Center for Urban Engagement (CUE)

Director: Dr. Noah Toly ’99, M.A. ’12, professor of politics & international relations

THE WHEATON CENTER FOR URBAN ENGAGEMENT (CUE) hired Jordan Anderson ’14 as the assistant director for community engagement. Anderson will coordinate internships and community engagement in the Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, the new location of the Wheaton in Chicago program.

On January 20, CUE hosted a panel, “Slavery, Salvation and Song: The Reception and Legacy of the Spiritual,” which featured Wheaton faculty Dr. Shawn Okpebholo and Dr. Theon Hill, as well as Dr. Chip Johnson, chief officer of family and community engagement in education for Chicago Public Schools, and Dr. Everett McCorvey, founder and music director of the American Spiritual Ensemble.

Vince Bantu ’05, visiting professor of missiology at Covenant Theological Seminary, visited Wheaton’s campus in January for a day of engaging with students and faculty. During chapel, Dr. Bantu praised the relocation of the Wheaton in Chicago program, and he gave a lecture entitled “Is Christianity a White Man’s Religion?” that evening.

Learn more at wheaton.edu/cue

The Marion E. Wade Center

Interim Director: Marjorie Lamp Mead '74, M.A. '06

THE MARION E. WADE CENTER celebrated a memorable year, including the acquisition of rare materials from Brian ’73, M.A. ’75 and Sally Phillips Oxley ’74; the funding of the Muriel Fuller Endowment for the Imagination and the Arts in memory of Muriel Fuller ’23; the awarding of a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to assess books by C.S. Lewis in need of conservation work (the first NEH grant ever received by Wheaton College); the book launch of President Philip Ryken’s The Messiah Comes to Middle-Earth (IVP Academic 2017) from year one of the Hansen Lectureship series; and the publication of volume 34 of VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center.

This summer, the Wade Center will host “Communicating the Gospel: C.S. Lewis Style,” the biennial conference of the C.S. Lewis Institute, on June 17-20, with Dr. Jerry Root as plenary speaker. On July 1, we welcome Drs. David C. and Crystal Downing as Wade co-directors and co-holders of the Marion E. Wade Chair of Christian Thought.  

Learn more at wheaton.edu/wade

HoneyRock (Outdoor Center for Leadership Development)

Director: Dr. Rob Ribbe '87, M.A. '90, assistant professor of Christian formation and ministry

HONEYROCK (OUTDOOR CENTER FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT) is excited to announce that the Wheaton College Graduate School will launch a new M.A. in Outdoor and Adventure Leadership this fall.

HoneyRock’s Rachael Cyrus ’14, M.A. ’15 and Dr. Rob Ribbe presented nationwide their pioneering research on the impact of working at camp for summer staff. Several graduate students have written and published on aspects of this research, including leadership development and staff training.

HoneyRock’s Graduate Program and Global Initiatives Manager Dr. Muhia Karianjahi M.A. ’13 is proud to serve on The Christian Camping International Worldwide board which has contributed to the development of Christian camping in India and East and West Africa in the past year.

During Homecoming 2019, HoneyRock will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Wheaton Passage program (formerly Freshman High Road or Vanguard).  

Learn more at wheaton.edu/honeyrock

Center for Applied Christian Ethics (CACE)

Director: Dr. Vincent Bacote, associate professor of theology 

CENTER FOR APPLIED CHRISTIAN ETHICS (CACE) theme for the 2017- 2018 school year, Discerning Diversity, invited us to discern the path of Christian moral reflection around the question of ethnic diversity. In March, CACE co-sponsored, with Wheaton's Nineteenth Society, Josef Sorett’s presentation Pluralism, Pentecostalism and the Problem of the Color Line. Josef Sorett is an Associate Professor in the Religion Department and the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University, where he also directs the Center on African- American Religion, Sexual Politics and Social Justice (CARSS). Also in March, Ken Wytsma presented on his book, The Myth of Equality. Ken Wytsma is the founder of The Justice Conference, which has reached over thirty thousand people across seven countries with a message about the theology of justice and God’s call to give our lives away, and the founder of Kilns College, where he teaches courses on philosophy and justice.   

Learn more at wheaton.edu/cace