Presenter(s)

    Andrew McNeely

    Comments

    3:00-4:15, Kennedy Union Ballroom

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    Description

    American evangelicals have long engendered strict codes of gender hierarchy in churches and their related institutions. Twentieth-century evangelical education, however, discloses unique ironies women educators embodied in their reliance on these designated gender roles. Placed in liminal positions between authority and service, women educators transgressed boundaries between the “maleness” of given authority and the subservient nature proper to womanhood. This research explores this phenomenon by examining the educational careers of Mary and Lois LeBar, both of whom taught at Wheaton College from 1945 to 1975. Instead of rejecting gender hierarchy, they used their distinct gender roles as women tasked to serve others by appropriating progressive educational pedagogy that proved amenable to their agency as evangelical women educators. For the LeBars, this was as theologically imperative as it was pedagogically effective.

    Publication Date

    4-23-2025

    Project Designation

    Graduate Research

    Primary Advisor

    Tim R. Gabrielli

    Primary Advisor's Department

    Religious Studies

    Keywords

    Stander Symposium, College of Arts and Sciences

    Institutional Learning Goals

    Scholarship

    Between Authority and Service: The LeBar Sisters

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