Born and raised in the river port town of Huntington, West Virginia, Reverend Robert B. Coleman comes to The Riverside Church in the City of New York after having served twenty-three years as an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church in Tennessee. He has been involved in multiple initiatives addressing social justice and peace throughout those years.

Reverend Coleman has served as member or chair of the Conference Church and Society Commission, the Committee on Religion and Race, and the Conference Committee on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns. He was elected to the Executive Board of Directors of the Nashville Chapter of the NAACP in 1998. Reverend Coleman was an organizing member of Tying Nashville Together, an IAF affiliate organization for empowering people to speak to power with power in public policy making. Reverend Coleman helped to birth an Interfaith Dental Clinic in the basement of his church which now attracts 200 volunteer dentists who provide over two-million dollars worth of dentistry annually for people who have no dental insurance in Nashville, TN. Since 1997, he has been an adjunct faculty member at Vanderbilt Divinity School teaching courses entitled, The Church in the City and The Church and the Poor.

Reverend Coleman received his Bachelor’s Degree in Education from Marshall University in Huntington, WV and his Master’s of Divinity from Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, TN.

The Rev. J. Lee Hill, Jr. is a native of Chesterfield, Virginia. He has been involved in ministry and youth development for more than 10 years, and is an ordained Baptist minister seeking dual-standing in the United Church of Christ. Since 1999 he has served in a variety of ministerial capacities in congregations throughout Virginia, North Carolina, and New York City. In addition to serving The Riverside Church as Minster with Youth and Young Adults, he is a Religious Life Advisor at Columbia University, adjunct instructor in urban ministry at the Wake Forest University Divinity School, and serves on the Board of the Alliance of Baptists, a movement of progressive Christians.

Rev. Hill is a life-member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. (KXL Chapter), and sits on the Junior Board of Advocates for Children, a 35 year old advocacy agency that protects the educational right of children and youth in New York City. He has published a commentary series entitled “Meeting God” in Baptists Today, and several sermons, including “Inner Bling,” with the National Baptist Convention, Inc. As a strong advocate for mission and social justice, he has led teams in Viet Nam, New York City, Washington D.C., throughout the southern states, and annually to the City of New Orleans for the continued ministry of relief and recovery.

Rev. Hill took the B.A. in Integrative Studies from George Mason University, the M.Div. (with honors) from Wake Forest University, and is earning the Ph.D. in Religious Education from Fordham University. He holds similar credentials from the Howard University School of Divinity (Dip., Biblical Studies), the Institute for Youth Ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary (Cert., Youth and Theology), and the North Carolina Baptist Hospital School of Pastoral Care(Cert., Clinical Pastoral Education).

He is married to the former Christie N. Love, an educational advocacy attorney and Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia University.

Dr. Joan Kavanaugh is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and a pastoral psychotherapist who founded Riverside Church’s Counseling Center in 1978. She holds a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary, a Certificate in Psychotherapy from the Blanton Peale Graduate Institute (BPGI), and a Doctor of Ministry in Psychology and Clinical Studies from Andover Newton Theological School. She has served on the faculty and supervisory staff at BPGI. Dr. Kavanaugh is a supervisor in the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, a Diplomate in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, and is licensed to practice in New York State.

As founder and director of Riverside’s Pastoral Counseling Center, Joan has provided leadership in spirituality and psychotherapy, worship, teaching and consulting. Beyond Riverside, she consults widely in the area of grief, loss and trauma, and is writing a book on prayer. She grew up in Hawaii, and has treasured the role of sharing people’s lives and journeys in Riverside’s richly diverse population.

Rev. Linda Tarry-Chard has been involved in public service for over 30 years and has held executive positions in voluntary child-care agencies and with the New York City Human Resources Administration. Her career has focused on the welfare of disadvantaged urban children and their families, diversity and social justice issues. She was the Director of Adoption Services at Graham Windham Children’s Services; Director of Victim Services Agency/Community Outreach in the five boroughs of New York City; and Director of Special Projects for the New York City Board of Education where she developed educational enrichment programs for talented high school students in Central Harlem-Community School District #5 and raised private funds for the Frederick Douglass Academy.

Linda Tarry-Chard is a lifetime member of the NAACP, and sits on the Board of Directors of The Sister Fund, a private foundation that supports women and girls in New York City. In addition, she is a founding board member of the New York Women’s Foundation and serves on the Advisory Committees of the Jewish Museum and The Facing History and Ourselves Teacher Training Foundation. Among many of her credits, she is also the co-author of a children’s book entitled King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

She holds a Master of Science in Education from Fordham University and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. Shortly after her studies, Linda became an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and served as the Minister for Social Justice at Broadway United Church of Christ. She now serves as the Minister for New Members and Ecumenical-Interfaith Relations at The Riverside Church in New York City.

Before assuming his present responsibilities as Minister for Education, Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations at the Riverside Church, the Reverend Dr. Arnold Isidore Thomas served a variety of ministries, including Pastor of the First Congregational Church (now Faith United Church of Christ) in Little Rock, Arkansas; Chaplain and member of the faculty of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut; Pastor of First Congregational Church in Williamstown, Massachusetts; and Conference Minister of the Vermont Conference of the United Church of Christ.

He was also President of the Criminal Justice Ministry of Arkansas; Co-founder and Vice President of the Arkansas Conference of Churches and Synagogues; Co-founder and President of the Human Rights and Relations Task Force of Northern Berkshire County, where he was the recipient of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Peacemaker Award; President of the Vermont Ecumenical Council; and Co-founder of the Center for the Study of Science and Religion at Riverside, a cooperative program of the Riverside Church and Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Science and Religion.

Dr. Thomas received his Baccalaureate in Religious Studies from Hiram College, his Master of Divinity from Yale University, and his Doctorate in Ministry from Hartford Seminary. He is the husband of Victoria Anne Short, and the father of three adult children: Devon Lee Julian Thomas, Ethan Eliot Thomas, and Adria Anne Thomas.