History
The seed that became Cherry Hill Seminary was planted in the early 1990s by Kirk White, Cat Chapin-Bishop and Laura Wildman-Hanlon of Vermont’s Church of the Sacred Earth. Classes were conducted first by mail, and then brought online in 2000. The seminary was granted 501(c)3 tax-exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service in March of 2007.
White recruited nonprofit consultant and Cherry Hill Seminary student Holli Emore to serve as the chair of the first working board of directors, which began meeting in January 2007. At the end of that year, the board asked Ms. Emore to resign from the board and become the seminary’s first executive director, a position in which she continues to serve. By 2012, the faculty had grown to sixty educators, most with doctorate or relevant master's degrees.
The current master’s program was announced in July 2009. In fall of 2010, 38 students were matriculated into either a master’s or a certificate program, and many more took courses outside of the formal programs.
In May, 2012, Cherry Hill Seminary granted its first Master of Divinity degree in Pagan Pastoral Counseling to Sandra Lee Harris of Sacred Well Congregation. Evidence of that degree was submitted to the Association of Professional Chaplains as part of the recipient's application for evaluation of theological equivalency by the Board of Chaplaincy Certification, Inc. in lieu of a graduate degree from an accredited seminary. On November 1, 2012, BCCI notified the recipient that her educational credentials had been accepted.
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—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
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—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)