Two years after University of Portland joined the Lilly Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities, two faculty members are the first on the UP campus to be awarded Lilly Faculty Fellowships.
Rachel Hutcheson, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and David Turnbloom, associate professor of theology, will participate in a two-year Lilly Faculty Fellows Program, which includes four conferences in Indianapolis and Chicago. They will also receive $8,000 in start-up funds to inaugurate a Lilly Faculty Fellows Program at the University.
The Fellows Program provides opportunities for mid-career faculty to engage in conversation with other academic leaders to study the intersection of Christian thought and practice. As members of the 2023-25 Faculty Fellows Cohort, Hutcheson and Turnbloom will explore faith formation in the context of academia.
Turnbloom, a UP faculty member since 2015 specializing in liturgical and sacramental theology, traces his study of faith formation to early Christians—who held that daily activities shaped their beliefs and moral values.
“Institutions of higher education can benefit from paying closer attention to our academic habits of our bodies, our teaching rituals,” Turnbloom says. “The Lilly Faculty Fellows program will feed my hunger for sustained conversation about the role academic pedagogy in the formation of faith.”
Hutcheson, who joined UP’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in 2015, approaches the Fellows Program from a lifelong scientist’s perspective of “looking with wonder and awe at the complexity of and the connection between living things.”
“My desire is to help create a community that seeks to develop pedagogies to support faculty, staff and students on their own journey of faith formation,” Hutcheson says.
University Interim Provost Elise Moentmann serves as one of three campus liaisons for the Lilly Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities.
“I am so pleased Hutcheson and Turnbloom are able to take advantage of our recent alliance with the Lilly Network to further the University mission,” Moentmann says. “I am especially excited by the interdisciplinary partnership between a scientist and a theologian.”
Founded in 1991, the Lilly Fellows Program seeks to strengthen the quality and shape the character of church-related institutions of higher learning through the Faculty Fellows Program, postdoctoral teaching fellowships, and support for graduate students exploring vocations in church-related higher education. The Lilly Fellows Program is based at Christ College, the interdisciplinary honors college of Valparaiso University in Northwest Indiana.
David Turnbloom, theology, has been announced as the recipient of the Arnold L. and Lois S. Graves Award in the Humanities. Administered by Pomona College under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Graves Award is awarded every two years to humanities professors in their first decade of teaching who demonstrate unusual skill and enthusiasm as teachers and who can show that their projects will enhance their ability in the classroom.
In this 10-minute 
The next Theology Thursday lecture will feature David Turnbloom, theology, as he presents “Sacramental Justice and the Mission of Holy Cross” on Thursday, September 19, at 7:15 p.m., in Franz Hall room 120. Turnbloom will examine the relationship between sacraments and justice using the constitution of the Congregation of Holy Cross as a guide.
Dundon-Berchtold fellows David Turnbloom, theology, and student Jonathan Wiley will present “Formed in the Dirt: The Ritual of Archaeology” on Tuesday, January 30, at 7:15 p.m., in the Bauccio Commons Terrace Room. Turnbloom and Wiley will discuss whether scientific research is a ritual, what effects research and ritual have on those who practice them, and their roles in the mission of the University of Portland. The talk is sponsored by the Dundon-Berchtold Institute and the UP Pollentia undergraduate research expedition.