Pacific School of Religion

At Trinity College, in Hartford, CT, Rev. Dr. Potterveld was a pre-med student with a major in religion and philosophy. He was president of the student body his senior year when a faculty member submitted his name for a Rockefeller Foundation Trial Year Fellowship, which at that time sent recipients to a seminary for one year. He decided to give up medicine and return to Yale to finish seminary. While earning his MDiv degree, Potterveld became interested in process theology and went on to Claremont, where he studied with one of the field’s key figures, John Cobb, and earned the MA and PhD in philosophy of religion. His dissertation (“The Church Relativistic”) was an examination of the church from the point of view of process theology.

In 1986 Potterveld co-founded and served as president of the Valley Shelter, a large non-profit, multi-service shelter for the homeless in the San Fernando Valley. Potterveld was named vice president for institutional advancement at PSR in 1993. After serving successfully for six years in the advancement post, Potterveld became acting dean in 2000. He left PSR to become president at Lancaster Seminary in Pennsylvania in 2002. He returned to PSR as president on October 1, 2010, and was officially installed as the school's 11th president in a campus-wide ceremony on January 25, 2011.