Peggy Ann Brainerd Way, the first woman to hold a full-time faculty post at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee, died on July 9 in Nashville after a short illness. She was 84 years old.
Before joining the faculty at Vanderbilt Divinity School in 1977, Professor Way was the first woman to hold a full-time faculty position at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Dr. Way taught at Vanderbilt for 10 years and then served on the faculty at the Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis. Dr. Way was ordained in the United Church of Christ and served as co-pastor with her husband at the Craigin Congregational Church in Chicago.
A native of Michigan, Professor Way was a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Michigan. She earned a master of social work degree at Wayne State University in Detroit. She held a doctorate in divinity from the Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis and Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. Later, Dr. Way earned a Ph.D. in pastoral psychotherapy at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey.