Love L. Sechrest, Ph.D. will join the Provost’s Office in July as associate provost for program development and innovation. At the Mount, her initial responsibilities will include overseeing programs that enhance student learning outside the classroom, including the Career Center and the newly formed Center for Service.
Sechrest comes to Mount St. Mary’s from Columbia Theological Seminary, where she serves as vice president for academic affairs, dean of faculty and associate professor of the New Testament. She will bring a data-informed, results-oriented mindset to the Provost’s Office, fueled by bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science and an earlier career as an information technology leader and manager at G.E. Aerospace and Lockheed Martin.
“I am not sure I have met anyone who is as well-rounded and talented as Love Sechrest. She will make many significant contributions to the Mount,” said Provost Boyd Creasman, Ph.D.
“I am thrilled to join the community at the Mount and contribute to its mission. My own career has unfolded in surprising ways, but each step of it emerged organically from interests I had as an undergraduate. I’m looking forward to participate in equipping students as they begin their own journeys of discovery toward leading lives and careers of significance.”
Sechrest’s third book, Race and Rhyme: Rereading the New Testament, will be published this summer. She also coedited a book titled Can “White” People Be Saved? Triangulating Race, Theology and Mission and authored the book A Former Jew: Paul and the Dialectics of Race. She earned her Ph.D. from Duke University’s graduate program in religion.
Before beginning her work at Columbia Theological Seminary in 2018, she was a faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary. She has also taught at Loyola Marymount University and The Divinity School at Duke University.
In industry, Sechrest spent more than 10 years as a manager of General Electric Aerospace’s Management and Data Systems division, functioning as its chief information officer. She earned bachelor’s degrees in computer science and sociology from Duke University, a master’s in computer science from Villanova University, a master’s in divinity from Trinity International University, and a doctorate in the New Testament from Duke University’s Program in Religion.