Two students receive UMCom scholarships for 2004-05 April 21, 2004 NASHVILLE,
Tenn. (UMNS) — Two students will receive aid through United Methodist
Communications scholarship programs in the coming academic year.
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Ileceia Avelar |
Ilceia de Oliveira
Avelar, a senior at United Methodist-related Rust College in Holly
Springs, Miss., was named the winner of the Leonard M. Perryman
Communications Scholarship for Ethnic Minority Students. The scholarship
provides $2,500 to an ethnic minority junior or senior pursuing a
career in journalism. The late Leonard Perryman was a journalist for the
United Methodist Church for more than 30 years. Kristin
Knudson Harris, a graduate student at Iowa State University, will
receive a $6,000 Stoody-West Fellowship. The Stoody-West Fellowship was
named for the Rev. Arthur West of Lebanon, Ohio, and the late Rev. Ralph
Stoody, who were staff executives of UMCom or a predecessor agency. The
Commission on Communication’s scholarship committee chose the winners
from five Stoody-West applicants and three Perryman applicants during
its April 20 meeting. The commission oversees UMCom. All of the
scholarships are for the 2004-05 year and are awarded on a one-time
basis.
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Kristin Knudson Harris |
The recipients
will be able to further their education in journalism and direct their
skills toward religious communications, according to Olivia Schwartz,
Upper Marlboro, Md., chairwoman of the UMCom scholarship committee.
“These scholarships will enable these two United Methodist students to
tell the church’s story in a variety of ways.” Avelar,
a native Brazilian and member of the Central Methodist Church in
Nilopis, Brazil, is a print journalism major at Rust College, and is
active in church-related activities at the school and in the community.
As a communicator, she hopes to use her skills to promote and enhance
church services, particularly in the area of public relations. She
wants to help the church promote activities that benefit communities in
various countries, including Brazil, she said in her scholarship
application. “The
plight of the street children in Brazil needs to be improved, and the
Methodist Church in the country is playing an active role to address the
situation,” she said. “I would like to be the spokesperson for the
church in programming the (church’s) mission ... in the communities
regarding the problems of the poor.” Harris
is the director of communication services and resources for the United
Methodist Church’s Iowa Annual Conference. She said Iowa State
University’s interdisciplinary studies program has enabled her to
combine many disciplines into one course of study, creating an
independent degree program of journalism, mass communication, religious
studies and speech communication. She
said she was led to Iowa State because the disciplines at other schools
are combined “with a view toward ordained ministry.” Although she works
for the United Methodist Church and has an undergraduate degree in
religious studies and communication, “I do not feel called to
professional ordained ministry,” she wrote in her fellowship
application. “I
believe my area of expertise is that I am able to interpret the
specialized language of ‘the Church’ in ways that people without formal
religious background can understand,” she said. “As a result,
individuals who are interested in developing a more complete
understanding of faith and its integration into life are being excluded
from the cultural conversation.” She wants to help people have a basic understanding of society’s many religious traditions, she said. The
Stoody-West Fellowship and Leonard M. Perryman Scholarship are
“outstanding opportunities” for students with a desire to pursue
religion communications as a career, said Amelia Tucker-Shaw, resource
consultant at United Methodist Communications. “These opportunities
provide United Methodist Communications an avenue to help cultivate and
support the education of future religion communicators to enhance the
diversity of voices telling the stories of the church.” More
information on UMCom scholarships is available by contacting
Tucker-Shaw, at (888) 278-4862, or by visiting UMCom’s Web site at www.umcom.org. News media can contact Linda Green (615)742-5470 Nashville, Tenn. or E-mail: newsdesk@umcom.org.
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