Scotty McLennan

The Reverend William L. McLennan, Jr. — better known as "Scotty McLennan" — was born on November 21, 1948, son of William Lillingston McLennan and Alice Polk Warner. He is an ordained minister, lawyer, professor, published author, and administrator at Stanford University in Stanford, California. Since January 1, 2001, McLennan has been the Dean for Religious Life at Stanford University, where he oversees non-academic religious affairs on campus, is the minister of Stanford Memorial Church, and teaches undergraduate and Graduate School of Business courses.

Academic and professional life

Originally from Lake Forest, Illinois, McLennan attended the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. He received a BA degree (Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa) from Yale University in 1970, where he was a member of the Wolf's Head Society. His senior year at Yale, McLennan was chosen to be a "Scholar of the House", whereby he was exempt from attending class and allowed to focus the year on scholarly research. For his graduate education, he earned both Master of Divinity and Juris Doctor degrees "cum laude" from Harvard Divinity and Law Schools respectively in 1975. He was ordained in 1975 as a Unitarian Universalist minister (and considers himself a Unitarian Universalist Christian), and admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1975. After practicing church-sponsored poverty law in a low-income region of Boston for nearly ten years and founding the Unitarian Universalist Legal Ministry, he was appointed University Chaplain at Tufts University in Massachusetts from 1984 to 2000, and a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School between 1988 and 2000. [ [http://www.stanford.edu/group/religiouslife/aboutMcLennan.html Stanford University Office for Religious Life] ]

Awards

In 1994, he was the recipient of The Rabbi Martin Katzenstein Award, the oldest annual award given to Harvard Divinity School Alumni/ae "to honor among its graduates one who exhibits a passionate and helpful interest in the lives of other people." [ [http://www.hds.harvard.edu/alumni/awards.html#katzenstein Harvard Divinity School Website] ]

McLennan was honored with the Gandhi, King, Ikeda Award in 2004. The award was "established to recognize leaders who promote peace and world reconciliation" by Morehouse College. [ [http://www.morehouse.edu/news_releases/2003/March/spiritualawarenessweek0331.html Morehouse College News Release] ]

Publications

McLennan's first book, "Finding Your Religion: When the Faith You Grew Up With Has Lost Its Meaning", was published in 1999 by HarperSanFrancisco. His second book, "Church on Sunday, Work on Monday: The Challenge of Fusing Christian Values with Business Life", was co-authored with Laura Nash and published in 2001 by Jossey-Bass. As of 2008, he is working on his third book.

Personal life

Scotty McLennan is married to Ellen. They wed in 1981 in Boston, Massachusetts. They are the parents of two sons: Will McLennan (b. 1982) and Dan McLennan (b. 1984), both of whom are alumni of Stanford University.

McLennan's grandfather, Donald R. McLennan, co-founded the world's largest insurance brokerage, Marsh & McLennan, in 1905 in Chicago. Today, Marsh & McLennan Companies is a US-based global professional services and insurance brokerage firm. In 2005, it had over 57,000 employees and annual revenues over $12 billion. [ [http://mmc.com/ Marsh & McLennan Website] ]

McLennan is a relative of the 11th President of the United States, President James Knox Polk (through his mother, Alice Polk Warner).

Trivia

McLennan was an inspiration for the cartoon character Reverend Scot Sloan in Garry Trudeau's Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoon strip "Doonesbury". The character is also based on the late William Sloane Coffin, McLennan's mentor and former Chaplain at Yale University, where McLennan and Trudeau were undergraduate roommates.

References and footnotes

External links

* [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/15/the_legacy_of_william_sloane_coffin?mode=PF The Legacy of William Sloane Coffin] by Rev. Scotty McLennan
* [http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2001/julaug/features/mclennan.html/ Stanford Magazine Article]
* [http://religiouslife.stanford.edu/ Stanford Office for Religious Life Website]
* [https://gsbapps.stanford.edu/facultybios/biomain.asp?id=09760315/ Stanford Graduate School of Business Faculty Profile]