Trustee Leadership Passes from Chynoweth to Lewis  

The fall meeting of the Seminary Trustees brought a change in leadership as two-term Chair, Lyn Trodahl Chynoweth, passed the mantle to her fellow Board member, Wilma Lewis of Washington, DC. Chynoweth’s Moravian roots and her corporate background in change management for IBM served the Seminary well. She ably led the Trustees since 2000, guiding the Seminary through several faculty and staff searches, a curriculum overhaul, a presidential search, a reaccreditation process, and the initial stages of a comprehensive campaign.

As the Chair of the Seminary Trustees, Lyn also held a seat on the executive committee of the Moravian College Trustees. Her gift of leadership was recognized by the College Board and in 2005 she was tapped to serve as the Chair of the Presidential Search Committee for the College and Seminary. Lyn was at the top of the list of possible candidates for Chair of the College Trustees when Priscilla Payne Hurd announced that she would be retiring from the position in fall 2008. So as Lyn retired as Chair from the Seminary Board (though still a member of that Board), she accepted a new leadership role and assumed the Chair of the Board of her alma mater, Moravian College.

At a dinner attended by the Seminary Trustees, faculty and staff, Chynoweth was honored by both the Seminary and College for her leadership of the Seminary. “Lyn has been great for the Seminary, keeping us focused on our mission on behalf of the larger Church,” says Seminary Dean Frank Crouch. “Plus, personally and professionally, it has been a pleasure for me to work with someone of her caliber.“ In her humble and gracious style, Lyn passed the mantle of Seminary leadership to an equally gifted woman, Wilma A. Lewis, who serves as managing associate general counsel for litigation of the congressionally chartered mortgage corporation, Freddie Mac, which is headquartered in McLean, Virginia.

A life-long Moravian and alumna of Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School, Wilma, who hails from St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, has been practicing law in Washington, DC in both the private and public sectors since 1981. During her professional career, she gained the distinction of serving in two presidentially appointed/Senate confirmed positions: first as Inspector General for the U.S. Department of the Interior from 1995-1998 — the first African-American to hold that position; and then as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1998-2001 — the first woman to serve in that capacity.

An active member of the Faith Moravian congregation in Washington, DC, Wilma is President of the Board of Trustees and is founder and director of the church’s young adult handbell choir, which performed concerts in June 2007 for Moravian and Episcopalian audiences in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.

As she assumed her new position as Chair of the Seminary Trustees, Wilma stated that she looked forward to “the privilege of working with all who have an interest in and love for Moravian Theological Seminary as we build upon the strong foundation established in the Seminary’s first 200 years and chart the course that will launch it into its next 200 years.”