Kiersti Phenow

Academics Faculty

Job title

Highlight

School Social Worker | Spiritual Care Provider | M. Div | MSW | Cultivator of Food, Community, and Public Healing

Started at Bethel

2025

Education

  • Bethel University - B.A. in Social Work, Reconciliation , 2017
  • Wake Forest University - M.Div., 2021
  • Bethel University - M.S.W., 2023

Biography

I see the world through the prism of relationships. As a lifelong learner trained in multiple person-centered disciplines, I bring rich educational and lived experiences that have equipped me with a wide range of skills to respond to complex challenges and multidimensional needs. 

In my work as a school social worker, I am continually invited into the tender, ordinary, and courageous moments of students’ and families’ lives. My training as a spiritual care provider has given me the privilege and responsibility to hold existential questions with care, remain deeply present to pain, and honor where hope abides. I hold a Master of Social Work degree, strengthening my ability to examine systems critically and advocate for liberation not only in theory but in practice. I also hold a Master of Divinity from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, where I specialized in Food, Health, and Ecological Well-Being—a passion that continues to shape both my professional work and personal ethos. These disciplines serve as a compass for how I engage institutions, communities, and public life with a commitment to justice, equity, and transformation.

Before pursuing my degrees, I had the privilege of working across diverse sectors and communities, experiences that deepened my commitment to practicing equity and justice in tangible ways. I am devoted to co-creating meaning-making moments, healing practices, and story-curating spaces rooted in radical hospitality, cultural humility, and trauma-informed care. My journey underscores the profound significance of our relationships to the land, our communities, and our bodies in fostering holistic well-being and collective healing. Exploring the intersection of identities continues to fuel my commitment to solidarity with all living things. I hope to continue working in spaces that reinvest in the communities that have shaped me.

I am a deeply passionate, forever student of the land, humanity, and my own lived experiences and a really lucky Auntie.

Hobbies and interests

I love to be with and around people always, get my hands in the dirt, eat good food, and be outside!