Beta Omicron Distinguished Visitor: Thomas Mikelson '58

Thomas Mikelson, a former visiting lecturer in ministry at Harvard Divinity School, will deliver two public lectures on Black and Latin American Liberation Theology Wednesday, Feb. 4, at Cornell College.

Mikelson, a 1958 graduate of Cornell College, is visiting as part of the Beta Omicron Distinguished Alumni Visitors Program. His first talk “Black Liberation Theology in the USA: Martin Luther King Jr. to James Cone,” will be at 11:15 a.m. The second, “Celam, Pope John 23, Gustavo Gutierrez, and Monsenor Oscar Romero: The Beginnings of Latin American Liberation Theology,” will start at 3:30 p.m.

Both lectures will be in Hedges Conference room, and are free and open to the public.

Mikelson was the parish minister at First Parish and First Church in Cambridge, Mass., from 1989 to 2006, and he continues on as minister emeritus. He was also a visiting lecturer at Harvard Divinity School, where he earned his Doctorate of Theology, and at the University of Iowa. Mikelson has also been awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Award, granted by the Progressive National Baptist Convention and was the Minns Lecturer in 1993-94, where he delivered six lectures on King Jr.

Mikelson will also visit with students in class and over meals. The Beta Omicron Distinguished Alumni Visitors Program brings a number of accomplished Cornell College alumni to the campus each year. While on campus, distinguished alumni share their expertise with Cornell students in courses, receptions, meals in the dining halls, and during individual visits. Additionally, alumni visitors present public lectures about their professional experiences in life beyond the Cornell hilltop.