Welcome Rachel Abdoler as Assistant Dean
On September 1, Rachel Abdoler began a new part-time position as Assistant Dean for this academic year. She will work with students to plan chapel services and programs as well as give leadership to various initiatives.
Rachel is a DDH alumna and graduate of the University of Chicago Divinity School's MDiv (2017) and PhD (2026) programs. She was the 2026 recipient of the J. Coert Rylaarsdam Prize, which recognizes a student who has made special efforts to promote interfaith relations with particular reference to the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions. In 2021, she was the inaugural recipient of the Barbara and Clark Williamson Scholarship at DDH for “excellence in theological thinking that furthers understanding and accountability between traditions.” (Read her remarks about the scholarship, Dayenu!, which reflect on her internship in a Jewish congregation in Indianapolis and her work with Clark Williamson.)
Rachel's PhD dissertation, Between Defense and Devotion: Butrus al-Sadamantī’s Kitāb al-Tashīh in Its 13th Century Copto-Islamic Milieu, seeks to deepen the understanding of the thirteenth-century “Golden Age” in Copto-Arabic theology and scriptural commentary. The dissertation includes the first critical edition of the Arabic text based on extant manuscripts from the Vatican Library, Syria, and Egypt. Her research was supported by a Fulbright-Hayes Dissertation Research Abroad Award. She was awarded “distinction” for her dissertation defense.