Elon names second class of Multifaith Scholars

Five rising juniors have been named as members of the second class of Multifaith Scholars. Selected in a competitive application and interview process, students in this interdisciplinary cohort will pursue academic coursework, undertake faculty-mentored undergraduate research projects, and participate in community engagement partnerships with local religious communities during their junior and senior years.

Each scholar will be awarded $5,000 annually to support creative and engaged research and global study in topics connected with religious diversity and multifaith encounter. 

Amy Allocco, the program’s director and an associate professor of religious studies, will work with all of the students and their faculty mentors as they develop their projects and pursue their research, which will focus on sites of encounter, both domestic and international.

“I am incredibly excited about the strength of this new cohort,” Allocco said. “Their research projects are diverse and compelling, and they have proposed interesting, public-facing outcomes that will make their work and their findings accessible to broad audiences at Elon and beyond. It will be a privilege to work with them over the next two years,” she said.

The 2018-2020 Multifaith Scholars

Marjorie Anne Foster

Minors: Environmental Studies and Interreligious Studies
Mentors: Glenn Scott and Amy Allocco

Foster will research the ways that college-age Muslims in North Carolina sustain their faith as members of a U.S. minority religion as well as how they position themselves vis-à-vis other religious groups.

Kathryn Gerry

Majors: International & Global Studies (Middle East) and Political Science
Minors: Interreligious Studies and Asian Studies
Mentor: Amy Allocco

Gerry will research the implications of worker migration from South India to Gulf states, focusing on how the flow of ideas, practices, and cash remittances from the Gulf shape interreligious relationships in India.

Katie Hooker

Major: Strategic Communications
Minor: Interreligious Studies
Mentors: Brian Pennington and Amy Allocco

Hooker will study the intersections of Christianity and the indigenous religions of Haiti, such as Vodou, through a study of a boys’ orphanage in the city of Fauche that was founded by her late aunt following the 2010 earthquake.

Hannah Thorpe

Majors: Religious Studies and Psychology
Minors: Political Science and Classical Studies
Mentor: Geoffrey Claussen

Thorpe will research Jewish responses to Neo-Nazi movements in the United States, focusing on how these responses inform Jewish communities and identities.

Sonya Walker

Majors: Journalism and Religious Studies
Minor: Middle Eastern Studies
Mentors: Ariela Marcus-Sells and Colin Donohue

Walker will research the role and manifestations of Islamophobia within the American airline industry, with attention to the representation of multiple religious traditions.

These students join the program’s first cohort of Multifaith Scholars, who have spent this academic year engaged in undergraduate research and study abroad in diverse contexts.

Among those scholars, Sophie Zinn is leveraging her semester in Copenhagen to research the experiences of Muslim migrant populations in Denmark. Two other members of the inaugural cohort will pursue fieldwork and research under the auspices of a Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society Summer Research Fellowship this summer: Jocelyn Pietro will work with a non-governmental organization in Sri Lanka, while Kristina Meyer will study the Interfaith Worker Justice movement at several United States locations. Styrling Rohr will dedicate her summer to conducting ethnographic interviews and producing a documentary in collaboration with the community at the Sikh Gurudwara of North Carolina in Durham.

Established with a 2016 seed grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation, the Multifaith Scholars program is a two-year, closely mentored, experientially rich, and academically rigorous educational opportunity for juniors and seniors who show great potential as intellectually curious and socially engaged multifaith leaders. The program is administered by the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society. More information can be found on the Center’s website https://www.elon.edu/u/academics/csrcs/multifaith-scholars/.

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