�������ϲ�������̳

Within the framework of the council’s mission and purposes, what we do follows the interests of the members, and so is in a continuing stage of development. There is a weekly seminar, an annual luncheon and access to on campus lectures.

The weekly seminar, however, serves as a core, common activity of the council. This seminar series runs each year from September to May. While a membership activity, guests are also welcome to attend seminars of interest. People who wish to attend regularly should consider becoming a member of the council.

FRESNO PACIFIC UNIVERSITY AND BIBLICAL SEMINARY
COUNCIL OF SENIOR PROFESSIONALS 
FALL 2025 SEMINARS

The Twenty-Third Year of the Council   

Wednesday, 2:00-4:00 p.m.   
Pioneer-Johanson Conference Room, �������ϲ�������̳ Steinert Campus Center  
SCC 103 
(unless otherwise noted) 

September 3 - Welcome Reception with Guest Lela Folkers

• We begin our new fall season with a get-reacquainted social time—with goodies of course! Then we will have a formal welcome for the new year and a preview of the sessions we will enjoy this semester. We will conclude this welcome-back-celebration with a presentation by Lela Folkers, born and bred in Reedley, whose new book, To the Regions Beyond, chronicles her lifetime journey of faith and discovery, covering her four-decade-long career as a teacher, social worker and public health specialist in an astonishing number of different countries around the world. She will reveal how broad the term “missionary” can be in a world full of demanding needs!
• Moderator: Alan Peters

September 10 - Tim Geddert: The Global Mennonite Conference

• A panel consisting of Andre and Beth Stevens, Alison Noble, Laura Schmidt Roberts and Tim and Gertrud Geddert, attendees at the Anabaptist 500th Anniversary Celebration in Switzerland in May 2025, will be reporting. They will share how it benefited them and what they contributed. We will learn how they feel this celebration fostered continuing relationships with the Mennonite World Conference and, in particular with the global and Anabaptist higher education network that sponsored the consultation that all of the members of the panel attended.
• Moderator: Pat Unruh

September 17 - Richard Burell, CEO of Live Again Fresno

• Richard Burell, founder and executive director of Live Again Fresno will share his story of growing up in Fresno’s Parkway neighborhood—where poverty, gang violence and survival shape daily life. Struggling with addiction and gang involvement, he once questioned whether change was even possible. But through faith, resilience and a deep desire to give back, he found a new path - one that led him to create Live Again Fresno in 2012. What started as simply showing up—helping kids with homework, offering meals and building trust—grew into a thriving organization that now empowers hundreds of children and families each year.

  Driven by his own experiences, Richard is committed to breaking cycles of hardship and providing young people with mentorship, education and a safe place to grow. His journey from struggle to leadership is a testament to the power of hope and community. Through Live Again Fresno, he continues to stand in the gap, ensuring that every child has the opportunity to build a brighter future—one filled with possibility, stability and the belief that they matter.

• Richard will be accompanied by Tammy Townsend the president of his board of directors.
• Moderator: Pat Unruh

September 24 - Todd Vasquez: AI and You: Navigating Tomorrow’s Technology While Protecting What Matters Most

• Todd D. Vasquez, Ph.D., is an AI ethicist and educator passionate about human flourishing in the digital age. He holds a Ph.D. in Constructive Theology from Loyola University Chicago and teaches “Ethics in Computing” along with philosophy and theology courses. With coding experience spanning from the Commodore 64 to today’s AI systems, he uniquely combines technological expertise with ethical wisdom to help people navigate our rapidly changing digital landscape while preserving what matters most about human connection and dignity.

  Artificial Intelligence is rapidly changing how we interact with technology, from healthcare to family connections. This engaging seminar explores how AI will impact your daily life, relationships and independence. Learn to recognize AI-enhanced scams, understand how AI might improve your healthcare experience and discover practical ways to maintain meaningful human connections in an increasingly digital world. Our speaker combines decades of technology experience with deep ethical insight to help you embrace AI’s benefits while protecting your values, dignity and autonomy.

• Moderator: Morgan Schlesselman

October 1 - Pam Johnston - Margaret Edson’s play, WIT

• Pam Johnston, Ph.D., associate professor of history at �������ϲ�������̳, together with her students, will present the staged reading of Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Wit.
• In 1999, the theater world was shocked when an unknown kindergarten teacher in Georgia won the Pulitzer Prize for her first play, inspired by her experience working in the cancer unit of a research hospital. The heroine is Professor Vivian Bearing, who studies the 17th century poet, John Donne. She has been unbearably prideful and very mean to her students, but when she is diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer, she is forced to reexamine her life.
• Moderator: Pat Unruh

October 8-9 - Joel Kersey: Believers Church Lecture Series

• October 8, 10:50 a.m. – Chapel (Special Events Center)
• October 8, 2:00-4:00 p.m. – Council of Senior Professionals (SCC 103)
• Oct 9, 7:00 p.m. – B.C. Lounge

October 15 - Alison R. Noble: Significance of Anabaptist Heritage to �������ϲ�������̳

• Prior to joining �������ϲ�������̳ as provost and senior vice president of academic affairs, Alison Noble, Ph.D., served as interim provost and professor of chemistry at Messiah University, PA. In 2016 she was recognized with the Robert & Marilyn Smith Award for Outstanding Teaching and has published research in numerous chemistry and surface science journals. Prior to her time in higher education, Noble worked as a senior engineer for Intel Corporation. She holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a BS in chemistry from Westmont College, and completed the Institute for Leadership and Management in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In addition to her leadership at �������ϲ�������̳ she is currently a mentor for the Lilly Network Faculty Fellows program and is a regular panelist, speaker and workshop leader in the areas of vocation, institutional mission, church-related higher education and faculty development.
• Anabaptist sensibilities have animated �������ϲ�������̳ for the last 80 years: from its founding, through its era of expansion beyond a mainly Mennonite Brethren student body (and faculty), to the development of the Fresno Pacific Idea and into present day. Change, the inherent reality of life bounded by time, challenges each successive generation to adapt institutional sensibilities (i.e., “institutional mission and identity”) to a particular cultural moment. Acknowledging that communities are especially vulnerable to destabilization and fracture during periods of rapid change, I look forward to engaging the �������ϲ�������̳ Council of Senior Professionals in conversation around metrics that describe our current moment and the way that Anabaptist sensibilities can and should continue to inform the work we do with students, faculty, and the broader community.
• Moderator: Katherine Herms

October 22 - Shantay Davies Balch: Black Wellness & Prosperity

• Shantay R. Davies-Balch is a visionary leader transforming maternal health equity through BLACK Wellness & Prosperity Center (BWPC) in Fresno, CA. She founded the innovative BLACK Doula Network, a core initiative of BWPC, to address health disparities in Black maternal health including maternal mortality, preterm birth and infant mortality by training culturally competent doulas using one of the most comprehensive curricula in the nation. Shantay expands access to life-saving perinatal care through strategic partnerships with hospitals and insurers while creating economic opportunities and jobs that foster upward mobility. A lifetime member of Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA), she is committed to advancing equity through civic engagement and community leadership. Recognized by California’s surgeon general, her work sets a national standard for equitable healthcare and power-sharing with Black women and families in Fresno and beyond. In 2025, Shantay received the James Irvine Foundation Award in recognition of her transformative efforts to drive systemic healthcare change and expand access to vital resources for the Black community.
• Moderator: Katherine Herms

October 29 - Warren Starr: I am Cherokee

• Warren Starr was born in 1949 with a Cherokee father and white-presenting mother. At an early age, he had contact with his father’s family and culture during the summers when he visited them in Oklahoma. After age eight those summer visits and contacts were limited. His father raised him to be white in Olympia, Washington. He attended the University of Washington obtaining a BA in communications and MA in English literature. He also attended Princeton Seminary for a year and a half. His professional life included a short stint as a longshoreman, a time as a journalist and a few years as a staff worker for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. His longest job was as a teacher, spending 30 years in Madera as an English teacher. He has been retired for seven years. His presentation will focus on how he reconnected with his indigenous heritage, and the spiritual transformation that happened to him from doing so.
• I describe my presentation by saying, I have led quite an ordinary life. The one distinction that stands out is my being a kind of salmon. Salmon are born in a particular place, small streams usually. Then they depart all the way out into the big ocean until one day, instinctively, they are led to undertake a long journey back to their original home. That is what happened to me, and I am so glad it did. Most of what I will talk about is that journey. It involves a little about growing up with a father who looked as American Indian as can be, as did one of my sisters. It involves talking about my life as an evangelical Christian for many years, my disenchantment with religion, all religion, and the way I was drawn back to learn, participate and be a part of the culture my father and father’s fathers knew for thousands of years. I am Cherokee, I will tell you in that language, and I am so proud and happy to be so. For the last 15 years, I have tried my best to be who I truly am and was always meant to be.
• Moderator: Al Dueck

November 5 - Roman Rain Tree

• Roman C. Rain Tree is a prominent Native American leader, community advocate and educator, born and raised in Fresno County, California. He is a UC Davis graduate, where he studied Native American Studies. He is locally Tribally Indigenous as a member of the Dunlap Band of Mono Indians and a descendant of the Choinumni and Wukchumni tribes. He is also part of the Bear Clan. Roman is deeply committed to preserving his tribes’ cultures, languages and identities, as they face the ongoing challenges of cultural genocide and extinction.
• There are two types of Native Americans: Federally Acknowledged and Non-Federally Acknowledged Tribes. Non-Federally Acknowledged Tribes do not have sovereign rights. California has more Non-Federally Acknowledged Tribes indigenous to its land than any state in America. Half of all California Non-Federally Acknowledged Tribes are indigenous to the Sierra San Joaquin Valley. This reality perpetuates a continued cultural genocide. Learn how you can help end this California Indian genocide and empower local Tribes to reconnect with their ancestral homelands.
• Moderator: Hope Nisly                                                   

November 12 - Field Trip to The Holy Monastery of the Theotokos, the Life-Giving Spring, 38532 Dunlap Rd, Dunlap, CA 93621

• The Holy Monastery of the Theotokos, the Life-Giving Spring, is situated in Dunlap, California, near the St. Nicholas Ranch and Retreat Center. It was founded in 1993 by His Eminence Metropolitan Anthony of blessed memory with assistance from Elder Ephraim of Mt. Athos. Father Ephraim brought the first two nuns from the Holy Monastery of the Archangel Michael in Greece. The name of the monastery pays homage to the historic Theotokos the Life-Giving Spring Monastery and Shrine in Constantinople. The monastery is under the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco and is approximately four hours from Holy Trinity. (Source: Monastic Communities — Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, San Francisco)
• Schedule:
  • 11:00 a.m.—Depart from �������ϲ�������̳ (multiple vehicles carpool)
  • 12:00 p.m.—Arrive at monastery and enjoy lunch
  • 1:00 p.m.—Tour of monastery grounds and place of worship
  • 2:30 p.m.—Depart for �������ϲ�������̳
  • 3:30 p.m.—Arrive at �������ϲ�������̳
• Moderator: Steven Redekop

November 19 - Terry Jaurena: Peace Conference in Hyderabad, India

• Terry Jaurena, a former schoolteacher, has been the minister of missions and communications at First Presbyterian Church in Fresno for over 30 years. She will report on the Interfaith Peace Conference held last February on the conference grounds of the Mennonite Brethren Church in Hyderabad, India.
• Moderator: Pauline Kliewer

November 26 - Thanksgiving Recess

December 3 - Christmas Party

• Moderator: Pat Unruh

2025-2026 Senior Professionals Steering Committee:

• Rory Angulo
• Al Dueck
• Pauline Kliewer
• Hope Nisly
• Alan Peters
• Steven Redekop
• Morgan Schlesselman
• Pat Unruh