The General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church offers several grants and awards for writing and research on topics in the history of Methodism. Details for the grant program can be found by clicking on this link. While these grants and awards are modest in dollar amount they enable the General Commission to support scholarly research and help to ensure that neglected areas of study will receive the attention they deserve.
The recipients of the Asian, Black, Hispanic, & Native American United Methodist History Research Grant are Hannah Kim, currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Delaware and instructor at Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ; and Tash Smith, currently a Ph.D. candidate and graduate teaching assistant at the University of Oklahoma. Ms. Kim’s project examines five key “moments” in Korean and American ethnic relations, spanning a period between the 1880s to the 1980s. Mr. Smith’s research will focus on the establishment of Methodist churches within Oklahoma’s Native American communities.
The recipients of the John Harrison Ness Award for the best papers on a topic in the history of Methodism by a Master of Divinity candidate are: first place went to Tom Lank for a paper entitled, “Poetic Sideshadowings of Fundamentalism in Southern Methodism, 1865-1866.” Tom is a student of Dr. Kenneth Rowe at Princeton Theological Seminary. Second place went to David Vaughn for his paper, “Holistic Visioning: Health and Health Care in Early Methodism.” David is a student of Dr. Richard Heitzenrater at the Divinity School, Duke University.
Women in United Methodist History Research Grants were awarded to two scholars. One went to Lisa J. Shaver, Assistant Professor in the English Department at Baylor University for research into antebellum women’s rhetorical development within the Methodist Episcopal Church. The other grant went to Rachel Cope, a Ph.D. candidate in American History at Syracuse University who is writing about nineteenth-century female religious experiences, particularly in relation to revival movements. The Women in United Methodist History Writing Award was granted to two papers. One was written by Dr. Priscilla Pope-Levison, Professor of Theology and Assistant Director of Women’s Studies at Seattle Pacific University and entitled, “A ‘Thirty Year War’ and More: Exposing Complexities in the Methodist Deaconess Movement.” The other paper was written by Pearl Young, an undergraduate history and physics major at Emory University, Atlanta, and entitled, “‘Genius Uncultivated is like a Meteor of the Night”: Motives and Experiences of Methodist Female College Life in the Confederate States of America.”
