Rev. Dr. Althea M. Smith
Rev. Dr. Althea Smith, of Milton, Massachusetts, has been our contract minister since August 2025.
During her long career, Rev. Althea has been a healer of the mind, the body, and lately, the soul. For the past two years, Rev. Smith has been ministering at the historic Nantucket congregation known as the Second Congregational Meeting House Society Unitarian Universalist.
Born and raised in inner-city Boston, she initially won a bachelor’s degree in nursing from UMASS Amherst before going on to obtain a PhD in clinical/community psychology from Boston University — thus the title “Dr.”
Rev. Althea had an impressive career in healthcare leadership, serving as center director/superintendent at The Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller Mental Health Center in Boston and Senior VP for Nursing and Womens’ Health at New York City Health and Hospital Corp. During the Covid epidemic she was a consultant to three nursing homes for infection control, helping to turn them around and remain open.
In 1999, when she began studying for her Master of Divinity at Episcopal Divinity School, Althea’s life and career had taken a different turn: “Throughout my life, I watched pastors respond to the needs of the soul and the needs of the whole, and I wanted to be just like them. I have heard a call to be a minister/community leader for a long time and have now responded. Ministers were heroes who led the civil rights movement and didn’t forget their community.”
She is currently working on her second PH.D., this one in divinity from Berkeley School of Theology.
Rev. Althea was an affiliated community minister at First Parish Church in Dorchester, Massachusetts, from 2022-2023, after her ordination there in 2022. She served as summer minister at First Parish UU Church in Concord, Massachusetts, in 2023 before taking the post as contract minister in Nantucket.
Rev. Althea’s ministry is deeply rooted in social justice, compassionate pastoral care, community involvement, and shared ministry. Her approach is to center on love, on healing, and on creating a beloved community, turning her attention to what is needed most and leading by encouraging members to stand together.
Rev. Althea can be reached by email at minister@channingchurch.org and on the church phone line at 401-846-0643