The Office of Church Engagement (OCE) welcomed the new Assistant Director of the Fellowship Program, Allison Maus, during the Jan term. However, she is not a new face to the Whitworth community.  

“I graduated from Whitworth in 2013,” said Maus. “I was a biology major and got my Bachelor of Science in biology.”  

During this time, she worked as a Campus Ministry Coordinator. After her bachelor’s degree, she came back to Whitworth to earn her master’s in theology. She later earned her Master of Divinity at Princeton Seminary in New Jersey. 

After completing her education, she served at a Presbyterian church as an associate pastor, working with Pennsylvania State students for six years. She came back to Whitworth to take on the role of assistant director on Jan. 16.  

“I specifically work with the Summer Fellowship Program, which places students in different churches, nonprofit, ministry internships of sorts throughout the country,” said Maus.  

She works with a team of students to recruit organizations and churches that want to partner with students to explore what life and ministry look like in different settings. Maus said she also enjoys conducting interviews with students interested in becoming fellows and hearing their stories about their faith journeys. 

“[I get to] see their little nuggets of passion and pull them out and pair them with different sites that are doing really cool things,” said Maus. “To kind of dream alongside students: what could come from this? What good, transformative thing might be waiting with them within a fellowship?” 

One of the students Maus works with is Ashley Crawford, an ambassador for the Fellowship Program.  

“I am so thankful that we have Allison,” said Crawford. “She has been such a joy in the past few weeks of here starting here at Whitworth, she just beings such a light.”  

Maus said she is also grateful for the ambassadors and the OCE because they have been helpful as she has settled into her new role. Although Maus has experience with ministry on campus, she is newer to the fellowship program since it has only been around for 10 years, according to Maus.  

She has been working alongside the ambassadors, who have all completed a fellowship before, to learn about this program. But she also hopes to bring her own “personal flavor” to the program as well. 

“I’m an ordained minister,” said Maus. “I bring in a pastoral care and thoughtfulness that I hope will bring some depth to the program that already has so much depth and rootedness.”  

Crawford is looking forward to seeing what else Maus will bring to the program. 

“She cares about you as a person, so I’m excited for to connect with each of the students in the program,” said Crawford. 

Maus has already been connecting with students through their shared experiences of being Whitworth students.  

“It’s fun getting to talk with her about some of our experiences,” said Crawford. “How she was a Whitworth student, what that compares to now… and her desire to come back and continue to pour into it in a new way.”