Fellows Program
The Young Center supports a fellows program for scholars and doctoral students wishing to pursue research on the faith, history, or culture related to Anabaptism and /or Pietism.
Scholars may apply for one of two fellowships that are available every academic year. The Snowden Fellowship, endowed by Lucille Snowden and the Snowden family, is available in the fall semester, and the Kreider Fellowship, endowed by Ken and Carroll Kreider, is offered in the spring semester. Each fellowship is twelve weeks long and includes an obligation to deliver a lecture based on the research conducted during the fellow’s time at the Young Center. The Center provides office space, some support services, access to library holdings, and a modest stipend toward housing and travel expenses. Fellows are responsible for their own salary support from sabbatical, research grant, or other sources. Excellent resources on a variety of Anabaptist and Pietist groups are located within the region. Shorter appointments—for a four- to six-week period—are occasionally available.
Doctoral fellowships, lasting from six to twelve weeks, are designed to provide time and space for doctoral students to conduct research, consult with Young Center staff, and write their dissertations. The Center provides a modest stipend and an opportunity for the doctoral student to give a lecture on his or her research.
To apply for the Snowden or Kreider fellowship or the doctoral fellowship, send a written proposal, a curriculum vitae showing academic achievement, and one letter of reference from an academic source to the director of the Young Center. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Steve Nolt, Director
Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies
Elizabethtown College
1 Alpha Drive
Elizabethtown, PA 17022
Phone (717) 361-1470
Fax (717) 361-1443
Email: nolts@etown.edu
Center Fellows
| TERM | NAME | AREA OF STUDY, ACTIVITIES, PUBLICATIONS | POSITION |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 Spring |
Rose Fisher (Kreider Fellow) |
Research topic: Pennsylvania Dutch Lecture: "Language Patterns among Lancaster County Anabaptists: Do the Amish and Groffdale Conference Mennonites use English and Pennsylvania Dutch Differently?" |
Ph.D. student, Penn State University |
| 2023 Fall |
Philip Asura Nggada (Snowden Fellow) |
Research topic: Educational institutions as a forum for peacebuilding in Nigeria Lecture: "Celebrating 100 Years of Brethren Witness in Nigeria" |
Associate professor, Department of Religion and Philosophy, University of Jos |
| 2022 Fall |
Joseph Donnermeyer (Snowden Fellow) |
Research topic: Settlement and population growth of the Amish Lecture: "Keeping Track of Settlement and Population Growth of the Amish in North America" |
Professor emeritus, School of Environment and Natural Resources, The Ohio State University |
| 2022 Spring |
Jonathan Stayer (Kreider Fellow) |
Research topic: River Brethren adoption of the name "Brethren in Christ" Lecture: "The Unknown Story of Naming the Brethren in Christ" |
Supervisor of reference services (retired), Pennsylvania State Archives |
| 2021 Fall |
Rose Beiler (Snowden Fellow) |
Research topic: The German-speaking Atlantic world Lecture: "Seeking Religious Toleration: Anabaptist Communication Networks and Migration in the Seventeenth Century" |
Associate professor of history, University of Central Florida in Orlando |
| 2021 Summer |
Jeanette Harder (Summer Fellow) |
Research topics: Plain community families who provide foster care and adoption to mainstream children; Plain communities’ responses to child abuse |
Professor of social work, University of Nebraska at Omaha |
| 2021 Spring |
Rebecca Dali (Snowden Fellow) |
Research topic: Nigerian Women: Quagmires in Decades of Perilous Conflicts Lecture: "Responding with Compassion to the Crisis in Northeastern Nigeria" |
Founder and executive director, Centre for Caring, Empowerment, and Peace Initiatives |
| 2021 Spring |
Samuel Dali (Kreider Fellow) |
Research topic: Developing a Modified Anabaptist Public Theology for Nigerian Christians Lecture: "Responding with Compassion to the Crisis in Northeastern Nigeria" |
Past president of Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (Church of the Brethren in Nigeria) |
| 2019 Fall |
Ann Hostetler (Snowden Fellow) |
Lecture: "A Life Revealed in Letters: Insights from the Correspondence of John A. Hostetler" | Professor of English, Goshen College |
| 2019 Spring |
Joshua R. Brown (Kreider Fellow) |
Lecture: "Amish Identities in Changing Context" | Associate professor of German and linguistics, University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire |
| 2018 Fall |
Chuck Jantzi (Snowden Fellow) |
Lecture: "Mental Health Treatment in the Plain Communities" | Professor of psychology, Messiah College |
| 2018 Spring |
Tony Walsh (Kreider Fellow) |
Lecture: "Narrative and Meaning: The Rich Complexity of Old German Baptist Brethren Belief, Culture, and Practice" | Director of the Centre for the Study of Irish Protestantism at Maynooth University, County Kildare, Ireland |
| 2017 Fall | Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar (Snowden Fellow) | Lecture: "Amish and Ultra-Orthodox Women's Responses to New Media" | Senior lecturer at Sapir Academic College, Sderot, Israel |
| 2017 Spring |
Rebecca Janzen (Kreider Fellow) |
Lecture: "Encountering Low German Mennonite Women in Mexican Archives" | Assistant professor of Spanish at Bluffton University |
| 2016 Fall |
Aini Linjakumpu (Snowden Fellow) |
Lecture: "The Entrepreneurship among the Conservative Laestadian Movement" | Lecturer in politics at the University of Lapland and adjunct professor at the University of Tampere, Finland |
| 2016 Spring |
Daniella Shaw-Gabay (Doctoral Fellow) |
The Amish experience of late modernity | Doctoral student, University of Surrey (UK) |
| 2016 Spring |
Andy Martin (Doctoral Fellow) |
Old Order Mennonite spirituality | Doctoral student, Regis College, Toronto School of Theology |
| 2016 Spring |
Claire Mensack (Kreider Fellow) |
Aging in place; Gelassenheit as it relates to the care of aging community members | Assistant professor of health promotion, Lynchburg College |
| 2015 Fall | Karen Johnson-Weiner (Snowden Fellow) | Lecture: "Writing about Amish Women" | Professor of anthropology, SUNY Potsdam |
| 2014 Fall |
Jared Burkholder (Snowden Fellow) |
Lecture: "Heroes and Heretics: Pietists and Anabaptists in the Evangelical Imagination" | Professor of history, Grace College (IN) |
| 2014 Spring |
Vi Dutcher (Kreider Fellow) |
Lecture: "Amish Women's Literacies" | Professor of rhetoric and composition, Eastern Mennonite University |
| 2014 Spring |
Cory Anderson (Kreider Fellow) |
Lecture: "Why Have the Amish Survived? A Synthesis" | Ph.D. candidate, Ohio State University |
| 2014 Spring |
Vlatka Skender (Doctoral Fellow) |
Comparative overview of Amish communities; interactions between the Amish and broader American society | Doctoral student, University of Münster, Germany |
| 2013 Fall |
James Fritz (Snowden Fellow) |
Lecture: "Gathering Storm Clouds: The Pacifist Culture of York County during the American Revolution" | Adjunct professor and lecturer on historical topics |
| 2013 Spring |
Marie Dick (Kreider Fellow) |
Lecture: "Speaking Peace: The Rhetoric of Lawrence Hart, Southern Cheyenne Peace Chief and Mennonite Minister" | Associate professor of mass communications, St. Cloud State University |
| 2012 Fall | Virginia Zickafoose (Snowden Fellow) | Lecture: "Reformation Poland: Conversion in the Civic Conversation" | Researcher, writer, and translator |
| 2012 Spring |
Maja Stekovic (Doctoral Fellow) |
The Amish in American literature and culture | Doctoral student, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) |
| 2012 Spring | Benyamin Neuberger (Snowden Fellow, Fall 2010) | Lecture: "The Amish and the Haredim: Ultra-Religious Communities and the Modern State" | Professor of political science and African studies, Open University of Israel. |
| 2011 Fall | Valerie Weaver-Zercher (Snowden Fellow) | Lecture: "Thrill of the Chaste: Tracing the Ancestry of the Amish Romance Novel" | Freelance writer and editor |
| 2011 Spring | David Weaver-Zercher (Kreider Fellow) | Lecture: "Reading 'Martyrs Mirror' Today" | Professor of American religious history, Messiah College (PA) |
| 2010 Spring |
Diane Zimmerman Umble (Kreider Fellow) |
Lecture: "Being Mennonite in a Changing World: Mennonite Women's Diaries, 1920-1970" | Professor of communication, Millersville University (PA) |
| 2009 Fall |
Steve Nolt (Snowden Fellow) |
Lecture: "Globalizing a Separate People: World Christianity and North American Mennonites" | Professor of history, Goshen College (IN) |
| 2009 Spring |
Andy Borella
(Doctoral Fellow) |
Lecture: "Amish Identity and Rites of Passage" | Doctoral student, University of Turin (Italy) |
| 2009 Spring |
Patricia Gibble (Kreider Fellow) |
Lecture: "Finding Esther: Archaeological Research and Gender Construction at an 18th Century Pennsylvania Swiss/German Farmstead" | Adjunct professor, Elizabethtown College |
| 2008 Fall |
Erik Wesner (Snowden Fellow) |
Lecture: "Is Success a Four-Letter Word: The Amish Approach to Business Achievement" | |
| 2008 Spring | Russell Haitch | Lecture: "Young People and the Language of Love Feast" | Assoc. professor, Bethany Theological Seminary (IN) |
| 2007 Summer |
Tomomi Naka
(Doctoral Fellow) |
Dissertation topic: Disaster-related projects of Mennonite church members and national Mennonite organizations involved in disaster response | Doctoral student, University of Iowa (IA) |
| 2007 Summer |
Anthony Siegrist
(Doctoral Fellow) |
Dissertation topic: Mennonite, Brethren, and Amish understandings of baptism | Doctoral student, Toronto School of Theology (ON) |
| 2007 Spring | Musa Mambula | Lecture: "Are There Limits to Pacifism? The Nigerian Dilemma" | Provost, Theological College of Northern Nigeria |
| 2006 Winter |
Saloma Furlong
(short-term intern) |
Young Center's NEH-funded project, "Amish Identity and Diversity: Transformations in 20th-Century America" | Undergraduate student, Smith College (M.A.) |
| 2006 Fall | Marcus Meier | Durnbaugh Lectures: "New Light on Brethren Beginnings," "Johann Kipping from Wurttemberg," and "The Little Church According to Comenius and Spener" | Instructor in church history, Philipps-Universität, Marburg (Germany) |
| 2006 Summer |
Kate Eisenbise
(Doctoral Fellow) |
Durnbaugh Research Collection | Doctoral student, Graduate Theological Union (CA) |
| 2006 Spring |
Beth Graybill
(Doctoral Fellow) |
Lecture: "Amish Business Women and Tourism in Lancaster County" | Doctoral student, University of Maryland (MD) |
| 2005 Fall |
Amy Smoker Sipe
(Doctoral Fellow) |
Lecture: "Influences of Anabaptist and Pietist Thought on Engendered Religious Experiences at the Ephrata Cloister" | Doctoral student, Syracuse University (NY) |
| 2005 Spring | James Schwenk | Lecture: "Patchwork Quilt: Aspirations for Ecumenicity Among Early Pennsylvania Pietists" | Assoc. professor of church history, Evangelical School of Theology (Myerstown, PA) |
| 2005 Spring | Lucinda Martin | Lecture: "Quakers and Pietists: Early Conversations in Europe" | Lecturer, Universität Würzburg (Germany) |
| 2004 Fall |
Marie Qvarnstrom
(Doctoral Fellow) |
Dissertation: “Changing Patterns of Use of the Pennsylvania German Dialect in the Amish Community of Lancaster County” | Doctoral student, Penn State University (PA) |
| 2004 Spring |
Martine Vonk
(Doctoral Fellow) |
Dissertation: “Relationship Among Philosophy of Life, Values, and Environmental Practices” (Research focusing on the Hutterites, the Amish, the Franciscans, and the Benedictines) | Doctoral student, Vrije Universiteit (Netherlands) |
| 2004 Spring | Rod Janzen | Lecture: "The Hutterites and Bruderhof" | Distinguished scholar and professor of American history, Fresno Pacific University (CA) |
| 2002 Fall | Paul Dekar | Lecture: "Christianity on Trial: Confronting the War System" (The relationship between the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the historic peace churches) |
Independent scholar, Memphis Theological Seminary (TN) |
| 2002 Summer | Denise Boswell | Aging in the Lancaster County Old Order Amish settlement | Assistant professor, Gerontology program, Towson University (MD) |
| 2002 Summer |
Ketsia Lemoine
(Doctoral Fellow) |
The Plain People of the Eastern U.S.: Unity and Diversity of an Identity Between Plain Tradition and Evangelical Discourse | Doctoral student, Sorbonne University (France) |
| 2002 Spring | Thomas N. Finger | Durnbaugh Lectures: "Sources for Contemporary Spirituality: Anabaptist and Pietist Contributions" and "Spirituality in Personal and Congregational Life" | Independent scholar, Evansville, Illinois |
| 2001 Fall | J. Kenneth Kreider | Brethren service in the reconstruction of Europe, 1945-1953 | Professor of history, Elizabethtown College (PA) |
| 2001 Spring | Christina Bucher | Lecture: "The Song of Solomon: A Believers Church Perspective" | Professor of religious studies, Elizabethtown College (PA) |
| 2000 Fall | E. Morris Sider | Lecture: "Anabaptist and Pietist Conversion Narratives" | Professor of history and archivist, Messiah College (PA) |
| 2000 Summer |
Tan Tay Keong
(Doctoral Fellow) |
The Amish Community in Lancaster County | Doctoral student, National University of Singapore |
| 2000 Spring | Thomas Cooper | Plain Communities and the media | Assoc. professor of mass communications, Emerson College (M.A.) |
| 1999 Fall | Ulrich Bister | Lecture: "The Pietism of Johannes Lobach" | Independent scholar, Herborn, Germany |
| 1998 - 1999 | John A. Lapp | Global Mennonite history project | Executive Secretary Emeritus, Mennonite Central Committee (PA) |
| 1998 Summer | Chiho Oyabu | Lancaster County Amish economics | Professor of home economics, Gifu University (Japan) |
| 1998 Spring | Paul Peachey | Lecture series: "Churches Catholic and Free: An American Dialog" | Professor of sociology, Catholic University of America (DC) |
| 1997 Fall | William Kostlevy | Lecture: "Christian Perfection in Pennsylvania Dutch Country: The Manheim Camp Meeting and the Holiness Movement's Impact Upon Brethren and Mennonites in the Late 19th Century" | Archivist, Asbury Theological Seminary (KY) |
| 1997 Spring | Hans Schneider | Durnbaugh Lectures: "German Anabaptism in the 17th Century: Backgrounds of Brethren Origins," "Current Trends in Pietist Research in Germany," Radical Pietism and Tolerance | Professor of church history, Philipps Universitat, Marburg (Germany) |
| 1997 Spring |
Steven M. Nolt (Doctoral Fellow) |
Catholic-Anabaptist relations; Catholics and Anabaptists in the Early American Republic Period 1790-1830 | Doctoral candidate, Notre Dame University (IN) |
| 1996 Fall | James Hurd | The Groffdale Conference Old Order Mennonites | Professor of anthropology, Bethel College (MN) |
| 1996 Spring | James C. Juhnke | Nonviolent America project and seminar; Dirk's Exodus drama | Professor of history, Bethel College (KS) |
| 1995 Fall | Anna K. Juhnke | Mennonite literature course; Mennonite drama research; Mennonite poetry presentation | Professor of English, Bethel College (KS) |
| 1995 Summer | Richard MacMaster | The African Revival and the Lancaster Mennonite Conference; Donegal Presbyterian Church history | Professor of history, Bluffton College (OH) |
| 1995 Summer | Peter Ester | The Quiet in the Land: A Sociological Treatise on the Amish in Lancaster County | Professor of sociology, Tilburg University (Netherlands) |
| 1995 Spring | John S. Oyer | Lectures: "The Reformers' Critique of the Anabaptists" and "Recent Trends in Anabaptist Research" | Professor of history, Goshen College (IN) |
| 1994 Fall | Hermann Vogt | The Amish of Lancaster County; Lecture: "Amish Spirituality: From the Ausbund to the Modern World" | Professor of political science, University of Dortmund (Germany) |
| 1994 Spring | C. Norman Kraus | Theological Rationale for Cultural and Religious Intervention lectures; An Anabaptist Spirituality for the 21st Century article | Professor of religion, Goshen College (IN) |
| 1993 Fall | Dale W. Brown | Brethren Doctrines; Sin and nonviolent resistance; Anabaptist hermeneutics seminar; Brethren Life and Thought course | Professor of theology, Bethany Theological Seminary (IL) |
| 1993 Spring | Wesley J. Prieb | Collaborated with Jacob Loewen on Mennonite Experience in Russia and Only the Sword of the Spirit projects | Professor of English, Tabor College (KS) |
| 1993 Spring | Jacob A. Loewen | Mennonite Experience in Russia 1789-1919; "The Abuse of Power Among Mennonites in South Russia" presentation at "Power" conference; Only the Sword of the Spirit | Consultant in linguistics and anthropology, British Columbia |
| 1992 Fall | Dennis L. Slabaugh | Anabaptist history seminar; Lecture: "The Sermon as Weapon: Jakob Andreae Against the Anabaptists" | Research associate, University of Hamburg (Germany) |
| 1992 Spring | Robert S. Kreider | Mirror of the Martyrs exhibit | Professor of peace studies, Bethel College (KS) |
| 1991 Fall | Roscoe Hinkle | Brethren and Mennonite Conscientious Objectors in World War II | Professor of sociology, Ohio State University (OH) |
| 1991 Summer | Leo Driedger | Future of Mennonites in North America seminar; Mennonite peacemaking | Professor of sociology, University of Manitoba (MB) |
| 1991 Spring | Calvin W. Redekop | Communal Societies conference; Mennonite entrepreneurs; "Power" conference | Professor of sociology, Conrad Grebel College (ON) |
| 1990 Fall | Richard Luman | Lecture: "Luther's Theological Critique of Anabaptists" | Professor of religion, Haverford College (PA) |