Dates

• Existence: 1939-

Biography

The Wartburg Theological Seminary was founded in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1854. The seminary began admitting women as degree candidates in 1970, when the American Lutheran Church (now the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) resolved that women could be eligible for call and ordination. By 1983, over one hundred women had enrolled in seminary; they formed a close-knit community, supporting one another as they navigated their roles as women in the church. Norma Cook Everist, theologian, author, and Wartburg Theological Seminary professor, was born in northern Iowa in 1938. She studied religion at Valparaiso University and became a deaconess in 1960. She was called to serve in St. Louis, Missouri and earned an M.A. in religion at the Concordia Seminary in St. Louis in 1964. After working in Detroit, Michigan, and New Haven, Connecticut, Everist enrolled at Yale Divinity School, completing her master’s in divinity in 1976. She was ordained in 1977 and started teaching at Wartburg in 1979, becoming the seminary's first female faculty member and, in 1984, the first woman to achieve tenure in any Lutheran seminary. In 1988, Everist received a Ph.D. from the University of Denver and remained active in the Lutheran Church, publishing widely and lecturing at venues across the country.

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