Inaugural Yu Scholar Announced
Aneesah Ettress, a second-year MDiv student, has been named the first recipient of the newly endowed Dr. Geunhee Yu and Mrs. Geunsoon Yu Scholarship. The scholarship recognizes high promise for innovative pastoral and intellectual leadership, especially within multicultural contexts.
Selection of the recipient is guided by the examples of Dr. Geunhee Yu and Mrs. Geunsoon Yu, two remarkable individuals whose intelligence, faith, love, and leadership have profoundly shaped the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and their own family. From 1992 until his retirement in 2011, Dr. Yu served as the inaugural Executive Pastor of the North American Pacific Asian Disciples (NAPAD). He had been the first among the NAPAD community to earn a PhD in Religion. Under Dr. Yu’s leadership, the number of NAPAD congregations grew exponentially, many new cultural and language groups became part of NAPAD, diverse young leaders were nurtured, and educational initiatives were created.
Ms. Ettress is a 2016 graduate of Occidental College. A post-baccalaureate fellowship supported her her work on an initiative to transform Occidental College’s Arts & Humanities curriculum. Recently she was selected as the Hannah Holborn Gray Graduate Student Fellow in Digital Scholarship at the University of Chicago Library.
The newly endowed Dr. Geunhee and Mrs. Geunsoon Yu Scholarship will help to ensure full tuition, stipend, and housing for innovative religious leaders and emerging scholars and to make possible opportunities for extended internships and study-travel for generations to come.