2023 Wheaton College Honorees
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The 2023 Rodney K. Sisco Diversity Student’s Choice Award Faculty Honoree
Melissa Harkrider enjoys teaching students in the First Year Seminar, an Advanced Integrative Seminar – Native Chicago, and a variety of history major courses. She offers classes on the Atlantic world, European history, Native American Studies, and religious history. She earned her doctorate in history from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her first book Women, Reform, and Community in Early Modern England: Katherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk, and Lincolnshire’s Godly Aristocracy 1519-1580, examines how Willoughby, her friends, and family responded to religious change in sixteenth-century England. Dr. Harkrider’s current research studies Cherokee responses to Christianity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Her project focuses on Cherokee language hymns and the ways these texts reflected Cherokee culture and belief in this period. She is the wife of Curtis and mother of Ethan, whose experiences as enrolled citizens of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma helped shape her current research and teaching commitments.
Wheaton College students are saying;
“Dr. Harkrider consistently advocates for students to consider the perspectives of our neighbors and those who are marginalized, and learn from those whose opinions we might otherwise dismiss.”
The 2023 Rodney K. Sisco Diversity Student’s Choice Award Staff Honoree
Stephen Cartwright serves Wheaton College as the Assistant Director of Residence Life, and the Residence Director of Fischer Hall. He served in Residence Life throughout much of college and seminary, and values the unique opportunities it presents to encourage, challenge, and develop one another. Stephen also serves as a minister at New Generation Church in Oak Lawn, IL. When not in Fischer, he can likely be found preaching, hosting his podcast, playing basketball, reading, having theological conversations, or laughing at random nonsense. Stephen majored in Business Management at Trinity International University, and just after graduating with his bachelors, he decided to pursue a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. His prayer is that Wheaton would be a place of piety and practice. A place that edifies students, staff, and faculty, and glorifies the Risen Christ. A place where the love of Christ is embodied by the ways in which we live out the Good News. A place where individuals are seen, known, valued, and are compelled to help others feel the same.
Wheaton College students are saying;
“Steve is years wiser than I am, and still, he asks for my opinions and wants to learn from me. I think that Steve deserves to be recognized for the wonderful ally, mentor, and friend that he is.”