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K-House StaffOur Staff is: Gail Stearns, Director
Gail Stearns has been Director of The Common Ministry at WSU for close to ten years. She is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church (USA), and often fills in for pastoral care and preaching in churches, as well as providing religious consultation to the WSU administration and faculty. Gail has a Ph.D. from Washington State University. She is Adjunct Faculty in the Honors College and the Women’s Studies Department, where she sometimes teaches courses on world religions, spirituality and gender. She is author of Writing Pauline: Wisdom from a Long Life (Hamilton Press, 2005). Gail’s interests in campus ministry center around faith development in young adults, and how life’s challenges lead to questioning, and eventually to a deeper understanding of their relationship with God and their place in the world. She works with students and faculty at the intersection of intellectual understanding of faith and religion, developing a spiritual practice of prayer or meditation and dwelling in the Presence of God, and moving out into the world to do the works of Jesus, through justice and social action. Gail is committed to Interfaith dialog and understanding, and offers opportunity for dialog as well as pastoral care for Christian students as well as anyone with needs on campus. Gail enjoys movies, reading, writing, traveling, canoeing, and time with her own grown-up kids. Alissa Bertsch Johnson, Wesley Foundation Director and Methodist Campus Pastor
Alissa is quick to remind everyone that even though she moved from LA to the Palouse, she is actually from Spokane! Alissa is a graduate of Washington State University and was an active participant and peer minister at the K-House. She attended Claremont School of Theology and received her Master of Divinity in 2005 and hopes to be ordained in a few years. She has served as the campus minister at USC and UCLA but now has her "dream job" at the Common Ministry at WSU! Alissa is an avid equestrian and currently has a two year old Appaloosa named Eli in training to be a hunter/jumper. She loves to read (recommendations encouraged!) and enjoys skiing, camping, and yoga. She is married to Rev. Stephen Johnson, the pastor at Colfax United Methodist Church. They have four "kids": Alexander and Kit Marlowe (the cats) and Carter and Olive (the dogs)!
Wilhelmina (Toni) Sarai-Clark, Community Liaison
Toni taught dance at WSU from 1965 to 1992. "We offered all types of dance classes, all the way up to the master's level," she said. Toni said she danced throughout her life and loved to perform. She received a doctoral degree from the University of Wisconsin in dance, anthropology and theater. Toni’s research area is cultural movement; she researches the significance dance has within a culture. She was the first woman of color to get full tenure at WSU. She is also an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church, a position which often takes her to South Dakota. "South Dakota has a shortage of clergy," she said. "I do everything from leading a service to emptying the garbage." Toni works very closely with the Lakotah Sioux tribes in South Dakota. "This is part of my heritage that I didn't grow up with," she said. She also teaches a multicultural course for the diocese in Spokane. Toni says that with her involvement in Kiwanis, Moscow Interfaith Association, Moscow Human Rights Commission, The Common Ministry, and others too numerous to mention,there is no such thing as an average day in her life. Some days she has four or five different meetings and some days none; but, it is that level of involvement in the Pullman and Moscow communities that suits her so well to the position of Community Liaison.
Phil Mixter, PhD., Episcopal Campus Minister
Born and raised in Milwaukee, WI, Phil Mixter is a life-long Episcopalian. He attended Oregon State University (OSU, Corvallis, OR) and was a peer minister in the Episcopal Campus Ministry at OSU. After graduating, he moved to Southern California and worked for a biotechnology company before graduate training at the University of California-Los Angeles School of Medicine. He then moved to Burlington, VT, for a post-doctoral fellowship at the Vermont College of Medicine. He moved to Pullman in 1995, teaching science courses in microbioloy and immunology. He is a member of St. James' Episcopal Church in Pullman and has served on the Common Ministry Council. He also coordinates Youth and Young Adult Ministries for the regional Episcopal Diocese of Spokane and is active in the leadership of Camp Cross. He enjoys discovering God's grace with students and young adults. He is married to Alison Mixter and has a college-aged daughter. his hobbies include gardening, canoeing, snow skiing, do-it-yourself projects at home and restoring old trucks.
Charlie Spurgeon, Office Manager
Charlie graduated from the U of I "a hundred years ago." He has done a variety of things during his working career -- from teaching English and Debate in Jr. and Sr. High to refueling airplanes and "air traffic control" at the airport in his home town. He brings to The Common Ministry approximately 25 years of office management and related work experience. He and his wife, DeAnna, have two children, four grandchildren (ranging in age from 21 to 3), and one absolutely beautiful great-grandchild! He thoroughly enjoys the college atmosphere here at the K-House; he says though he is "older than dirt," working here is helping him stay young.
Please contact us at:
The Common Ministry at Washington State University
720 NE Thatuna
Pullman, WA 99163
Phone: 509-332-2611
Fax: 509-334-7298
Email: office@commonministry.com
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