Professor, Department of Religious Studies
2009
Bio:
In August 1992 Dr. Albrecht joined the Religious Studies Department of the University of Detroit Mercy as an Assistant Professor, was promoted to Associate Professor beginning with academic year 19961997, and attained the rank of Full Professor in the Department effective with the beginning of the 2002/2003 academic year. During her tenure with the University, Dr. Albrecht served as chair of the Department of Religious Studies from 1997-2000.
In his nomination letter recommending Dr. Albrecht for Professor Emerita, James Tubbs, Jr. Chair, Department of Religious Studies wrote “From her arrival at UDM in 1992 through the present, Dr. Albrecht has been an active, engaged, productive scholar. Her two books, The Character of Our Communities: Toward a Liberative Ethic for the Church (1995) and Hitting Home: Feminist Ethics, Women’s Work, and the Betrayal of ‘Family Values’ (2002), multiple book chapters, refereed articles, reviews, professional publications and presentations all witness to the breadth of her scholarly concerns and depth of her analyses. Underlying virtually all of her research, teaching, and community and church involvement is a commitment to challenge, and offer alternatives to, historically dominant assumptions within our culture by exposing injustices of gender, race and economic location.”
Dr. Albrecht “was one of the first College of Liberal Arts and Education representatives to serve in the McNichols Faculty Assembly [established under the shared governance structure]; she has served on a variety of University committees, including the Women and Gender Studies program, the Masters in Community Development program and the Parish Nurse program. At the same time, however, she has been willing to share her knowledge and expertise beyond the University and even beyond the academy. She is an ordained minister who continues to preach on an occasional basis and provides service committees and task forces at the local, regional and national levels in her denomination [Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)], including the drafting of Resolutions for presentation to the church’s national governing body.” She has co-chaired the church’s national level Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy.
Dr. Albrecht’s mastery of teaching is noted as: “skillful interweaving of presentation of new material and opportunities to actively involve students. She asks effective trigger questions to involve students in the discussion and then …. She pushes with follow-up questions to substantively deepen the discourse…..She gives very good explanations of the points that she makes and selects very apt, expressive examples to illustrate complex material..”
Gloria Albrecht was born and raised in Baltimore. She attended the University of Maryland and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Studies in 1963. She received an M.L.A. in history from Johns Hopkins University in 1966. In 1983 she received an S.T.M. in moral theology from St. Mary’s Seminary and University and, that same year, was ordained a Presbyterian minister in the Presbytery of Baltimore.
In 1992, Albrecht completed her doctorate in Christian Ethics at Temple University in Philadelphia. Her dissertation was entitled “Myself and Other Characters: A Feminist Liberationist Response to Hauerwas’ Ethics of Character.”
Dr. Albrecht’s areas of specialization are Christian Social Ethics with an emphasis on a Christian Feminist analysis of U. S. Culture; Feminist and Liberationist Ethics; Economic Justice; Sexual Justice; Race, Class and Gender; Issues of War and Peace; Business Ethics; and Methodologies in Religious Ethics.
Dr. Albrecht served as associate pastor at Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church from 1983 to 1988, and at First and Franklin Street Presbyterian Church from 1989 to 1991, both in Baltimore.
Dr. Albrecht’s nomination for Professor Emerita status was approved and conferred by Fr. Gerard L. Stockhausen, S.J., President of University of Detroit Mercy on August 8, 2009.