Dr. Derrick Crim is The Saint Paul Seminary's visiting scholar in residence for the 2023-2024 academic year.
Crim holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of St. Thomas School of Education and is also a graduate of the seminary's Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry degree program. He has for several years contributed to many aspects of the intellectual and human formation components for both students and staff at the seminary. An associate professor at Metro State University in the area of humans services, Crim brings a wealth of wisdom and experience in the training of providers who bring professional and pastoral care to those suffering from alcohol and other addictions. He has served, as well, as an invaluable contributor to The Saint Paul Seminary's Cultural Empathy Committee and has led fruitful seminars to faculty, students, and staff on strategies for effective pastoral outreach and accompaniment.
Dr. Crim's role as a visiting scholar includes
- Serving on the Cultural Empathy Committee and facilitating the committee’s deeper reflection on its ongoing work and implications
- Leading human and intellectual formation sessions with the lay students, resulting in a summative workshop on relevant social services
- Team teaching a course called “Crisis and Accompaniment” in the Master of Arts in Pastoral Leadership program in the spring
Previous Visiting Scholars
Mr. Jason Adkins was the visiting scholar at The Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity for the fall 2020 semester. He has served as the executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference since March 2011. Prior to his advocacy work for the Church, Adkins was an attorney at the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm. He has clerked for both state and federal appellate judges. He received his law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School, where he has served as an adjunct professor.
Mr. Adkins is a regular presenter at parishes and at organizations around Minnesota and has been serving as an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas’s School of Law. He writes a regular column that appears in diocesan newspapers, and his work has also appeared in numerous secular publications and journals. He frequently appears in the media and serves on many corporate boards and advisory councils. Mr. Adkins holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of St. Thomas and resides in St. Paul with his family.
On October 12, 2020, Adkins presented “Progressivism, Patriotism, and Patriarchy: Competing Identities in Post-Liberal America” as part of the seminary's Archbishop Ireland Memorial Library Lecture Series. Adkins noted that identity politics is increasingly dominant in our fractured republic, and that the competing identities are often irreconcilable and have sometimes led to violent conflict. How has respect for genuine pluralism and the common good continued to wane? On what basis can we establish social peace and potentially re-invigorate the American experiment in ordered liberty? Adkins argued that the answer to these questions is at the heart of the Catholic faith and its social doctrine -- rediscovering our common identity as children of our heavenly Father: