Alumni Profiles

Mary Westfall

"Breathe, relax and think about this course and what it is that gives you hope," says the Rev. Dr. Mary Westfall '01G. She raises a small bell and rings it once, letting the chime resonate. The 38 students in her Ecology and Values class sit silently for several moments. Then Westfall reads from the work of ecologist David Abraham.

"May a good vision catch me. ... May I awaken into the story that surrounds me. ... Here and now, on this day, may I taste something sacred." She rings the bell again-a high, clear sound-a signal that class will begin.

"Some may think a meditation is a wacky way to begin a class," Westfall acknowledges, "but then it becomes so powerful that they start to practice that kind of mindfulness themselves." That moment of meditation helps students focus on the class and the material they will cover over the course of the next three hours. "We dash here from our various places-home, dorm, work-with cluttered hearts and minds," she says. "We never slow down and reflect on what an experience meant or prepare for the next one. When we finish the meditation, there's a different kind of calm and openness in the class."

Westfall is an intense woman with a ready smile, who seems to balance opposites: gentleness and authority, calm and energy, vulnerability and strength. The mindfulness she teaches her students is the constant in her character.

The daughter of a Presbyterian minister, Westfall grew up in Colorado, attended seminary and after graduation served for several years at a church on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Then, she wanted to make a change, and a good vision caught her.

"In 1990, at my first interview, I fell in love with the UNH campus," she remembers. Westfall spent nine years as director of United Campus Ministry and Protestant chaplain. In 1996, she helped organize a conference entitled "The Greening of Faith: God, the Environment and the Good Life." The conference turned out to be a launch point for her search for a Ph.D. program.

"I wanted to connect religion, theology, the environment and ethical issues," she explains. "So many programs were just one or the other." Ultimately, Westfall chose UNH's interdisciplinary natural resources program. By then, she had become pastor of Durham Community Church. "I loved working with students, and I wanted to bring spiritual questions to academic life," she says.

In Ecology and Values, Westfall introduces students to ethicists and approaches to ethics from different religious traditions. "It's the first time many of them have talked about how people go about making decisions," she observes. "They're not aware that there are models that people throughout time have used to make ethical decisions." The class examines eight different environmental issues, ranging from nuclear power to world population, and considers the choices individuals and societies make.

The terrible events of 9/11 provided a dramatic backdrop for last fall's class. "The pain and trauma that followed the attacks drove Americans to question a lot of things, and my course is about questioning how things are," she says. "It reminded us how connected we are to the rest of the world. We have to find a way to live together with justice and peace and respect."

For months after the attacks, Westfall kept the newspaper picture of all 19 terrorists propped up on the desk at her church office. Why was it there?

"I pray over it quite often," she explains. "I look at their faces partly to keep me aware of the ways in which brokenness manifests itself. And I look at their faces to be reminded of their humanity. ~

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