Te Rarawa
Te Māreikura and Interim Director
Contact details
Email jenny.tepaadaniel@otago.ac.nz
Scholar, teacher, public theologian and consultant in higher education
Dr Jenny Te Paa Daniel (Te Rarawa) is a scholar and a teacher, a public theologian and professional consultant in higher education. Always a pioneering indigenous woman, she taught for 5 years and was then appointed Ahorangi or Dean of Te Rau Kahikatea at St John's Theological College in Auckland for 18 years from 1995 until 2013. Globally, she was the first indigenous lay woman appointed to lead an Anglican seminary anywhere in the worldwide Anglican Communion.
From 1995 until 2012, Jenny was Convenor of the global Anglican Peace and Justice Network. During her tenure she led international delegations and participated in many peace-making educational and humanitarian projects within Palestine, Sri Lanka and the Great Lakes Region of Rwanda, Congo and Burundi, in North and South Korea, Kenya, South Africa and throughout the Pacific.
Writing on Race Politics and Theological Education, she was awarded her PhD in 2001 by the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley California and was named GTU Alumna of the Year in 2010. That same year she was awarded a prestigious Distinguished Alumni Award by the University of Auckland. She was awarded honorary doctorate degrees by the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts (2003) and Virginia Theological Seminary Virginia, DC, (2008), Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California (2010), General Theological Seminary, New York (2015) and Berkeley Divinity School at Yale in 2020 in recognition of her commitment to global peace and justice through theological education and for service to the Anglican Communion.
Research and teaching
Jenny has written and researched extensively on gender and social justice, indigenous rights, theological education and race politics.
She has taught theological and secular students in New Zealand, Australia, throughout the South Pacific, Canada, South Africa, Kenya, the United States and in various parts of Asia.
She is popularly sought after (nationally and internationally) as guest speaker, lecturer, facilitator, media commentator, preacher and panellist, on a wide range of political, human rights and theological issues.
Te Māreikura
Te Māreikura, meaning 'woman visionary', is a role providing guidance, leadership, and wisdom.
Jenny brings to the Centre the gifts of te reo (language) me ngā tikanga o te Māori (and customs and traditions), and a founding association with Te Ao O Rongomaraeroa. She has an unwavering commitment to seeing the Centre realise its bicultural promise long enshrined in the Memorandum of Understanding it holds with the University of Otago and the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies Trust.