Divinity School
Rigorous Academic and Real-Life Experiences in the Ministry
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University Scholar Lisa Schubert found a place where
she could immerse herself in ministry.
Duke Divinity
Campaign Total: $102,272,263
Duke Divinity School increased its
endowment, particularly the portion dedicated to financial
aid. Programmatic and research funding grew, notably establishing
the Institute on Care at the End of Life, where a range of
disciplines, schools, and professions study care for those
in the last stages of life. A 45,000-square-foot addition,
where the community will worship, learn, reflect, and eat
together, is under construction and scheduled to open in 2005. |
Lisa Schubert D’05 had planned to become a journalist for
an international or Christian publication. She was well on her way,
traveling to report on youth in Northern Ireland for a children’s
news service, editing her high school paper, and interning at the
Indianapolis Star. “But in my sophomore year at Indiana University,
working with children on a church retreat, I realized journalism
was not where God wanted me.” So Schubert began looking into
schools where she could immerse herself in ministry as she had in
journalism, and Duke quickly became her top choice.
At Duke’s Divinity School, she was assigned to a small spiritual
formation group with a diverse mix of first-year students and a
spiritual mentor from the community. They met to talk about issues
of scripture as well as the personal transformation Divinity School
requires. “The school is not just concerned about one part
of you but your whole person,” she says, and this sense of
support is one of the reasons she chose Duke. Another is the combination
of rigorous academic and real-life experiences in the ministry.
Schubert spent a summer in the Hyde County Cooperative Parish in
Swan Quarter, North Carolina. Through an internship funded by The
Duke Endowment, she began learning how to apply her education and
how to balance being a theological resource and a spiritual presence
for people in need. She has reached out to the Durham community
as well, tutoring through Walltown Neighborhood Ministries. As part
of a course on healing in developing countries, she traveled to
Haiti with students from Duke’s divinity and medical schools
to support rural health initiatives.
Schubert appreciates her many “opportunities to engage with
students of different backgrounds and areas of study,” including
opportunities that come with being named a University Scholar. The
University Scholars Program, endowed by the Gates Foundation, provides
scholarships to undergraduates and graduate and professional school
students, and brings them together for seminars, cultural programming,
and interdisciplinary research. She recently worked with students
in engineering, history, and religious studies to explore the role
of religious memory in different cultures. Whether through intellectual
or ministerial activities, Schubert believes “Duke makes it
a priority to connect students with the world.”
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