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Rising junior wins ministry fellowship

Caitlin Scott ´10

June 23, 2008

When she was a child, Caitlin Scott ´10 felt like she loved the world too much. She saw so much good in people just waiting to burst out.

Almost as soon as she could write, Scott was writing about her faith. A page in her elementary school diary reads simply: "I love God."

Later, Scott was picked on for being overweight. She found comfort in the knowledge that a higher being loved her unconditionally.

"It´s very liberating," she said. "It´s a feeling that God in general offers people. Freedom from fear. Freedom from pressure to be something you aren´t."

It is a feeling Scott says she wants to share with others, especially children.

"Faith calls you to actually be who you are," she says. "And the best way to give to the world is to just be who you should be."

Scott, a rising junior at Connecticut College, was selected to receive a 2008 Fund for Theological Education (FTE) Undergraduate Fellowship, which recognizes students with a gift for leadership who are considering ministry as a vocation.

As an FTE fellow, Scott will receive $2,000 for tuition and other educational expenses for a self-designed experience related to ministry. She also attended the 2008 FTE Conference on Excellence in Ministry at Emory University´s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta. Scott was selected to receive the fellowship by a national committee of theological educators and church leaders from a pool of applicants across the U.S. and Canada.

The Rev. Claudia A. Highbaugh, dean of religious and spiritual life at Connecticut College, nominated Scott for the fellowship. Highbaugh said that Scott, who is considering the Episcopalian priesthood, seeks out people of all faiths and believes in ministering to the wider world rather than to a single congregation.

"She is growing into a wonderful young woman," said Highbaugh. "She knows who she wants to be. Her understanding of ministry is very broad."

Since she was 14 years old, Scott says she had a feeling that she had been called to perform some kind of ministry.

"The more I study religion," Scott said, "the more I feel that we´re all trying to get at this one thing and really articulating it differently."

As a teenager, Scott volunteered with a youth ministry out of Massachusetts to build a church in a community in Honduras. It was a simple cinder block structure but Scott said the lessons she learned there were not inside the church. Scott was struck by the way the community pulled together and managed to maintain their faith in God amid homelessness, poverty and unemployment.

Recently, Scott - who is enrolled in the college´s Certificate Program in Community Action - was the sole Connecticut College student on a trip that brought 28 college students to Israel to learn about both sides of the conflict. There, Scott stayed with a family of Palestinian Christians.

"I saw a lot to give me hope. It is still a land that is full of meaning for many people. It should never be far from our consciousness," she said.

Scott said her experiences at Connecticut College have helped her to gain a broader understanding of world religions and a need to engage in interfaith dialogue.

"I´m a Christian," she said. "But I also consider myself a little bit of a Buddhist as well, and I try to integrate those practices into my faith, as far as meditation and awareness."

- By Julie Wernau

For more information contact: Amy Martin (860) 439-2526; a.martin@conncoll.edu