McKenzie, Marna

Biography / Administrative History

Marna McKenzie directed the Developing Ministries project for Cooperative Ministries in Higher Education (CMHE) of Northern California and Nevada from 1984 until 1992. An ecumenical organization of Protestant communions, CMHE sought to expand campus ministry beyond its core eight schools: San Francisco State, San Jose State, Stanford, UC-Berkeley, UC-Santa Cruz, UC-Davis, Fresno State, and UN-Reno.

The committee intended CMHE to be a resource in assisting campuses to develop programs with local church support. McKenzie writes, "Developing Ministry came into being as a response to the needs of churches interested in higher education but not in the sphere of interest of existing campus ministry." These schools included Santa Rosa Junior College, Sonoma State, California State University-Sacramento, Contra Costa College and Chico State. Some of the efforts bore fruit and continued after the CMHE dissoved and became the Association of Campus Christian Ministries (ACCM) in 1995.

Marna McKenzie worked in campus ministry in Northern California for almost 25 years. From 1968 to 1981 she served in various staff and administrator capacities at Unitas in Berkeley and Ecumenical House at San Francisco State. From 1981 to 1987 she served CMHE as part-time fund raiser and assisted in public relations and special assignments. From 1984 through 1992 she worked mostly full-time directing the Developing Ministries Project of CMHE.

Along with her campus ministry work, she is a founding member of the Office for Women's Affairs in 1970, which became the Center for Women and Religion, Graduate Theological Union. She was recognized in October 1981 as one of the organization's Women of the Decade. She served on the Presbyterian synod task force on the status of women.