An important part of the CUA ministerial ordination and education program is a mentorship with an experienced minister in the CUA. All students in our program will be assigned such a person as their liaison to the Ordination Committee. The liaison will report to the committee about your progress in the program, helping the committee ultimately decide whether to recommend you to the CUA Board of Directors for ordination. The liaison will develop a relationship with you through phone calls or in-person meetings. This relationship may include a more or less extensive mentorship aspect depending on the ministerial experience of the applicant.

If you are a layperson with no experience in ministry, your mentor/liaison will make sure that you have an opportunity to discuss all the things you need to know and be ready for as you prepare for pastoral responsibilities. If you have some ministerial experience, the mentorship will likely focus on helping you develop knowledge and skills in areas you still need to work on. If you have extensive experience, your relationship with your liaison will be driven primarily by your own questions and areas of interest where discussions with a colleague in the Christian Universalist clergy could be helpful.

List of Mentors/Liaisons:

Applicants for CUA ordination may select their top three choices for a mentor/liaison from the list below, by indicating this on their application form. We cannot guarantee that all applicants will be able to receive their first choice, but we will assign to you one of your top choices.

• Rev. Kalen Fristad has been a United Methodist minister for over 30 years and currently leads three churches in Iowa. He is also the author of a 2003 book, Destined for Salvation: God's Promise to Save Everyone. He spent three years traveling across America speaking at numerous churches to share the message of God's plan of salvation for all people. He is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the CUA.
  
  
  
• Rev. Rich Koster is the editor-in-chief of The Universalist Herald magazine. He has been a pastor or interim minister for nine churches, both Presbyterian and Disciples of Christ. He received B.D. and Th.M. degrees from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia. He has also worked as a chaplain, teacher, and truck driver. Rich currently resides in Kentucky. He serves as the Coordinator of the CUA.
  
  
  
• Rev. Donne Hayden is a Minister & Public Friend at Cincinnati Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker). She has an M.A. in English from Colorado State University and taught high school and college English for over twenty years in schools from Cuba, New Mexico on the edge of the Navajo Reservation, to Colorado State University, to Escola Graduada, an American school in Sao Paulo, Brazil. In 2002, she left teaching to attend Earlham School of Religion, a Quaker seminary in Richmond, Indiana, from which she received an MDiv in 2006. Donne served as 3/4-time minister at Eldorado Universalist Unitarian Church (Eldorado, Ohio) while still in seminary and for two years following. She has served at Cincinnati Monthly Meeting since 2008.
  
  
  
• Rev. Susan Smith is an assistant pastor at Exodus Missionary Outreach Church, a progressive non-denominational multi-ethnic congregation in North Carolina that emphasizes outreach to marginalized people. She is also the assistant executive director of Exodus Homes, a private non-profit faith-based United Way agency that provides 94 beds of supportive housing for homeless recovering addicts, alcoholics, and formerly incarcerated people, and she serves on the board of directors of Catawba Prison Ministries. She was a certified sign language interpreter for over 20 years. Susan Smith's passion is to share the Good News of God's unconditional love and hope for all people, in order to transform hurting and broken people's lives today.
  
  
  
• Rev. L. Fred Howard is the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Valdosta, Georgia. In addition to his ministerial work, he is also a board certified physician and practices emergency medicine part time. He has special interest in the psychology of human spiritual development, and his interest and research in this field caused him to gravitate toward Universalism. He is on the board of several non-profit organizations, including Project Harvest Hope, which works for sustainable economic development in Transylvania, and Peacemakers, an organization that fosters world peace by teaching children ethical values common to all religions and denominations in a summer camp program. Fred is a CUA Board member.
  
  
  
• Marquis D. Hunt is the founder and Spiritual Director of the LifeXchange, Center for Truth and Inner Peace, an innovative spiritual initiative fostering disciplines of love, relationship and creativity based in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is a life coach, musician and recording artist, and former church pastor. He has traveled extensively as a conference speaker as well as doing seminars in New Thought Christianity, artistic innovations and prophetic communication. Marquis Hunt considers himself a professional listener and sacred activist, using music, poetry, and prophetically streaming conversations to ignite new and fresh perspectives on living a life of love. He embraces each conversation with unique presence and speaks of God and Humanity with compelling tenderness. Marquis is a CUA Board member.
  
  
  
• Dr. G. A. Roach is the pastor of an independent evangelical church in Amarillo, Texas, and serves as a full-time hospital chaplain. His background was in the Southern Baptist tradition. He holds Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
  
  
  

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