wfn.org | South Carolinian receives Racial Ethnic Minority Fellowship

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

May 8, 2001	News media contact: Linda Green·(615)742-5470·Nashville,
Tenn.     10-30-71BP{227}

NOTE: A photograph is available for use with this story.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - United Methodist Communications (UMCom) has
selected Ciona D. Rouse, a recent graduate of Columbia (S.C) College, as the
2001-2002 recipient of the Judith L. Weidman Racial Ethnic Minority
Fellowship.

Rouse, 21, is the fourth recipient of the fellowship, which provides a year
of working with an experienced director of communications in one of the
United Methodist Church's annual conferences.

She will work in the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference from Aug. 1 to
the following July 31. Dean Snyder, director of communications, will be
Rouse's mentor during the fellowship year. The conference center is in
Columbia, Md.

"We are excited about Ciona joining the Baltimore-Washington communications
team for her year of learning and sharing," said Barbara Nissen, director of
UMCom's Conference Resourcing Team, which coordinates the fellowship. 

"With the largest communications staff in the connection,
Baltimore-Washington will be able to offer Ciona a variety of experiences in
all aspects of conference communications," Nissen continued. "We feel it is
a good match on all sides."

UMCom developed the fellowship in 1998 to encourage people of ethnic
minority background to consider religion communications as a career. Among
the 65 annual conferences in the United States, the church has fewer than
five conference communicators of ethnic minority heritage in leadership
positions. The fellowship carries the name of the late Judith L. Weidman,
who encouraged its development during her tenure as UMCom's top staff
executive.

"The United Methodist Church definitely has a rich and important story to
tell its members and the rest of the world," Rouse wrote in her fellowship
application. "I want to help tell the story of the church."

A South Carolina native, Rouse graduated this month from Columbia College
with a bachelor's degree in English and a minor in communications. An honors
program student at the United Methodist-related women's college, she worked
on the staffs of the campus television station and the newspaper. During
internships, she worked with the U.S. Senate Recording Studio and produced a
nationally syndicated radio program for older Americans.

An active United Methodist, Rouse will spend her second summer as a staff
minister with the Southeastern Jurisdiction Administrative Council at Lake
Junaluska, N.C. She is a charter member of the United Methodist Women unit
at Columbia College and serves on the South Carolina Conference Membership
Nurture and Outreach Committee and on the steering committee for Young Adult
Ministries. While at Columbia, she helped establish Clubhouse Gang of Eau
Claire, a faith-based intervention program to provide personal and academic
support to neighborhood children.

Rouse was one of 11 candidates for the fellowship. An eight-person selection
committee chose three applicants to interview. Interviews were conducted
April 30 and May 2 in Columbia.

The 2000-2001 recipient, Nicole Benson, will complete her fellowship year on
July 31. Doug Cannon, Southwest Texas director of communications, is her
primary mentor.

The first recipient, Larry Hygh Jr., spent a year working in the New England
Conference and is now an associate director for communications in the
Baltimore-Washington Conference. Eunice Dharmaratnam, the second recipient,
enrolled in graduate school after her fellowship year in the Indiana Area
communications office.
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United Methodist News Service
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