wfn.org | Six seminary students receive Dempster Graduate Fellowships

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

March 2, 2000 News media contact: Linda Green·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.
10-71B{109}

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) -- Six doctoral candidates preparing for careers in
theological education have received Dempster Graduate Fellowships from the
United Methodist Church for the 2000-2001 academic year.
	
The awards, at $11,000 each, are the largest offered by a Protestant
denomination, according to the United Methodist Board of Higher Education
and Ministry in Nashville. The scholarships are given through the board's
Division of Ordained Ministry.

The annual fellowships have helped graduate students move toward careers in
theological education for the past four decades and represent the United
Methodist Church's strong commitment to excellence in theological education,
according to the Rev. John E. Harnish, staff executive of the division.

The 46-year-old fellowships are named for John Dempster, a 19th-century
Methodist preacher who helped establish three denominationally related
seminaries.

Selection for the Dempster award is based on intellectual competence,
academic achievement, promise of usefulness in teaching careers, personal
qualities, and clarity of spiritual purpose and commitment.

The 2000-2001 recipients are:
·	Rebecca Jane Irelan, an ordained elder in the Oregon-Idaho Annual
Conference and graduate of Boston University and Duke University, the
Divinity School. She is enrolled at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley,
Calif.
·	Soo-Young Kwon, an ordained elder in the New England Annual
Conference and a graduate of Yonsei University, Boston University School of
Theology and Harvard Divinity School. He is planning to specialize in
religion and psychology at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.
·	Daniel Evan McFee, an ordained deacon in the West Ohio Annual
Conference and a graduate of Bowling Green State University, Duke
University, the Divinity School, and Durham University. He is enrolled at
Marquette University in Milwaukee.
·	Michael Nausner, an ordained elder in the Sweden Annual Conference
and a graduate of Gymnasium in Linz, Austria, Theologisches Seminar Der
Evangelisch Methodistischen-Kirche in Reutlangen, Germany, and Uppsala
University in Sweden. He is enrolled at Drew University Graduate School in
Madison, N.J.
·	Joel David Stormo Rasmussen, a lay member of the Northern Illinois
Annual Conference and a graduate of the University of Kansas and Boston
University School of Theology. He is specializing in theology, philosophy of
religion and comparative religion at Harvard University.
·	Adam Scott Zele, a probationary member of the Florida Annual
Conference and graduate of Duke University, the Divinity School, and the
University of Pennsylvania. He is enrolled at Duke University, the Divinity
School, in Durham, N.C.

The Dempster Fellowships are funded through the Ministerial Education Fund,
which is supported by the apportionments paid by local churches across the
denomination.
	
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United Methodist News Service
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