South Carolinian receives Racial Ethnic Minority Fellowship
5/8/2001 News media contact: Linda Green · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn
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. # # #
Korean News
