A List
9/18/06

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST PRESIDENT TO SPEAK AT SLU

CANTON - The Reverend William G. Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), will give a talk at St. Lawrence University on "Universalism and Race" on Monday, September 25, at 7:30 p.m. in Eben Holden. The event is open to the public, free of charge; it continues exploration of St. Lawrence's Universalist heritage, begun during the Sesquicentennial celebration.

Sinkford, who will also visit classes while on campus, has been president of the UUA since 2001, administering staff and programs that serve its more than 1,000 member congregations. He also acts as principal spokesperson and minister-at-large for the association.

Prior to being elected the seventh president of the UUA, Sinkford served as its director of congregational, district and extension services. His commitment to liberal religion dates to his teenage years, when he was an active member of the First Unitarian Church of Cincinnati, Ohio. Sinkford served as the president of Liberal Religious Youth, the continental UU youth organization, and as a high school senior was one of the first U.S. Presidential Scholars. While an undergraduate at Harvard University, he advised youth groups at UU churches in Boston and Lexington, MA; he graduated cum laude from Harvard in 1968 and spent the following year in Greece as a Michael Clark Rockefeller Fellow.

After college, Sinkford worked in marketing, holding management positions with Gillette, Avon Products, Johnson Products and Revlon. During this time, he received the Black Achievers in Industry Award from the Harlem YMCA. He later ran his own business, Sinkford Restorations, Inc., and was active as a volunteer with community action groups and in not-for-profit housing development.

In Cincinnati, Sinkford was an active lay leader in his home congregation before studying for the ministry. Toward the end of his theological education at Starr King School for the Ministry, Sinkford joined the staff of the UUA. He earned his Master of Divinity degree in 1995, and was fellowshipped as a community minister and ordained by his home congregation in the same year. Sinkford lives in Boston, and is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Marblehead, MA.

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More information: Spiritual and Religious Life at St. Lawrence