St Michael's College

Dr Yates has been Postgraduate Manager in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Wales, Lampeter for the last eight years. She has also been a lecturer at Lampeter in church history, with her focus being on religion, education and politics in the nineteenth century. She is currently working on research into the dynamics of educational reform in England, Wales and Scotland in the nineteenth century. She has also had a background in political life, and was Leader of Maidstone District council from 1985-1992. Dr Yates is an expert at delivering adult education, especially in distance learning, and has worked closely with a number of university departments and dioceses in the last decade. She has been a lifelong member of the Anglican Church and has been involved in parish church councils for many years.

Paula brings a variety of experience to her role as Dean of Non-Residential training at St Michael's. She moved to the college from the University of Wales, Lampeter (now the University of Wales, Trinity St David), where she had been for the previous ten years, first as a postgraduate student and then as a member of staff in the theology department. In 2002 she was brought in to set up procedures for the effective management of the department's rapidly growing portfolio of distance learning taught master's degrees and to manage the taught and research postgraduate degree programmes for the department. During this time she completed her doctorate on the role of the established church in Welsh elementary schooling between 1780 and 1830. She became a lecturer in church history at Lampeter in 2009.

Before coming to Wales, Paula had been actively engaged in politics in a number of different roles. She was a council leader for five years, stood for parliament and for the European parliament and worked for a time as constituency organiser for an MP.

Before that she had been a full time mother to her four children and whenever she has the time she likes to visit them and their families in England and Sweden.

Paula's research interests lie in the area of modern church history, particularly:

• the interaction of religion and politics and the changing role of religion in public life over the last three centuries
• interdenominational relations in the long nineteenth century
• establishment, disestablishment and the growth of denominational and religious pluralism
• education and the churches in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

She is currently working on a contribution on religion and educational reform in England, Wales and Scotland for the fourth in a series of volumes on The Dynamics of Religious Reform in Church, State and Society in Northern Europe, 1780-1920, being published by Leuven University Press. She is a member of the editorial board of the series and has co-edited the second volume, on internal church reform, with Professor Joris van Eijnatten of the University of Utrecht.

Her research plans include:

• a study of education as a focus of conflict between the established church and nonconformity in England and Wales in the early nineteenth century
• working with a colleague on a study of the growth of religious diversity in England and Wales in the long nineteenth century

Publications

• 'Drawing Up the Battle Lines: Elementary Schooling in the Diocese of Bangor in the Second Decade of the Nineteenth Century' in Nigel Yates (ed) Bishop Burgess and His World: Culture Religion and Society in Britain, Europe and North America in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, University of Wales Press, Cardiff 2007, pp. 135-44
• 'The Dynamics of Religious Reform in Church, State and Society in Northern Europe, 1780-1929. Vol 2:' The Churches, (ed. with Prof Joris van Eijnatten), Leuven University Press, Leuven 2010
• 'Episcopal Leadership and Parish Life: Two Case Studies' in Theo Clemens (ed.) Transactions of the Anglo-Dutch Church History Conference (draft title) forthcoming
• 'Sunday Schools and Welsh National Identity; a Historiographical Study' in Frances Knight, Stuart J. Brown and John Morgan Guy (eds) Religion and Culture in Britain: Conflict and Conversation from the Restoration to the Twentieth Century, Ashgate, forthcoming.

Luke is the director of the Methodist Church in Wales Training Network and is responsible for a team of staff who deliver a wide range of formal and informal learning and development opportunities for individuals and local churches throughout Wales. He also acts as the Oversight Tutor for Methodist student ministers in Wales and is seconded for one day a week to help run the St Michael’s non-residential course. Luke teaches on both the residential and non-residential BTh courses in the areas of practical theology, pastoral care and the sociology/psychology of religion and the MTh in Chaplaincy studies where he is the tutor for the specialist school chaplains modules.

Prior to his current role, Luke was the Training and Development Officer for the Methodist Church in South Wales, he has worked as a policy officer for the British Methodist Church and is a qualified youth and community worker. Luke is married to a primary school teacher and has a young daughter.

Luke serves on the British Methodist Church’s Faith and Order Committee and is a member of the Executive Committee of the World Methodist Council.

Luke is currently completing the Doctor of Education Programme at Bristol University.

He has recently co-edited a book about Methodist Identity (Methodist Present Potential) and is currently working on the theological material for a major report on the Methodist Church's involvement in Education.

I am Rector of Llanddulas and Llysfaen (near Colwyn Bay) as well as Tutor for the Non Residential Course in St Asaph diocese. Previously I was Vicar of Bethesda and three other parishes in the Ogwen Valley. During that time I was also a training incumbent and Director of Ordinands for the diocese of Bangor. Before returning to parish ministry, I combined my role as tutor with being Director of Life-long Learning for the diocese of St Asaph. I have two daughters and we enjoy days out together, shopping and going to the cinema / theatre. I reluctantly go to the gym as often as I can and like to read and write poetry. My other interests include cooking and eating out, and films, books and music of all kinds.

As well as being the face of St Michael's in the diocese I also teach the academic module Theology and Practice for the St Asaph students, and the Core Skills subjects Worship and Preaching, and Helping Adults Learn for all the non residential students on the course.

I have a degree in Humanities (mainly Religious Studies, Sociology and Women's Studies) from the University of Glamorgan, and in Theology from Cambridge University. An interest in experiential learning led me to study for a Postgraduate Certificate in Adult Education and Theological Reflection at Chester University.

I am currently working on an MPhil at Birmingham University, under the supervision of Stephen Pattison, looking at how Welsh women see their identity and the role that religion plays within it. I am particularly interested in self-confidence and how emotions about the self are affected by our distinctive, so-called `repressive’ attitudes to the body and sexuality, and whether in fact these attitudes have any bearing on reality today. I am using a narrative approach and will be collecting women's stories as well as researching how the (religious) stories of Wales have affected my research participants. I am hoping that the conclusions will be of use and interest to current thinking about the mission of the churches in Wales, as well as that of encouraging and developing vocations amongst women to different ministries.