By CARISSA HORST ’27 and RAYCHEL YOST ’27
Updated 11:50 a.m. EDT, 13 Mar 2026
After 25 years at Houghton University (HU), Bible and Theology Professor Kristina LaCelle-Peterson (affectionately known as KLP) is entering retirement. While KLP has exciting and meaningful plans for the future, she also shared valuable reflections on her time as a professor, mentor and spiritual leader.
KLP was no stranger to HU when she joined the faculty. She grew up in Rochester, attended a Wesleyan church, and earned her undergraduate degree at HU. This community continued to be a learning environment for her when she later joined it as a professor; however, KLP shared that she learned from her students and her own classes every semester. Moreover, her time at HU taught her to set an intentional, “slow and steady” pace, remaining faithful to the work in front of her and the people around her.
When asked what she hopes she has contributed to HU, KLP pulled from the Wesleyan tradition that has shaped her. Recalling their nineteenth-century combination of revivalism and reform, she said, “I feel like what I have endeavored to do at HU is to bring back that sensibility from the early Wesleyan movement, this personal holiness and love for God with a love for people and a desire for society to function more for the flourishing of everybody.” Summarizing this in biblical language that threads through all of her classes, she called it “holding together love for God and love for neighbor.”
Drawing from her experience, KLP also shared advice for HU students. She encourages us to listen to Scripture more carefully and love it more deeply. One of the most important lessons we can learn from Scripture is that God loves us. She warns against “being so cautious to preserve God’s holiness that we downplay the love of God.” Instead, His love should be a motivating “invitation to participate in God’s work of renewal of all things.” It is an equal calling for men and women—both have an equal invitation to participate in the work of God’s kingdom. She says, “Men and women are both commissioned to bear God’s image into creation.” For our community at HU, this means embracing the tools we have been given to be scholar servants.
KLP plans to spend her time after retirement reading books she and her husband acquired over the years and working on her writing projects. She hopes to travel and make pilgrimages to a monastery in Iona, Scotland. She also wants to walk El Camino De Santiago, a Christian pilgrimage route in Spain.
HU has been blessed with KLP’s wisdom, guidance, and expertise for 25 years. Her message of God’s love and work for the flourishing of the world has shaped many students’ lives. She has brought such light and grace to this institution. HU students thank KLP for the years and love she poured into the community and wish her well in this next season of her life. ★
