, Ann Halprin, and Mevlevi Postneshin Jelaluddin Loras. Currently she teaches the Whirling practice at Grace North Church and is part of the adjunct faculty of the Chaplaincy Institute. In the Fall of 2008 she will teach "Founding Islam: Her Story" at Starr King School for the Ministry, a division of the Graduate Theological Union.
Board of Directors
Rev. Leslie Kagan
Rev. Leslie Kagan (www.kaganassoc.com), Chair of the Board of Directors of the Chaplaincy Institute, is an interfaith minister and co-founder of Kagan Associates, LLC, a consulting firm that specializes in helping organizations and individuals transform themselves through a process of discovery, vision, focus, and conscious action. She is widely recognized as a creative business strategist and facilitator of organizational growth, leadership team development, and strategic planning, helping clients in a breadth of industries act collaboratively to create their futures.
Leslie has maintained a healthy perspective in her organizational consulting practice through her interfaith chaplaincy, completing 2 units of CPE at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, training as a pediatric hospice volunteer with HealthCare Dimensions Hospice, an affiliate of Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and participating in Caring Canines, a program to take registered therapy dogs to visit nursing homes, hospitals, schools and assisted living facilities with their handlers as a community service. An alumna of The Chaplaincy Institute, she holds a B.A. from Simmons College, an M.Ed. from Boston University, and an M.B.A. from Northeastern University, graduating first in her class.
Patrick McDermott
John Shordike