Beau Underwood (2006) has accepted the position of Campaigns Manager at Sojourners, a national Christian organization committed to faith in action for social justice. He will help to develop and coordinate strategies for Sojourners' issue campaigns, to manage their coalition work, and a variety of other tasks. He concludes his work as the Partnership and Outreach Coordinator at Faith in Public Life on May 15. He continues also to serve part-time at National City Christian Church as an Assistant Pastor.

On May 12, 2012, Chuck Blaisdell (1976) was awarded an honorary doctorate by Christian Theological Seminary (CTS) in Indianapolis. In selecting him, the school noted, "Not only does he exemplify the highest hopes fostered by CTS for leadership in the church, but he has manifest such leadership in all expressions of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) .... Chuck has one of the finest critical minds in the Disciples of Christ today in the sense that he has a compelling vision of God and the world emerging from serious dialogue with the Bible, tradition, and experience." He is the Senior Minister of First Christian Church of Colorado Springs.

Congratulations to Rachel Lindner (2004), who received her JD from Northwestern University School of Law on May 11. She will be moving to New Orleans, where she will practice capital defense law.

Spencer Dew (1998) will join Centenary College of Louisiana as Assistant Professor of Religious Studies in the fall, a tenure-track position, and he will hold the Mattie Allen Broyles Inaugural Year Research Chair. Currently teaching at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, he is completing a manuscript on religious understandings of writing in the work of Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, and James Baldwin, and he is at work on a a study of the Moorish Science Temple of America, funded in part by a research fellowship from the Black Metropolis Research Consortium. He is the author of a collection of short stories, Songs of Insurgency (Vagabond Press, 2008), Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (Another New Calligraphy, 2010), and the critical study, Learning for Revolution: The Work of Kathy Acker (San Diego State University Press, 2011). His first novel, Maintain, is forthcoming from Ampersand Books in fall 2012. A regular reviewer for Rain Taxi Review of Books, and a Staff Book Reviewer for decomP magazine, his fiction and essays have appeared in scores of publications, including art reviews in Newcity Chicago and Chicago Artists' News, and essays in Religion Dispatches and Sightings.

We are saddened to learn of the death of Charles Swift (1944) on April 17 in Redlands, California. A native of southern California, he served for 25 years as a US Navy Chaplain. He retired in Redlands, where he gave leadership to community mental health organizations and was recognized by the greater San Bernadino community. His wife, Verna, died in 2003.

How to Lead in Church Conflict: Healing Ungrieved Loss, co-authored by Bernie Lyon (1976) and Dan Moseley, was released in April 2012 by Abingdon Press. The book "invites the reader into a deeper analysis of the nature of groups in conflict in order to gain insight into how to be more faithfully present and to help the conflict itself to produce transforming power."

Michael Kinnamon (1973) will join Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry (STM) for the next three years as the Spehar-Halligan Visiting Professor of Ecumenical Collaboration in Interreligious Dialogue, beginning August 2012. Internationally regarded as an ecumenist, he is the author of several books and recently served as the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches.

Congratulations to House Scholar Kristel Clayville, who received the Louisville Institute's Dissertation Fellowship. The fellowship supports the final year of dissertation writing.

Daisy Machado (1989) was selected as one of the 2012 recipients of the El Diario/La Prensa Mujeres Destacadas Award, which honors successful and influential Latinas in the New York City area. Previous honorees have included journalist Soledad O'Brien, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Congresswoman Nydia M. Velazquez. Daisy Machado is the dean of academic affairs and professor of church history at Union Theological Seminary.

Former Resident Madison McClendon and Current House Scholar Andrew Packman were co-chairs of the Eighth Annual Student-Run Ministry Conference, held April 13, 2012, at the Divinity School. Entitled On the Edge of Glory: Making Disciples in a "Secular" Age, the conference featured sociologist Mark Chaves; Liz Myer Boulton (1989) was the conference preacher and Clark Gilpin (1970; trustee) was the respondent. House Scholars McKinna Daugherty, Katherine Raley, and Alexis Vaughan, and Current Resident Katherine Ray were members of the planning committee.