Virginia leaders recognized with honorary degrees
[Episcopal Diocese of Virginia — Press Release] Dr. David Charlton, president of the Church Schools of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, received a Doctor of Humane Letters from Sewanee: The University of the South near Chattanooga, Tenn., at the school’s May 11 Baccalaureate ceremony. Charlton is the second in his family to receive such an honor. Charlton’s father, the Rt. Rev. Gordon T. Charlton Jr., retired bishop suffragan of the Diocese of Texas, received an honorary degree from Sewanee in 1988.
Charlton has served as the chief executive of Church Schools, comprised of six Episcopal college preparatory schools five cities, since 1988. Those schools include Christchurch School, Christchurch; St. Catherine’s School, Richmond; St. Christopher’s School, Richmond; St. Margaret’s School, Tappahannock; St. Stephen’s & St. Agnes School, Alexandria; and Stuart Hall School, Staunton. Charlton, himself a graduate of St. Stephen’s School in Alexandria, also served as headmaster of Christchurch School in Middlesex County and in administrative posts at Virginia Theological Seminary, the College of William and Mary and Franklin & Marshall College.
Other recipients honored during the Baccalaureate include David B. Brooks, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times; Dr. Jonathan T. Howe, recently retired president of the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation; and Dr. Lacy H. Hunt II, an internationally known economist.
Virginia Theological Seminary conferred a Doctor of Divinity, honoris causa, degree upon the Rt. Rev. Susan E. Goff, bishop suffragan, at its 190th commencement ceremony in May. Other recipients include Dr. Ellen Frances Drake, a professor at Duke Divinity School; the Rev. Canon Carlson Gerdau, retired canon to the ordinary to two presiding bishops; William Hutto, director of performing arts at St. Alban’s School and the National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C.; Dr. Carol Newsom, professor at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology; and the Rev. Dr. Francis Wade, retired rector of St. Alban’s, Washington, D.C.