John Baker wears two kinds of garb, symbolizing the two
directions his life has taken him. During the week you will find
him in a business suit as he attends to the duties of Vice
President of Student Services at Gavilan College. On Sundays you
may find him dressed in the vestments of an Episcopal priest
filling in at a parish somewhere in the Bay Area. Baker has been
combining these academic and spiritual lives for many years.
John Baker wears two kinds of garb, symbolizing the two directions his life has taken him. During the week you will find him in a business suit as he attends to the duties of Vice President of Student Services at Gavilan College. On Sundays you may find him dressed in the vestments of an Episcopal priest filling in at a parish somewhere in the Bay Area. Baker has been combining these academic and spiritual lives for many years.
Baker was born and raised on Kauai; his father also was an Episcopal priest. Active in church activities as he grew up, Baker felt the call to ministry. He graduated from Oregon’s Willamette University and then earned a Master of Divinity degree from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1966.
This was a time of turbulence in U.S. society, including Christian churches. After ordination Baker served parishes in Yuba City and San Carlos, leading his parishioners in a struggle for social justice, for example pursuing rights for farm workers and withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam.
Baker says he never lost his Christian faith, but the resistance of conservative congregations led him to realize that parish ministry wasn’t the best setting for him to pursue his vocation. He returned to graduate school and earned a degree in Counseling at San Francisco State University during the tumultuous period when S.I. Hayakawa was the university’s president.
Then began what has become a 31-year career in community college education. While at Ohlone College in Fremont he was able to find time for an amazing number of activities: associate and interim pastor at St. James Episcopal Church, member of several civic committees and commissions and Fremont City Councilman.
Baker’s career in education has led him to become an administrator at several community colleges: Alameda College in Oakland, Mesa College in San Diego, and now at Gavilan for the past three years. Along the way he earned a doctorate in Community College Education at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
At Gavilan Baker is responsible for most of the activities outside the classroom. He is especially proud of the campus’s safety and its climate of tolerance. He feels college should be a place where a variety of viewpoints are expressed so people can make up their own minds about issues.
Baker has continued his life of social activism and his passion to work for a life of dignity and respect for all people. He took his grandchildren to ride the Freedom Train on Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, and more recently to a Peace March in San Francisco. Recently he wrote in an article for “The Living Church,” a weekly religious magazine: “I have never met a white male who wasn’t racist, beginning with myself.” He explains that we have all “grown up in a society that has promoted and advanced the rights and position of white males over other groups of people,” referring to himself as “a recovering racist. … Racism is something I must address the remainder of my life.”
And Father Baker hasn’t given up on the influence of Christianity in achieving justice. He cautions individual Christians, though, that “You may be the only Gospel someone else sees.”
