Elder Rachael Watcher has been a practicing Witch all of her adult life and a Wiccan for more than 30 years, the last 20 as an elder. She is an active member and frequent trustee of her own national organization, Covenant of the Goddess. Her primary work is in communications, focused on audio/visual and journal production. She has edited several pagan journals over the years and is currently transferring them and other historical documents onto digital media, making them available for future research. A long-time interfaith activist, Rachael is active in United Religions Initiative through the Think Peace International Cooperation Circle and other URI CCs. She was the technical director of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio’s video team that broadcast 20 live interviews over the web from the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne. She is also a trustee of the North American Interfaith Network.
Annalee Ward
Dr. Annalee Ward directs the Wendt Character Initiative, a campus-wide effort to promote excellent moral character and lives of purpose. She brings a passion for students and a love of learning to the work of guiding the various programs. After a long career as a professor of communication arts, her generalist background, interest in ethics, rhetoric, and popular culture, along with work on the art of preaching inform her work in the Center.
"It's a privilege to work collaboratively with students, faculty, and staff in an environment where a meaning-filled University Mission guides our work all for the glory of God.”
Her research interests are diverse, and currently she facilitates a research team that produces an online journal, "Character and . . ."
Some of her publications include: Mouse Morality: The Rhetoric of Disney Animated Film; “The Tourist Gaze and the Church: Megachurch as Tourist Site;” “Gran Torino and Moral Order;” and “Multi-dimensional Media of Theme Parks and Museums.”
Robert Walter
Robert Walter left a ten-year New York theater career as a director, production manager, and playwright after working on several projects with mythologist Joseph Campbell at Lincoln Center in New York City. The collaboration with Professor Campbell grew to become Bob’s lifework. Three years after Campbell’s death in 1987, he was named president and executive director of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, and thereby its executive editor and publisher of Campbell’s writing and films. A master teacher and a Taoist, Bob has a long history as an interfaith activist. He has presented papers, seminars, and workshops at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, the New York Open Center, the Aspen Institute, Esalen Institute, the Smithsonian Institution, and educational settings in the United States and abroad. For six years he served as a United Religions Initiative trustee, and he is closely connected to the Interfaith Center at the Presidio.