Five persons have been selected as entering Scholars for 2012-13: Rachel Abdoler, Danielle Cox, Jeremy Fuzy, and Allison Lundblad have begun M.Div. studies; Andrew Packman has begun Ph.D. work in Theology.
Rachel Abdoler is a 2011 summa cum laude graduate of Drury University, where she majored in international politics, minored in Middle East Studies, and was named Outstanding Senior in both Political Science and in Middle East Studies. She came to Drury as a recipient of a Missouri Bright Flight Scholarship and Drury’s Presidential Scholarship. Rachel served as the vice president of the Student Union Board and as president of the International Affairs Council, and was involved in Model United Nations. She has given significant service leadership, including projects to foster multi-faith understanding, events in New Orleans and in Galveston, and a year-long service project with low income housing residents in Springfield, Missouri. She studied in Rome and interned at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC. She has studied Arabic for two years and continues her study this year. She is a member of National Avenue Christian Church in Springfield, Missouri, where she served as a co-sponsor of the youth group and which has been the context for some of her service leadership. Her goal is to become “an agent for the promotion of greater understanding and acceptance of different faith traditions.”

Danielle Cox was an honors student at Lynchburg College, where she majored in International Relations and graduated cum laude in 2012. She studied NGOs in India, attended a seminar on the European Union in Western Europe, participated in Model United Nations, and wrote an honors thesis on reconciliation and restoration in post-genocide Rwanda, for which she received high honors. As President of Disciples on Campus, she worked closely with the college chaplain, DDH alumna Stephanie McLemore. In 2011 as a summer intern with Disciples Volunteering at the Disciples Disaster Response mission station in Nashville, she facilitated volunteer flood relief work. For all four years of college, she was a Phillips Legacy Scholar. Danielle was also the president of the Interfaith and Community Service initiative, a representative to the Cooperative Campus Ministry, a Big Brother/Big Sister volunteer, a deacon at First Christian Church in Lynchburg, VA, a member of three honorary societies, an officer of her sorority, and a Writing Center Tutor. Her home church is First Christian Church, Houston, Texas. She plans to pursue the joint MDiv/Master of Public Policy program.

Jeremy Fuzy is a 2011 summa cum laude graduate of Drury University, where he majored in Religion/Philosophy and in Politics and Government, and was named Outstanding Senior in Religion/Philosophy. He served as president of the Religion/Philosophy Club, president of the International Affairs Council, member of the University’s Student Promotion/Tenure Committee, bass guitarist for the Marshfield Performing Arts Society, and stage manager for “The Jellybean Conspiracy,” a two-act drama. He was involved in Model United Nations and elected to the Pi Sigma Alpha National Political Science Honor Society. He studied in London, Prague, and Kraków one summer and, another, in Rome. He grew up in Marshfield, Missouri, where he was active in the United Methodist church. However, it was the formal study of religion and theology, together with his experience at National Avenue Christian Church during college and the mentorship of Drury professor Peter Browning, that became decisive for his pursuit of the MDiv degree. Last year, Jeremy co-sponsored the National Avenue youth group and volunteered at the Harvest on Wheels Farmer’s Market.

At Oberlin College, 2012 BA graduate Allison Lundblad studied religion broadly and deeply, including focused work in Near Eastern mythology, Pseudo-Dionysius, Catherine of Sienna, and on mercy and wrath in the Qur'an. Theology is her central interest, especially the public consequences of our attempts to make sense of God. Her senior capstone project, for which she received high honors, addressed Pierre Hadot’s interpretation of Origen. Allie was a Haskell Fellow in Ancient Near Eastern Studies and received the Religion Department’s Clyde Holbrook Memorial Prize. She was also a Fund for Theological Education Undergraduate Fellow and a HELM Leadership Fellow. She was deeply engaged in service and ministry as the organizer of Oberlin’s weekly Taizé service, as a community service volunteer, and as a youth worker at Washington Avenue Christian Church in Elyria, Ohio, where she planned a “30-hour famine event” to raise awareness of world hunger. During one winter term she led a group to France for the “Spirituality of Taizé.” In her home region of North Carolina, she served as a paid camp staff member and directed a Junior Camp, and she was the keynote speaker for the women’s retreat. This past summer she was an intern at HELM. She plans to do the joint MDiv/MA in Social Service Administration; she is also considering PhD work.

2012 MDiv graduate Andrew Packman accepted an offer of admission to the PhD program in Theology, and continues as a Disciples Divinity House Scholar. His interests include: eschatology and philosophies of history; the intersection of aesthetics, phenomenology, and theories of moral motivation and error; and relations among theological anthropology, memory, and cultural identity. In 2011 as a recipient of the Divinity School’s International Ministry Travel Grant, he returned to Bosnia to study reconciliation. Some of his reflections on that experience were published in the Christian Century (January 11, 2012) as “Table Manners: Unexpected Grace at Communion.” Andrew previously traveled to Bosnia with a Week of Compassion Seminarians Delegation. Last year, he co-chaired the Divinity School’s annual student-run Ministry Conference. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Loyola University in Chicago, and he completed a two-year internship at First Christian Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with alumnus Michael Karunas. He was ordained in August in his home congregation, First Christian Church of Centralia, Illinois.

Dennis Landon, President of Higher Education and Leadership Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), will preach the opening chapel service at the beginning of the 2012-13 academic year. He will also present the year's first forum, offering reflections entitled, More fun than you might expect: Confessions of a Denominational Bureaucrat.

After becoming its president in 1997, he led what had been the Division of Higher Education in clarifying its mission, focusing its energies on leader development, and hence adopting its present name. Mr. Landon continues to lead HELM's mission to nurture transforming leaders for the church and the larger society in partnership with Disciples-related colleges and universities, theological schools, and ministries to and with students.

A native of Canton, Pennsylvania, Dennis Landon is a graduate of Columbia University and of the Divinity School and the Disciples Divinity House of the University of Chicago. He was ordained in 1975 and served as pastor for congregations in Wisconsin and Indiana for 12 years. He then served as executive director of East Central Colleges, a consortium of independent colleges in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. He also served on the town council and as acting municipal judge for the Town of Bethany, West Virginia, and as a director for Wabash Valley Human Services as well as a variety of other community groups. Mr. Landon is a trivia expert and a contributor to a book of humorous essays on the work of Franz Bibfeldt, the world's most famous non-existent theologian. He is married to Lana Hartman Landon, a writer, teacher, and PhD alumna of DDH and the Divinity School; they live in St. Louis, Missouri.

Alumnus Frank Burch Brown, the Frederick Doyle Kershner Professor of Religion and the Arts at Christian Theological Seminary and the Alexander Campbell Visiting Professor of Religion and the Arts at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, will speak at the 2012 DDH Convocation. He is the author of several works including Inclusive yet Discerning: Navigating The Arts of Worship (2009) and the award-winning Good Taste, Bad Taste, and Christian Taste: Aesthetics in Religious Life. He is the editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts. Mr. Brown is also a composer with twenty commissioned works to his credit.

The 2012 Convocation will be held June 8 at 6:00 p.m. with a reception following at 7:30 p.m. 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.

House Scholar Thandiwe Gobledale has concluded a nine-month-long internship with First Christian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina. The internship was arranged by the Disciples Divinity House, which included providing a stipend for the internship, but the congregation was essential for the experience. The Disciples Divinity House is grateful for the wise leadership of and generous mentoring by Senior Minister Lee Hull Moses.

"A huge part of learning to be a pastor is having the chance to be one, and that is something that we are given, not something that we can claim for ourselves," Ms. Gobledale wrote to the congregation. "Your willingness to treat me as your pastor, to attend the Sunday School class or Lenten series that I led, to let me preach and listen to my sermons, to invite me into your homes and hospital rooms, to allow me to enter into your lives and the life of the church as a minister – this is what enabled me to learn what it means to be a minister. I think this takes trust and faith: trust that with God's help, we could grow together, and we would get through whatever challenges faced us. These last few months, you have taught me so much about what it means to be a community of faith: learning, growing, discerning, disagreeing, worshiping, and walking together as brothers and sisters in Christ with mutual respect and love."

Ms. Gobledale has returned to Chicago for Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at Jackson Park Hospital this summer, and for her final year of MDiv studies beginning this fall. She joined the Greensboro congregation during her internship, and hopes to be ordained there. Ms. Hull Moses is also Vice President of the DDH Board of Trustees and a DDH alumna.

Julian DeShazier, Verity Jones, and Paul Steinbrecher began service as members of the Board of Trustees of the Disciples Divinity House at the April 27-28 meeting. The national board numbers twenty-one plus three ex officio members.

Julian DeShazier is the Senior Minister of University Church in Chicago, where he has served since November 2010. He is a BA graduate of Morehouse College and an MDiv graduate of the University of Chicago Divinity School. He previously served as Teen Pastor at Covenant United Church of Christ, and has also worked with the Coca-Cola Leadership Program and Fund for Theological Education. He serves on the boards of the UCC’s Council for Youth and Young Adults (CYAAM) and the United Black Christians (UBC). He is also an award-winning musician and songwriter, known as the rapper J. Kwest of Pure Music. He is married to Mallorie DeShazier.

Verity A. Jones is the Project Director of the New Media Project and a Research Fellow at Union Theological Seminary. She is the former publisher and editor of DisciplesWorld, and the past president of the Associated Church Press. She has also served as the Senior Minister of Central Christian Church in Terre Haute, Indiana, and as Associate Minister of the Colchester [Connecticut] Federated Church. A graduate of Yale College and Yale Divinity School, she is an ordained minister with joint Disciples and UCC standing. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Louisville Institute. Verity, her husband William Wagnon, and their daughter live in Indianapolis.

Paul A. Steinbrecher is a principal with Interactive Design, Inc. (IDEA), a Chicago-based architecture firm, which he joined in 1997. His areas of special expertise include historic preservation, libraries, and cultural and religious institutions, and his work includes the Lincoln Park Zoo, Fourth Presbyterian Church, University of Chicago, Chicago Theological Seminary, and since 1995, the Disciples Divinity House. He has been a visiting lecturer and a docent trainer with the Chicago Architecture Foundation. He is a former Director of the Royal Oak Foundation (the American arm of the National Trust of England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and served on the board of the TimeLine Theatre Company. On a pro bono basis he is designing the expansion of the library at a translation institute in Kathmandu, Nepal. He is a BA graduate of Grinnell College and received his M. Arch. from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He lives in Evanston and regularly attends Monday dinners and forums.

Laura Jennison Reed, a current Disciples Divinity House Scholar who will receive her MDiv degree this June, will serve as Assistant to the Dean of the Disciples Divinity House on a full-time basis for the coming year. She will be ordained in her home congregation, North Hill Christian Church in Spokane, Washington, on August 12. A current member of the Administrative Committee and General Board of the Christian Church, she has given leadership to the local, regional, and general church. She is a 2005 cum laude graduate of Mount Holyoke College, where she received the Chapin Prize for exceptional achievement in the study of religion and was a leader in the ecumenical Protestant ministry, and she is former HELM Leadership Fellow.

A stained-glass window in her childhood congregation, First Christian Church in Bloomington, Indiana, features a magnificent tree; that window is now featured on the cover of a new book by DDH alumna and Vanderbilt Divinity School Professor Bonnie Miller-McLemore. That image helped to nurture her faith and theology. She explains, "In Christian Theology in Practice, I trace my hunger to understand more about how local theologies evolve. In particular, I describe my pursuit of university disciplines that helped me understand and enhance the viability and accessibility of everyday theology. ...The book explores the backbone or skeletal structure behind how I have done theology in other writings and in the teaching of seminary and doctoral students as I've thought about death and dying or women's lives and children or spirituality in the midst of family life. ...On the wall over my desk hangs a reproduction of the window from the church. And it now adorns the book cover of Christian Theology in Practice. In both cases, it reminds me of the inexplicably mundane and wondrously tangible forms of theology as they press upon us in daily life." Christian Theology in Practice was published by Eerdmans in January 2012; it is dedicated in memory of two of Bonnie Miller-McLemore's teachers, John Spencer and Don Browning.

Jack V. Reeve, alumnus, former Board president, and Honorary Trustee for Life, died Saturday afternoon, February 25, in Indianapolis. He had suffered a stroke and entered hospice care twelve days before. He was 93. He is survived by three children, Jill (Kirk), Joel, and Jay, and their spouses and families. A service of celebration of Mr. Reeve's life was held at Downey Avenue Christian Church in Indianapolis on Saturday, March 3rd, at 3:00 p.m.

A native of Des Moines, Iowa, and a graduate of Drake University, he was a member of the 1942 entering class of Disciples Divinity House Scholars. In 1945, he graduated from the University of Chicago and that same summer married June Varner. During the next sixty-two years until her death in June 2007, they would share many things: ministry in multiple forms and places, the birth of four children and the tragic loss of one, commitment to family and to church, travel and service, and a love of music.

Stewardship was integral to how Jack and June Reeve understood the Christian faith and how they lived their lives. In 1958 Jack Reeve was called from congregational ministry and extensive work with youth conferences to the national staff as stewardship secretary. He continued to emphasize stewardship when he was called to regional ministry in the Christian Church in Illinois and Wisconsin in 1968 and, beginning in 1978, as Professor of the Practice of Ministry at Lexington Theological Seminary. In 1968 he was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Disciples Divinity House. As its president from 1990-92 and as a longtime member of its development committee, Jack Reeve provided both encouragement about and an example of generous giving. (Then, too, he built so many Habitat for Humanity homes in Lexington that the local paper dubbed him Habitat's "energizer bunny.") In 2005, he was elected an Honorary Trustee for Life.

After their children had grown, the Reeves decided to share their accumulated resources in four equal portions, one for each of their children and another to be divided between the Disciples Divinity House and Lexington Theological Seminary. After June's death, Jack realized that he could provide that gift during his lifetime. And so, four years ago he capped a lifelong commitment and a lifetime of generous stewardship with a $125,000 gift to the Disciples Divinity House.

It is impossible to estimate all the ways that Jack Reeve's life and work enriched the Disciples Divinity House, and the wider church and world. We relied on his example, his leadership, and his friendship for decades. We know that his generosity, work, and love will stand beneath us for decades to come, and we are grateful indeed.

At their October meeting, the Board of Trustees elected J. Marshall Dunn to its membership. He is a former Alumni/ae Council President and the Senior Minister Emeritus of University Christian Church in Hyattsville, Maryland, a vibrant multi-racial congregation with significant outreach ministries. Marshall Dunn has given leadership across the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Following his retirement in October 2005, he served four months as the interim associate general minister of the Christian Church; he subsequently served as the interim regional minister in Capital Area. From 2011-12, he chaired a committee to develop a five-year strategic plan for Higher Education and Leadership Ministries (HELM). A beloved and energetic leader, he has been involved in camp counseling for nearly fifty years, including directing the Capital Area’s young adult conference and serving as chaplain for the senior high camp. After graduating from Hiram College, he became a Disciples Divinity House Scholar in 1965 and earned Master’s and D.Mn. degrees from the Divinity School. Marshall and Barbara Dunn have two grown children, Kristen, a DDH alumna herself who is the Director of Training at NIH, and Eric, an award-winning teacher, and three grandchildren.

Stephanie Paulsell

The Trustees celebrated Stephanie Paulsell’s sixteen years of Board leadership, including as Secretary, chair of the Scholarship Committee, and, in 2010-11, as chair of the dean’s review committee. An MA and PhD alumna who previously served as Director of Ministry Studies at the Divinity School, Ms. Paulsell is the Houghton Professor of the Practice of Ministry at Harvard Divinity School and the author of a forthcoming book on Virginia Woolf. She is married to Kevin Madigan (they met at the House, where he was an ecumenical resident), who is the Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Divinity School.

Dean Kris Culp commented, “We are grateful for Marshall Dunn’s and Stephanie Paulsell’s service. Such committed and visionary alumni/ae leadership has been and continues to be crucial for the strength of the Disciples Divinity House and its Board.”

Disciples Divinity House Scholar and third-year ministry student Alexis Vaughan has been involved in numerous campus and community-based initiatives. She is involved in the One Chicago, One Nation program, a joint effort of the Interfaith Youth Core, Inter-City Muslim Action Network, and Chicago Community Trust that focuses on interfaith/intercultural organizing. This past summer she traveled to Kenya to learn about a church-related youth empowerment initiative there. On Monday, October 24, at 7:00 pm, she will reflect on her experiences. Support from the Divinity School's International Ministry Travel Grant and a Hughey-Peery Grant from Higher Education and Leadership Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) made her study possible.