DR ROSA TAYLOR BANKS, ASSOCIATE SECRETARY OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCE

Rosa Taylor Banks has served the Seventh-day Adventist Church since 1967, spending 22 years at Oakwood College, 16 years at the North American Division, and she currently serves the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists as one of its five Associate Secretaries.

Born in Gainesville, Florida and educated in nearby Ocala, she received her Bachelor of Science degree from Oakwood College and her Master's and Doctorate degrees from the University of Pittsburg in Pennsylvania. Her employment at Madison Street Elementary School in Ocala, Florida and with the United States Atomic Energy Commission preceded her work for the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Rosa Banks was Oakwood College's first female officer and vice president; the first female General Field Secretary of the General Conference; the first female director of the North American Division Office of Human Relations; and the Division's first female officer. She coordinated the work of the NAD Women's Commission, developing the structure and strategic plan for the establishment of Women's Ministries. She established the NAD Commission for People With Disabilities and helped to get the ministry voted throughout the Church worldwide. She developed and coordinated the Church's first Summit on Race Relations in 1999 and established the Sexual Ethics Commission of the Division, designed to address sexual abuse in the Church. She helped to develop the Division's Conciliation and Dispute Resolution process designed to keep the Church out of court, coordinating the process during her tenure in the NAD. She also served for seven years as colloquium presenter on human relations issues for pastors at the Church's Theological Seminary.

With her extensive background which included developing 11 policies and guidelines which were voted by the Church in annual session, she uses these and other skills in her current assignment as secretariat liaison between the General Conference and the East-Central and West-Central Africa Divisions, as well as coordinator of the Secretariat Missionary Care Program, board member of the African Graduate University, and her other assigned responsibilities. She is a credentialed commissioned minister and an ordained elder of the Mitchellville SDA Church in Mitchellville, Maryland. She and her husband, Halsey Banks, are the proud parents of three young adults.