Disciples Divinity House

Three individuals have been named entering Disciples Divinity House Scholars for the 2011-12 academic year.

Rachel Graaf Leslie, a member of University Christian Church in Hyattsville, Maryland, who recently served with the US Department of State in Bahrain, enters the AMRS program. A native of Iowa, Rachel earned the BA at Iowa State University, the Master of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, and a graduate diploma in Middle East Politics at the American University in Cairo; she is fluent in Arabic. Her next posting will be to the US Consulate General in Jerusalem. She has taken an unpaid leave to pursue further study of religion, particularly Islam.

Mark Lambert, a 2010 graduate of Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri, where alumna Jennifer Jesse was his academic adviser, has begun the MA program. He grew up in the independent Christian Church, and he is receiving a partial scholarship. He is interested in medieval Christianity, including religious dimensions of the Crusades and in leprosy as represented religiously and responded to in medieval Christianity and Islam.

Alexandra McCauslin enters the MDiv program. A 2008 cum laude graduate of the honors college at Michigan State, where she majored in Political Theory, she was an Americorps volunteer in central Detroit for two years following graduation. She grew up at Central Woodward Christian Church in the Detroit area. She hopes to return to Detroit to work toward racial reconciliation and with young adults and others who are disaffected by the institutional church.