The Alumni/ae Council has selected William E. Crowl as the recipient of the 2013 Distinguished Alumnus Award. The Council cited his deep love for the church, especially for congregations, and his distinguished ministry throughout the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He has been a leader in shaping the future direction of the church and in mentoring and supporting young leaders.

While still a Disciples Divinity House Scholar, Bill Crowl became the founding pastor of First Christian Church of Downers Grove, Illinois. He earned his BD in 1969. He later served thriving congregations in Baltimore and Columbus, Ohio, before becoming the Regional Minister and President of the Central Rocky Mountain Region. More recently, he completed an extended interim ministry at Cherry Log (Georgia) Christian Church. He is currently the Intentional Interim Pastor at Christian Church of Arlington Heights, Illinois.

The Disciples Divinity House is among the many Disciples and ecumenical organizations that he has served. He was elected to the Board of Trustees in 1987, and was its president during DDH’s Centennial. From 2000-05 he was Associate Dean. He has been elected on three separate occasions to the Alumni/ae Council, and previously served as its president.

The Award will be presented at the DDH luncheon during the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) meeting in Orlando. The luncheon will be Monday, July 15, at the Orlando Convention Center. More information on the luncheon is available here.

William E. Crowl is the seventeenth recipient of the award, which was established in 1979. Previous recipients, in chronological order, are Arthur Azlein, Irvin Lunger, Barton Hunter, Robert Thomas, Marvin Smith, William Weaver, Frank Mabee, Dan Genung, John Bean, J. Robert Moffett, Samuel Pearson, Raymond Williams, M. Ray Schultz, Ian McCrae, Don Browning, and Bonnie Miller-McLemore.

Alumna Lee Hull Moses, Senior Minister of First Christian Church, Greensboro, North Carolina, and Vice President of the Board of Trustees, will speak at the 2013 DDH Convocation. She is co-author of two books, including the recently released Hopes and Fears: Everyday Theology for New Parents and Other Tired, Anxious People. Graduating House Scholar Thandiwe Gobledale was a ministry intern with Ms. Hull Moses at First Christian Church, Greensboro, during the 2011-12 academic year.

The 2013 Convocation will be held June 14 at 5:30 p.m. with a reception following. Convocation is a formal service that marks the end of the academic year and celebrates the achievements of graduating Disciples House Scholars and ecumenical community members. Held in the Chapel of the Holy Grail on the last Friday afternoon of the spring quarter, the service is planned by the graduates. Convocation precedes the University’s Spring Convocation, which takes place in the main quadrangle on Saturday morning.

Michael K. Kinnamon was honored by the University of Chicago Divinity School as its Alumnus of the Year on May 2, 2013. Internationally regarded as an ecumenist, scholar of ecumenism, and church leader, he received his MA (1976) and PhD (1980; Religion and Literature) degrees from the Divinity School as a Disciples Divinity House Scholar. His address was titled A Report from the Front Lines of a Renewal Movement Under Siege. During his visit, he also led a Craft of Teaching seminar at the Divinity School and spoke with Scholars at the Disciples Divinity House.

Michael Kinnamon served as the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches from 2008-12. His influential ecumenical leadership began in 1980 when he was called as Executive Secretary of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, and also included service as General Secretary of the Consultation on Church Union (later Churches Uniting in Christ), from 1999-2002. His extensive writing on the ecumenical movement includes co-editing the definitive The Ecumenical Movement: An Anthology of Key Texts and Voices, and authoring The Vision of the Ecumenical Movement and How it has Been Impoverished by its Friends, and, forthcoming in 2013, Can a Renewal Movement Be Renewed?: Questions for the Future of Ecumenism.

He is also a leader within and a major interpreter of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), who lectures widely and has written Disciples of Christ for the 21st Century and Disciples: Reclaiming Our Identity, Reforming Our Practice, co-authored with Jan Linn. Key to Kinnamon’s leadership has been a consistent theology of the church and of the ecumenical movement, articulated in writing, teaching, and leading. He follows theological issues to their broadest social impact, using his insight and stature to press these matters in faith communities across the country and throughout the world.

In August 2012, Michael Kinnamon began a three-year term as the Spehar-Halligan Visiting Professor of Ecumenical Collaboration in Interreligious Dialogue at Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry. Previously he was a member the faculties of Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Lexington Theological Seminary (also serving there as academic dean), and Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis. He received honorary degrees from Bethany College and the Aquinas Institute of Theology.

On Thursday, April 18, from 5:00 to 6:30 pm, an event at the Divinity School will celebrate the publication of Hopes and Fears: Everyday Theology for New Parents and Other Tired, Anxious People by Bromleigh McCleneghan, Associate for Congregational Life, Rockefeller Chapel, and Lee Hull Moses, Senior Minister of First Christian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. Ms. Hull Moses is also Vice President of the DDH Board of Trustees and a DDH alumna. The book, which is about being not-perfect parents in a not-perfect world, is full of life, theology, and humor. The event will include a panel of respondents, wine and cheese, and books for sale and signing. Cynthia Lindner, Director of the Ministry Program (and also a DDH alumna and trustee), organized the event in conjunction with the Divinity School's Annual Ministry Conference.

McKinna Daugherty, a third-year Disciples Divinity House Scholar and MDiv student, is the co-chair of this year's annual student-run Ministry Conference with Will Storm, also a third-year Divinity School MDiv student. The April 19 conference, to be held in Swift Hall, is titled Fair as the Moon, Terrible as an Army: Sexual Beings in Religious Community. It will feature Margaret Farley and Amy Frykholm as keynote speakers, Larry Greenfield as the conference's preacher, plus workshops, conversation, and worship. Ms. Daugherty, who hails from the Kansas City area, has written her senior ministry thesis on how religious communities address sexuality; last summer she received a grant from the Higher Education and Leadership Ministries (HELM) of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) to study church camp curricula on sexuality for youth.

Disciples House Scholar Andrew Packman, an MDiv graduate and current PhD student in Theology, has joined with Divinity School MDiv classmates Neil Ellingson and Tim Kim to start a new Disciples congregation in Logan Square on Chicago’s north side.  Root and Branch Christian Church “aims to give souls in Chicago deeper roots and more expansive, outstretching branches.” Its first gathering was held over dinner on Friday, March 8, with 25 persons attending. The meal opened with sharing the bread and closed with sharing the cup; in between, prayer, song, and reflection were also shared. On March 16, Root and Branch Christian Church was granted congregation-in-formation status by the Christian Church in Illinois and Wisconsin; the new church has also received a $60,000 grant from the region. Here Rebecca Ingram, chair of the region's new church establishment committee, looks on while Andrew Packman, with Mr. Ellingson and Mr. Kim, signs the covenant with the region; a communion service followed.

House Scholar Allie Lundblad and House Resident Kathryn Ray led worship in the style of Taizé on Monday, March 4, the final chapel service of the winter quarter.  Both Ms. Lundblad and Ms. Ray have visited the monastic community in Taizé, France.  Drawing on their experiences, Ms. Lundblad and Ms. Ray, both MDiv students, crafted a time of peace and reflection. The songs most associated with Taizé are sung as meditative chants, and the service provided an opportunity to renew spirits through song-filled prayer. The community in Taizé was founded by Brother Roger during World War II.  From its beginnings, it has been an ecumenical community committed to “live in communion with God through prayer and to be a leaven of peace and trust in the midst of the human family.” Over the years young people from around the world have come to visit the community and join in prayer and worship.  Today, the community in Taizé welcomes young adults for weeklong or weekend retreats throughout the year.

Alumnus Chuck Blaisdell, Senior Minister of First Christian Church, Colorado Springs, will speak at the first Monday forum of the Winter quarter. His talk is entitled, "17 things I've learned in ministry over 28 years, in 8 venues, 4 regions, 1 conference, and 2 denominations." Mr. Blaisdell is the former pastor of the Hilo Coast United Church of Christ in Honomu, Hawaii, and the former regional minister for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Northern California and Nevada. In May 2012, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Christian Theological Seminary (CTS) in Indianapolis, another of his alma maters. In selecting him, the school noted, "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."

Alexis K. Vaughan received her MDiv degree at the University of Chicago's Convocation on December 14, and was recognized with other December graduates at a Divinity School ceremony and reception. Ms. Vaughan's senior ministry project was entitled, "Everyday I'm Hustlin': Exploring the Giving and Receiving Ends of Faith-based Empowerment Work." It offered theological and cultural commentary that built on her field experience in Kenya---an experience made possible through the Divinity School's International Ministry Travel Grant. She was involved in the "One Chicago, One Nation," a program to train leaders in interfaith/intercultural organizing sponsored by the Interfaith Youth Core, the Inter-City Muslim Action Network, and the Chicago Community Trust. She is a 2006 BA graduate of Duke University, where she was honored for her student service leadership. After graduating from Duke, she held a year long internship with Sojourners magazine. Her home congregation is the United Christian Parish of Reston, Virginia, where Joan Bell-Haynes is Senior Minister. Congratulations, Alexis!

On October 7, 2012, at Downey Avenue Christian Church in Indianapolis, Angela Pfile and Dean Kris Culp, joined with Senior Minister Sue Shadburne Call and the congregation to honor Rolland and Leverne Pfile. The recognition had been set in motion a year before. Angela Pfile and Doug Job, who had met at the Disciples Divinity House when they were both Scholars and married in the Chapel of the Holy Grail, decided to establish a fund in her parents’ names at the Disciples Divinity House. (Mr. Job, who is starting a new congregation in Athens, Georgia, Evergreen Christian Church, was not able to join the October celebration.)

Leverne Barlow and Rolland Pfile likewise met at the University of Chicago Divinity School when they were both graduate students there. Rolland, who earned his B.D. in 1964, was a Disciples Divinity House Scholar; Leverne was not—at that time, women were not admitted to DDH or eligible for its scholarships. Throughout his ministry and during an era of significant social change in church and society, Rolland G. Pfile provided prophetic leadership and critical support for other prophets. After serving congregations in Pennsylvania, he was called to be Executive Secretary of the Department of Church in Society of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), where he served from 1974-91. Under his leadership and with a remarkable staff, Church in Society helped Disciples to address racial and economic justice, peace, refugee resettlement, divestment in South Africa, and other issues. Later, Mr. Pfile held several interim ministries. From 1993-95, he was the convener of DDH’s centennial celebration and campaign committee.

Leverne B. Pfile was elected to the DDH Board of Trustees in the mid-1970s—about the time that women became eligible to be Disciples House Scholars. For over 20 years, until 1999, she gave crucial leadership including as Vice President and on two dean search committees. She helped to shape both what the Board did and how it did its work. Women who were Scholars during those years remember her presence, leadership, and advocacy as vitally important. In 1985, Ms. Pfile earned a M.S. in counseling and, in partnership with Downey Avenue Christian Church, opened Hope Counseling. In her practice, she has assisted persons in establishing sustaining patterns of relationship and interdependence.