Join a full-tuition scholarship cohort designed for Marion campus students who want to grow as intercultural leaders and make a difference in their communities.
Through the Luther Lee Scholars program, you’ll learn alongside students, faculty, and staff while engaging in meaningful dialogue and experiences shaped by scholarship, leadership, reconciliation and justice, and life calling.
Luther Lee was an abolitionist minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church who left that denomination in the 1840s for its refusal to take a firm stand against slavery. From this dispute over slavery, Lee and other abolitionists eventually helped bring into existence a new denomination - the Wesleyan Church. The Wesleyans of the nineteenth century sought to reform society by pursuing social holiness.
For Luther Lee and the early Wesleyans, social holiness meant not only condemning racial slavery in the United States, but also supporting women’s rights. In fact, the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848--the first conference on women’s rights in the United States--took place in a Wesleyan Church. And when Antionette Brown became the first woman ordained by a denomination to preach in America, the Wesleyan Luther Lee gave the sermon at her ordination service.
The pursuit of social holiness also informed the way early Wesleyans treated the poor. At a time when many churches reserved the best seats in their sanctuaries to those who could pay, the Wesleyans opened all their pews to anyone who came through their doors. Meanwhile, Luther Lee and the other early Wesleyans also rejected the adornment of riches, choosing instead to live and dress simply so as not to ostracize the poor with displays of wealth.
John Wesley once said that there is no holiness but social holiness and these early founders of the Wesleyan church—men and women like Luther Lee—took this idea to heart and tried as best they could to live it out. We are pleased to name this scholarship in honor of Luther Lee and are eager to help equip Luther Lee Scholars to carry forward the work of Christ-centered justice and reconciliation around issues of race, class, and gender that their namesake started more than a century ago.
Scholarship
Leadership
Reconciliation & Justice
Life Calling
The Luther Lee Scholars experience combines academic learning, leadership development, and intercultural growth through a partnership between the John Wesley Honors College and the Intercultural & Global Office.
Students participate in experiences that include:
Luther Lee Scholars receive a full-tuition scholarship that is:
Apply to Indiana Wesleyan by January 15
RSVP to the Luther Lee Scholars Interview Day
Luther Lee Scholars is open to Marion Campus students who have a passion to pursue racial and economic justice, meet the academic requirements listed below for the JWHC, and are a U.S. Citizen or eligible non-citizen defined by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
Additionally, an eligible student must meet one of the following criteria:
Neither parent has attended or completed a college degree.
Eligible to receive a Federal Pell Grant.
Contributes to the diversity of the campus community through unique experiences, background, geographic location, socioeconomic status, or personal challenges.
Interested students must meet one of the eligibility requirements mentioned above, plus the following academic requirements:
We are looking for students who are passionate about the work of reconciliation and justice.
Students who do not meet one of the requirements but are interested in applying should write a letter of petition and communicate: academic preparation, intellectual character, vocational objectives and reasons for interest.
Send your letter of petition via email to jwhc.admissions@indwes.edu.
Our team is here to help you understand what it means to be a Luther Lee Scholar. Reach out anytime!
