The Amy A. Northcutt Scholarship is envisioned as a way to honor and sustain Amy’s love of people and ideas, her relish in thinking creatively and critically to solve problems and build connections, and her sense of God’s grace in the world and our responsibility for each other. Amy was the Chief Information Officer of the National Science Foundation at the time of her death. An attorney by training and a leader in government and nonprofit organizations, she was an alumna of DDH and former president of its Board of Trustees, and a person of deep faith.

Amy was always looking for that sacred space that allowed for connections and differences between people and ideas, always with the hope of transformation and reconciliation. By building a scholarship at the Disciples Divinity House, we are creating and sustaining such a space.

When fully funded, the scholarship will benefit promising women leaders who are pursuing theological studies at the University of Chicago.

Give a gift in memory of Amy to the Disciples Divinity House for the Amy A. Northcutt Scholarship.

Thanks to the generosity of more than 200 donors, the fund reached $175,000 in early 2022. The scholarship fund is 70% of the way to $250,000, which will fully fund it. Gifts can be given online, by check, and by transfer of securities. Please make your check payable to the "Disciples Divinity House" and note "Amy A. Northcutt Scholarship" in the memo line.

The second Amy A. Northcutt lecture and celebration was held in Chicago on May 26, 2019, at the Disciples Divinity House, in conjunction with DDH's 125th Anniversary celebration. Craig Middlebrook gave a welcome. A panel on women and leadership featuring Constance Battle, Ronne Hartfield, and JoAnne Kagiwada was moderated by Verity Jones. The Honorable Betty A. Sutton gave the lecture, which was followed by a dinner.

Constance U. Battle, MD, panelist. From 1973-95, Chief Executive Officer and Medical Director, Hospital for Sick Children, Washington, DC; Clinical Professor, Pediatrics, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and faculty member, School of Public Health and Health Services, The George Washington University; Editor, Essentials of Public Health Biology: A Guide for the Study of Pathophysiology (Jones and Bartlett, 2009); past president, American Medical Women's Association.

Ronne Hartfield, panelist. Essayist and international museum consultant; former Woman’s Board Endowed Executive Director of Museum Education at the Art Institute of Chicago; former Executive Director of Urban Gateways: The Center for Arts in Education; author of Another Way Home: The Tangled Roots of Race in One Chicago Family (University of Chicago Press, 2004).

JoAnne Kagiwada, panelist. As Executive Director of the Legislative Education Committee of the Japanese American Citizens’ League, she helped to ensure passage of a $1.25 billion redress program on behalf of Americans of Japanese ancestry who were unconstitutionally incarcerated in concentration camps by the US government during World War II.

Verity A. Jones, panel moderator. Consultant and writer; former publisher and editor of the award-winning magazine, DisciplesWorld; past president of the Associated Church Press. She was named a “Woman of Influence” by the Indianapolis Business Journal in 2016.

The Honorable Betty Sutton gave the Amy A. Northcutt Lecture. Former U.S. Congresswoman from Ohio, 13th Congressional District, 2007-13; former Administrator, Saint Lawrence Seaway Corporation; former Ohio gubernatorial candidate.

On May 5, 2018, Stephanie Paulsell spoke on The Fragrance of Truth: Theological Education and Religious Community, at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Washington D.C. Attendees joined Craig, Henry, and Lei Lei Middlebrook, and other family and friends, for dinner and lecture to celebrate Amy's life and the Amy A. Northcutt Scholarship. 

Stephanie Paulsell is the Susan Shallcross Swartz Professor of the Practice of Christian Studies at Harvard Divinity School. She studies points of intersection between intellectual work and spiritual practice, and between the contemplative and active dimensions of the vocations of minister and teacher. She writes regularly for the Christian Century, and is the author of two books including Honoring the Body: Meditations on a Christian Practice. Her current research is on Virginia Woolf and religion. An MA and PhD alumna of the University of Chicago and the Disciples Divinity House, she previously taught at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

The lecture explored a vision for the kind of transformative religious community in which Amy was formed and which she believed was urgently needed in our day: one in which prayer and justice, learning and living are intertwined and the deepest possibilities of our humanity cherished and explored.