VTS magazine

Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) faculty were awarded a total of $34,125 in Conant Foundation grants for research projects in the 2025–26 academic year – more than any other Episcopal seminary. An additional $7,600 was awarded to the Rev. April Stace, Ph.D., at The General Theological Seminary (GTS).

Conant Grant funds are designated for the advancement of seminary-based theological education. They support of research, writing, and course development by faculty members at recognized Episcopal seminaries in the U.S.

The funding underscores VTS’ ongoing leadership in academic research and scholarship. Over the past five to 10 years, its faculty publication output has placed VTS among the most academically productive stand-alone denominational seminaries in the U.S. This work is crucially supported by funding from organizations such as the Conant Foundation.

The following VTS faculty received funding for their 2025-26 projects:

• The Rev. Melody Knowles, Ph.D., will take a research trip to the Thompson Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto, which will be hosting the exhibition, Jewish-Muslim Interactions in Books in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods. She will also visit the Museum for Islamic Art and the adjacent reference library in Berlin, and present her Psalms commentary at the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament.
• The Rev. Robert Heaney, Ph.D., will use his grant to support intercultural collaboration work during residencies at Nungalinya and Trinity Colleges in Australia, as he works on a graduate-level textbook tentatively titled Multiple Modernities and Religious Thought. It will also support work to redesign the syllabus of his course on Resistant Theologies.
• The Rev. Altagracia Perez-Bullard, Ph.D., will conduct field research at five multiracial/multiethnic communities in five different dioceses in North America and Hawaii. Her findings will support a forthcoming book, as well as a VTS course and a continuing education course that bring social sciences, psychology, sociology, decolonial/postcolonial theory and theology, racial/cultural and gender studies to bear on the current landscape of ministry in multiracial and multiethnic communities in The Episcopal Church.
• Colin Donnelly, Ph.D., will use his grant to fund archival research at three separate colleges at Cambridge University and at the British Library in London. This research will support his forthcoming book that reevaluates a group of early reformers who had far closer ties and far more mutual influence with Catholic reformers of the same period than has previously been recognized – crucial in an age of increasing and much needed ecumenism.
• The Rev. April Stace, Ph.D., will conduct research at nine different sites across North America to develop a course on contemporary expressions of American spirituality.

The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Dean and President of VTS, Ph.D., said: “We are deeply grateful to the Conant Foundation for its continued support, which has a significant impact on the quality and reach of theological scholarship. The work supported this year not only enriches our classrooms and curricula but also contributes to broader conversations within the Church and the academy.”