Policy for Section Meetings of the SCE

West Coast Pacific Section

Friday, February 15, 2008

Claremont School of Theology

in Claremont, California

2008 Co-chairs:

Ellen Ott Marshall, Claremont School of Theology

(Registration and Site Coordinator)

Roberto Dell'Oro,Loyola Marymount University

(Program Coordinator)

2008 Meeting Announcement

The 2008 meeting for the Pacific Section of the SCE will take place on Friday, February 15 at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, CA.  It is jointly sponsored by the School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University’s School of Religion this year.  We will send out registration and other conference information in December.

2008 Program

Attached is registration information for the Pacific Section meeting on February 15. The deadline for registration is January 25.  However, one of the possible hotels has requested that you make reservations by January 18. 

Please direct questions about proposals and papers to Robert, and questions about logistics and registration to Ellen Marshall (emarshall@cst.edu).

A Brief History by John Crossley, USC:

The SCE Pacific Section was born in 1972, when Christian ethics professors at the University of Southern California and California State University, Long Beach decided to hold an overnight SCE regional retreat at Casa de Maria in the Montecito section of Santa Barbara, and invite ethicists from all over Southern California.  The original principals were Jack Crossley, Bill May, and John Orr from USC, and Tony Battaglia from Cal State Long Beach.  The first meeting had about 20 attendees, and that continued to be the approximate number for several years.

Scholars from Cal State Northridge, Cal State Fullerton, the Claremont Colleges, Azusa Pacific University, Loma Linda University, LaVerne College, Loyola Marymount University, and several other Southern California colleges and universities attended regularly.  Right from the start, graduate students were included in the group.  After three or four years of successful meetings, SCE national sanctioned the Pacific Section as an official section of the SCE.  For a time, a Pacific Section representative sat on the Board of Directors. 

After meeting at Casa de Maria for several years, the group switched to Aldersgate Lodge, a Methodist retreat house in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, in order to make it easier for a growing number of Northern Californians to attend the meetings.  A few years later, the group moved across Sunset Boulevard to the larger Presbyterian Conference Grounds in Pacific Palisades.

In the 1980's, the section decided to move away from an overnight retreat to a single-day meeting at a local college, university, or seminary.  Average attendance grew quickly from 20 to about 35.  The meeting has been hosted by USC, Cal State Long Beach, Loyola Marymount University, Fuller Theological Seminary, Claremont Graduate University, Loma Linda University, and other schools.  In the early 1990's, it became apparent that for the convenience of Northern California members, the group should meet every third year in Northern California, and that continues to be the pattern today.  The group has met at the Graduate Theological Union, the University of San Francisco, Santa Clara University, and the University of the Pacific (San Francisco campus).

At about this same time, SCE national agreed to send the newly elected president of the SCE to the Pacific Section meeting to give an informal presentation of his or her research.  This has proven to be a highlight of the Pacific Section meetings.

The future of the Pacific Section appears bright.  Each annual meeting affords an opportunity for six or seven scholars to present their work, and the quality of the papers has been consistently high, resulting in the reputation of th Pacific Section as an interesting place to be every third Friday in February.