James B. Ashbrook, 1947
B.A., Denison University
B.D., Colgate Rochester
M.A., The Ohio State University
Ph.D., The Ohio State University
Rochester, N.Y.
Citation awarded on Saturday, June 3, 1972
Professor of Psychology and Theology at Colgate Rochester, Dr. James Ashbrook is recognized as one of five authorities in the country today in the field of pastoral psychology. Early in his theological studies, his interests turned to conceiving of this task in broader and deeper terms. He pursued a clinical year divided between Rochester State Hospital, Bellevue General Hospital in New York City, and Illinois State Training School for Boys. After a transitional area parish experience, he spent a year at William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry in New York and five years in the pastorate of the First Baptist Church, Granville, while he pursued his doctorate at the Ohio State University. In 1960, he joined the Colgate-Rochester faculty and began his work as a developer of the small group process as an instrument for personal growth, professional maturing, curriculum integration, and institutional change within a theological school, as well as individual counseling and psychotherapy with students and staff.
Two of his books were published in 1971. Other writings have appeared in numerous professional journals and book collections.
In 1969, he was called as a consultant to the chief of U.S. Air Force Chaplains to conduct seminars on marriage and family counseling in England, Germany, and Turkey.
On leave from 1971 to 1972, he was a post-doctoral fellow of the Center for Community Studies, University of Rochester.
His teaching, counseling, and group process work, which has so significantly encouraged empirical research on the ministry, has won the respect and plaudits of many.
