"I know giving back will allow people to have the same experiences I did."
Is it possible to have too much of the Sewanee experience? The Rev. Claire Templin Makins, C’01, T’17, would certainly say no. Not only is Makins a “double alum”—with degrees from the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Theology—but she is also currently pursuing a doctor of ministry degree through the School of Theology’s summer residency program. “My heart is in Sewanee,” she says. “Everyone knows that about me.” Makins shows her affection for the Mountain as a longtime supporter of the School of Theology and the Sewanee Fund, and through her leadership on the School of Theology’s alumni council.
Though 13 years elapsed between Makins’ college graduation and her first enrollment in the School of Theology, she says she had an early inkling that the seminary would welcome her. In 2000, when she was a junior in the College, she attended the School of Theology’s commencement service as a show of support for seminarian friends. “After the ceremony, a seminarian asked, ‘Are you going to be joining us?’” she says. “It was just the nudge I needed to explore the possibility of the priesthood.”
School of Theology graduation in 2017
As an undergraduate, Makins regularly participated in Growing in Grace, an informal, Sunday-night worship service held in All Saints’ Chapel. She was also the student leader of Foundations, a campus fellowship group. Both activities gave her many opportunities to engage with Sewanee’s seminary community. She says she’s excited that Vice-Chancellor Rob Pearigen, C’76, P’14, P’17, wants to strengthen connections between Sewanee’s undergraduate and graduate student bodies. “It can be life-changing for undergraduates to interact with seminarians.”
A San Antonio native, Makins majored in Spanish and minored in history and art history. She says she took a matter-of-fact approach to selecting academic pursuits. “In San Antonio, where I’m from, the ability to speak Spanish is a practical skill. Now I consistently use this skill in ministry.” Outside of her language studies, Makins says she particularly enjoyed learning British history. “Now that I’m an Episcopal priest, that [interest] makes total sense to me,” she says. ”We are so connected to the Church of England as Episcopalians, and knowing English history helps us understand why our church was formed in the way it was.”
Before her junior year, Makins took part in Sewanee Summer in Spain, a six-week interdisciplinary program during which students hike a pilgrimage road from the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela. The excursion was co-led by now-retired Professor of Spanish Thomas Spaccarelli and Professor of Spanish Stephen Raulston, C’81, who continues to serve as a faculty guide. Makins recalls that prior to their departure, Spaccarelli told students, “You may not consider yourself a spiritual person, but you will have a spiritual experience on this trip.” True to this promise, Makins says that the program was “a really wonderful and spiritually enriching thing for me.” In total, participants walked 215 miles alongside spiritual pilgrims from all parts of the world. “I did a lot of praying while I was walking and I returned with a strong sense of God’s presence walking with me daily,” Makins says.
After earning a B.A., Makins served in a number of roles—including working for the University of Texas endowment, high school educator, and private tutor—before discerning a call to pursue her formation as a priest. She says her Sewanee education gave her the confidence to explore a range of careers. “At Sewanee, I gained the skills to be a life-long learner and to take advantage of opportunities that came my way,” she says. “I didn’t have any fear around doing something new or different because my education gave me the ability to adapt.”
enjoying the outdoors
By the time she decided to apply to the seminary, Makins was married, and she and her husband, Daniel, had two young sons. In order to relocate from San Angelo, Texas, to Sewanee, Daniel had to quit his job as executive director of the San Angelo Cultural Affairs Council. Claire says her family’s transition to Tennessee probably made little sense from an outsider’s perspective. “There was nothing practical about it, but I had the support of my spouse who also had sensed a call in me and who was willing to follow this call with me.”
As it turned out, Makins was far from alone in having to balance family life with the demands of graduate coursework. She says that most of her classmates were, like her, in their 30s and raising children. “Our [seminary] class was the class with 45 kids,” she laughs. When she wasn’t studying or participating in a holy service, Makins and her husband rallied their two sons and two beagles for hikes in the woods. Exploring the natural beauty of Sewanee “gave me balance and peace as I went through the process of being formed for the priesthood. Nature is healing to me,” she says, noting that her family often vacations in the mountains or at national parks.
In a throwback to her undergraduate experience, Makins says she particularly enjoyed engaging in Spanish services at the Chapel of the Apostles during her seminary years. In 2016, when she was a School of Theology senior, she traveled to Cuba and served as a translator at an ecumenical conference. As part of that trip, she also explored ecological issues while touring local sugar plantations. Though travel regulations currently prevent the School of Theology from offering study in Cuba, the seminary maintains a robust creation care program, providing hands-on environmental ministry experiences, courses on the intersection of Christianity and environmental ethics, and the opportunity to pursue a master’s degree with a concentration in religion and the environment.
Makins says she was also enriched by her field education experience at Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church in Chattanooga and by her summer of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) in Dalton, Georgia. Thanks to CPE, she notes, “there is very little [ministry work] you can throw at me that I haven’t done in the hospital.” She says one of her most formative experiences was being called upon to perform an emergency baptism in the NICU for an infant with a terminal diagnosis. “All of the [infant’s] family was in the room, and the doctors and nurses also came in for the baptism,” she says. “In that sacred moment I thought, ‘This is why I’m here. This kind of work is what I’m meant to do, walking through every part of life with my congregation.’”
Makins is now vice rector at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Lake Forest, Illinois, and she regularly gives to a range of University designations, including the School of Theology’s unrestricted and scholarship funds. She says her philanthropy is motivated in part by gratitude and eagerness to pay it forward. “I was lucky enough to have scholarships that allowed me to attend Sewanee as an undergraduate and seminarian,” she says. adding, “I know giving back will allow people to have the same experiences I did.”
The Rev. Casey Perkins, T’22, who serves as the School of Theology’s director of development, says he is grateful for Makins’ multifaceted, ongoing connection to the Mountain. “Claire has contributed to Sewanee at every level—through her leadership activities as a student and seminarian, as a School of Theology alumni representative spreading the word about our programs, and, of course, in her generous philanthropy. It’s inspiring to see how her relationship with the campus continues to grow, and how her involvement is shaping current students’ Sewanee journeys.”
Having spent such a significant portion of her life as a Sewanee scholar, Makins says it’s easy to see the University’s influence on her professional and personal paths. “I am who I am because I went to Sewanee. It has changed my life in so many ways."
