About Cantice and Wanda

About Cantice:

A happily married woman and mother of preschoolers, Cantice divides her time between caring for her family and teaching English part-time. Considering that motherhood must be taught and learned today as opposed to being gleaned from family practices as in times past, she reaches out to other mothers both as a mentor and apprentice through work at pregnancy care centers and in small group meetings with mature mothers. She has studied women’s issues and movements since attending Spelman College in the mid to late nineties and recently returned to Spelman as a part-time faculty member teaching in the English Department.

Cantice grew up in Phoenix, Arizona with three siblings and a loving family. Though her parents divorced when she was six, she continued to enjoy stability at home with her mother and contact with her father as often as possible. She recognizes her mother and father’s intellect, her mother’s work ethic and responsibility and her aunt’s faith as cornerstones of her spiritual and material success in life.

Experiments at Spelman with feminist and womanist activities and philosophies, African-spiritist religions, paganism, and pluralism give her a rich testimony from which to pull as she joyfully defends traditional/orthodox Christianity today. She enjoys encouraging women to live their best lives.

About Wanda:

The daughter of a Baptist pastor, at the age of 17 Wanda embarked on an intense exegetical study of the New Testament focused on disproving that women could be called to preach. After a few months of study she realized that not only could women preach but they could also take leadership roles in the church and beyond. Although she was the daughter of devout Christian parents, Wanda was allowed to experience life as a typical teenager; attending school dances, plastering posters of Prince and Michael Jackson on her bedroom walls, wearing the latest fashions and even training as a ballet dancer. Her parents’ Godly wisdom on raising children allowed her the opportunity to discover Christ for herself at the age of 17.

During her second semester in college she enrolled in a course entitled ‘Jesus and the Gospels’ and after her first class she changed her major from Urban Studies to Religion and decided that she would ultimately become a religion professor. Wanda went on to complete her Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies with a concentration in Early Christianity in 1999. Professionally, Wanda has over 10 years in the non-profit sector including experience in fundraising, development, and marketing. Although labeled by others as a feminist or a womanist she considers herself a Christian who is searching for truth and not afraid to ask the tough questions to find it.

Wanda is a native of Cleveland, Ohio and the youngest of a blended family. She is a proud graduate of The Cleveland School of the Performing Arts and alumni of Cleveland State University. Her favorite pastimes are watching reality TV, reading, dancing and laughing. Currently, Wanda is a Masters of Theological Studies student at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.