Pitts is excited to announce that this year’s recipient of the Pitts Theology Library Student Research Award is graduating MDiv student Emily-Elizabeth Castelloe. This award was based on Castelloe’s MDiv thesis, “Christians in the Making: Childhood Education for Conversion, Profession, and Membership in the Early American Methodist Movement (1738-1864).” The work explores written expressions of early American Methodist theology and the resulting liturgical practice around initiation and participation of children in the church. Castelloe’s scholarship draws heavily on the works of the early founders of the Methodist church, in both England and America, many of which are rare and have often gone unexplored by generations of scholars and students.

As part of this award, each year Pitts names an item from its world-renowned rare book collection in honor of the recipient. This item is selected by the library director, in consideration of the student’s research work and vocational interests. This year, Pitts has named its first edition of an important work from F. G. Hibbard (1811-1895), Christian Baptism: Its Mode, Obligation, Import, and Relative Order, printed in New York in 1841, in honor of Castelloe. In her thesis, Castelloe notes that Hibbard’s work “became the authoritative standard concerning the role of Christian nurture toward faith in the Methodist Episcopal Church” (Castelloe, 23). She uses this work to characterize how 19^th century theological positions translated into liturgy and the education of children.

The Pitts Theology Library Research Award, established in 2021, is given annually to a Candler student who demonstrates creativity in research, maturity in theological thought, and excellence in using library resources to mount an argument, all demonstrated through a submitted research project. Applicants submit a single research paper or project, which should be a work completed for Candler coursework in the current academic year. Submissions are judged blindly by a Pitts committee, and the award is announced at the Candler Honors Day Ceremony. For more details, visit https://pitts.emory.edu/about/researchaward/.

Pitts is committed to supporting student research, not only by providing the resources necessary for research, but also the instruction and reference services to support students, as well as opportunities to generate original research based on its collections. We congratulate Emily-Elizabeth on this remarkable project and a stellar career at Candler, and we look forward to watching her success in future endeavors.