Mary Henold, who will receive her doctorate in American history from the University of Rochester in May, has been named a Lilly Fellow in the Humanities and the Arts at Valparaiso University in Indiana. She will begin a two-year term of teaching and research at the school this fall.
After receiving her bachelor's degree in history and English and a certificate in women's studies from the University of Detroit Mercy in 1996, Henold served for a year in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, which places volunteers with grassroots organizations working with low-income people.
While a graduate student at the University of Rochester, Henold taught an American women's history survey course and in the College Writing Program. She also was a Writing Across the Disciplines Fellow and last year received a fellowship from the Louisville Institute for the Study of American Religion.
Henold's dissertation, "Gospel Feminism: Faith and Ambivalence in the American Catholic Feminist Movement, 1963-1980," will be the subject of her presentation to the American Society of Church History conference in Louisville this May. She also presented papers on American Catholic feminism at the 2002 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women and at the American Catholic Historical Association conference in January of this year.
Her advisor is associate professor Lynn Gordon, who has a joint appointment in the Department of History and in the Margaret Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development. Henold also will receive a graduate certificate in women's studies from the University of Rochester.
The Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts provides postdoctoral fellowships to prepare for leadership roles in teaching in institutions of church-related higher education. Henold, who was one of three teacher-scholars to be named a Lilly Fellow at Valparaiso, will be teaching an American history survey course, a course on contemporary America, and a seminar on faith and feminism in America.