Duke Women’s Weekend, a biennial Duke Alumni event taking place Feb. 20-22 this year, will feature Duke Divinity Professor Kate Bowler as keynote speaker along with a number of Divinity School graduates as speakers.

The event, which is open to anyone with a Duke affiliation, offers opportunities to connect with alumnae and the university and take part in sessions that develop personal, intellectual, and practical skills.

Bowler, associate professor of the history of Christianity in North America, will deliver a keynote address on “Life After Perfect,” drawing on her experiences after she was unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV cancer at age 35. Bowler wrote a best-selling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason (and other lies I’ve loved), about her struggle to understand the personal and intellectual dimensions of the American belief that all tragedies are tests of character. She subsequently staged a national conversation around why it felt so difficult to speak frankly about suffering through her popular podcast, Everything Happens. Her most recent book is The Preacher’s Wife: Women and Power in American Megaministry.

Duke alumnae Hope Morgan Ward, T '73, M.Div. '78, bishop of the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church and member of the Divinity School Board of Visitors; Lynn Holmes, M.Div. '19; J. Dana Trent, M.Div. '05; and Fatimah Salleh, M.Div. '16 will all take part in a panel discussion on “Finding Your Balance: Bringing Together Faith, Family and Work.” The session will cover how one can cultivate simple, new habits that help meld passions for faith, family, and work into a more energizing, fulfilling way of being.

Duke Divinity alumna Ashley Crowder Stanley, T '77, M.Div. '80 will serve on a panel on “Community Champion,” which will discuss how to approach channeling a passion into ways to serve a community by leading or joining a movement.

Learn more and register for the event: https://alumni.duke.edu/women-s-programs/women-s-weekend