The Katie Geneva Cannon Lectureship, sponsored by the Women’s Center at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, has been awarded a grant in the amount of $5,000 by Presbyterian Women of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Specifically, it was the Creative Ministries Offering Committee that selected the lectureship project for this funding.

The Katie Geneva Cannon Lecture was established in honor of the first African American woman ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Katie Geneva Cannon, professor of ethics at Union-PSCE Theological Seminary in Richmond, Va., inaugurated the lectureship on March 26, 2006, at an event held in conjunction with the Wind and Flame Conference that celebrated the anniversary of the ordination of women as elders, deacons, and pastors in the Church.

“We are deeply grateful to Presbyterian Women for the recognition of the importance of this lectureship,” said Dr. Johanna Bos, Dora Pierce Professor of Bible and Old Testament and director of the Women’s Center at the Seminary.

“This award sustains our hope in being able to carry on the work of justice through a program that is so much at the heart of our dreams for a transformation of our structures and is a tribute not just to the work of the Women’s Center but to the significance of the voice and presence of Dr. Cannon.”

As an annual program of the Seminary’s Women’s Center the lectureship will seek to invite a woman scholar who belongs to a racial ethnic minority in the United States and who raises a critical voice against the dominant oppressive structures and ideologies of the era.

Established in 1993, the Center facilitates awareness, necessary to the formation of networks across race, class, and gender—crucial for bringing about change to establish justice and equality in current structures. To accomplish this goal, the Center hosts numerous events – not just for women – such as workshops, guest speakers, and informal gatherings on topics including domestic violence, gender identity, victimization of gay, lesbian, and transgendered persons, and the connections between gender and race oppression.