She earned a music-education degree from King’s College, in New York City, a master of divinity from the Reformed Theological Seminary at Orlando and her Ph.D. from Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, in San Francisco

Elizabeth Earle-Warfel’s Christian beliefs may clash with Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual stages of development and Carl Rogers’s humanism, but she won’t exclude those views from her classroom at Trinity College of Florida.

The tiny, 200-student evangelical institution has just added a psychology major as part of its effort to grow, and it hired Ms Earle-Warfel, an adjunct psychology professor and a pastor’s wife, to lead the program.

James E. Lanpher, Trinity’s vice president for academic affairs, says the college, whose alumni include the Rev. Billy Graham, hopes to double its enrollment within five years, and adding psychology as its eighth undergraduate major should help.

The subject is one of the most popular college majors in the country and fits the college’s focus on ministerial counseling, he says.

But many students attracted to Trinity may have a negative view of psychology, anticipating conflicts with biblical teachings, Mr. Lanpher says, so the new leader will need to walk a delicate line.

He chose Ms. Earle-Warfel, 63, to direct the program because of her four years teaching psychology courses at Trinity, her strong educational background, and her more than 30 years of ministry experience.

Her work for the Presbyterian Church, which included directing a choir and a children’s after-school program, stirred her interest in psychology.

“People would come into my office and start pouring out their souls to me unwittingly,” she says. “I could see the problems, but I didn’t know how to identify or do anything about them.”

Read More: http://chronicle.com/article/A-Professor-Leads-Bible/124977/