VTS magazine

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The Ministry of Mitzi Budde

Mitzi Budde, D.Min, Head Librarian and the Arthur Carl Lichtenberger Chair for Theological Research, is retiring after 33 years. The Rev. A. Katherine Grieb, Ph.D., ’83, reflects on the profound impact she has had on VTS.

The Reverend Doctor Mitzi Budde is one of the most extraordinary people I have ever met.

I once heard Mitzi describe her task as “having the book you suddenly discovered you need, on the shelf before you learn it exists and go looking for it. Or, if we don’t have it, finding it and getting it for you in record time.” This summary totally sums up my experience of the Bishop Payne Library under her watch and I believe most, if not all, of the faculty would agree with me.

Mitzi is absolutely professional in every way: she is a brilliant ecumenical theologian, knowledgeable not only about her own Lutheran (ELCA) tradition but also well-informed and generous in her estimation of and support for other Christian traditions. For example, she team-taught ecumenical theology with John Crossin, a Salesian priest and ethicist from the Catholic University of America. The Washington Theological Consortium honored her a few years ago with the Figel Award, and the lecture she delivered on that occasion about the future challenges and possibilities for the ecumenical movement was nothing less than stunning.

Mitzi is Lutheran to her bones and it has been my privilege to serve on many of her chapel teams. I have heard her patiently explain why we will not be reserving the leftover consecrated bread or wine, why a lay person can and should set the table and lead the post-Communion prayer, and why the liturgy always begins at the font. She has shaped generations of students to re-think their assumptions and to become more articulate about what liturgical traditions they follow and their theological reasons for doing so.

During Mitzi’s tenure as Head Librarian, the holdings of the library have expanded dramatically, both in number and in breadth. I remember being told as a student at VTS that feminist studies and liberation theology were passing fads that we did not need to study or worry about. Pre-Mitzi, the library’s holdings reflected that approach. But Mitzi bought those books. She also oversaw the major conversion of the library from what it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s to the very different entity it is today.

Mitzi has long impressed me as bi-lingual: she speaks both book and computer fluently. She loves books and paper journals and art, so she has curated an amazing rare book room with books and artifacts reflecting the history of the Seminary and other valuable literary treasures. She is also totally up to date on digital resources, so it is now possible to access books and articles from almost anywhere in the world using a wide range of indexes and catalogs.

Her professionalism is seen in other parts of her librarianship as well. She managed the combination of placing massive amounts of library material in storage and still providing what faculty and students needed for coursework during the COVID-19 pandemic. More recently, she negotiated, planned and supervised a major remodeling of the library building and the reorganization of its spaces to be more hospitable. She has also greatly assisted the process of protecting the library assets of The General Theological Seminary, determining what needs preservation, and what resources could best support the current generation of students at GTS working largely online and in short intensive courses at the Close in New York.

Mitzi is also a passionate defender of free speech and a free press, and a strong opponent of censorship of any kind. She is also a skilled supervisor: she has trained her staff to inhabit the same helpful, courteous, informed professionalism that she herself embodies. She is a tireless advocate for her staff colleagues: it is not unusual to see her working late at night or on weekends, so that the library shifts are covered but the members of her team are not unduly burdened.

She is more than conscientious about teaching and committee assignments. Having served on the Library Committee, I can testify that Mitzi is one of the best-organized people I know. The agenda was always clear; the decisions to be made were real and our opinions genuinely mattered; we began and ended on time with our tasks done and done well. The canonically required middler evaluations always take time and energy to complete. Mitzi repeatedly went out of her way to seek out information from her colleagues and checked her own ideas with others. She is scrupulously fair-minded and careful about her words in general, but especially when another person’s vocation may be at stake.

Mitzi is passionate about theological education on all fronts. Her support for faculty research projects is legendary; she goes out of her way to assist junior faculty members constructing new courses or doing research for publications towards tenure. She watches library donations, pulling out books that would be of particular interest to a faculty member; she watches for just published books in faculty areas of interest and points out articles relevant to faculty research projects. She provides pastoral care and academic support for adjunct faculty, a rare commodity in today’s higher education system. Not surprisingly, she has been consistently asked to participate in (or lead) Association of Theological Schools accreditation teams for seminaries and religious studies departments of universities, especially in support of libraries for theological education. She has sent books to theological colleges in many parts of the world and has assisted our international students in building up libraries at home.

Mitzi is gifted with a strong sense of justice and a desire to share the good news of God’s gracious love with those who need to hear it. Among other things, this has led to her work in prison ministry. She and her co-authors published Hear My Voice: A Prison Prayer Book, with liturgies and prayers written for people who are incarcerated. She appreciates the efforts of those not as skilled as she is and those whose lives have been difficult.

Within the Seminary community context, Mitzi is 100 per cent loyal to VTS, deeply respectful of her faculty and staff colleagues, and supportive of students. At the same time, she politely asks questions about the reasons for some policies, and she points out places where decisions or procedures do not seem to make sense.

The two pilgrimages we co-led to Rome during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity – made possible only by Mitzi’s ecumenical contacts, her incredible research skills, and her organized work patterns – have been a kind of sacrament of our friendship over the years, an outward and visible sign of everything I love about Mitzi.

The last thing to say, at least here, is that she had the good sense to marry the Reverend John Budde, a gifted pastor in the Baptist tradition, who also shares her appreciation for beautiful art – John is a skilled stained-glass artist – and her theological commitments to love of neighbor and justice for the underdog. Both of them are hard-working, fun-loving, grace-filled souls, blessed with faith, hope, love, humor, and cats.

Photographs show Mitzi Budde, D.Min, with her faculty and library colleagues at a Deanery Dinner to celebrate her work and mark her retirement.