Student Fellows
Our goal is to equip graduate and professional students to integrate the fullness of their Christian faith with their various academic and professional callings.
The Student Fellows program is a selective, intensive formation experience designed to cultivate Christian disciples in their callings as image bearers and witness bearers. The Student Fellows program runs the length of one academic year and consists of biweekly seminars, retreats and mentoring. As part of the program, students will develop a short integration project or paper.
Living as Followers of Christ and Stewards of the Gospel
About Student Fellows
We pursue these aspirations as a select cohort of Fellows through an essay based curriculum engaged through biweekly seminar style discussions and personal mentoring meetings. There is an opening overnight retreat and a weekend retreat at the end of the spring semester. Fellows also, over the course of the year, will develop a short integration project or paper (3-5 pages) exploring the bearing of their faith upon their discipline (one Fellow’s project explored how the concept of ‘Grace’ might be expressed in architectural design).
Fellows completing the program will have access to an alumni network which offers continuing connection, contact, camaraderie and encouragement as we live out our callings in our various spheres of image bearing and witness bearing.
The Student Fellows program has run for over a decade, was developed and is led by Jon and Anita Hinkson who have been discipling and mentoring Yale students together for three decades.
Programming
Seminars, retreats, mentoring and dinner colloquia comprise the majority of Student Fellows programming. As continuity of curriculum, companionship and conversation within the Fellows cohort is critical, Fellows must be committed to attending all scheduled gatherings. Any additional events offered throughout the year (hikes, second hand bookstore outings, service projects, concerts) are entirely voluntary.
Seminars
Seminars are held biweekly, Thursday evening at Rivendell. Brief (1-2 paragraphs) written responses to curriculum essays (5-10 pages) form the basis of discussions aimed at personal application of principles explored.
Retreats
The Student Fellows program opens in the fall with a seaside overnight retreat that allows Fellows to get acquainted in the lovely setting of woods and water. At the end of spring semester we conclude with a weekend retreat on a picturesque Vermont farm outside historic Woodstock.
Mentoring
Each Student Fellow will have regular opportunity to meet individually with Anita and Jon for encouragement, counsel, prayer and mentorship often on walks or sharing a pot of tea.
Dinner Colloquia
Occasional Dinner Colloquia afford opportunity for Fellows to engage with seasoned disciples who exemplify image bearing and witness bearing within their spheres of influence.
Example Schedule
Opening Retreat
Friday, September 2, 4 p.m. - Saturday, September 3, 12 p.m.
Fall SEMESTER
Thursday Gatherings (7-9 PM)
September 8
September 22
October 6
October 20
November 3
November 17
Spring SEMESTER
Thursday Gatherings (7-9 PM)
January 19
February 2
February 16
March 2
March 30
April 13
Closing Retreat
Friday, April 28, 10 a.m. - Sunday, April 30, 4 p.m.
How to Apply
Jon and Anita will be on sabbatical Fall semester 2023, so the Fellows program will be on hiatus this year. For info on future offerings please contact Jon and Anita.
About Our Directors
Jon Hinkson
Son of itinerant missionaries, Jon grew up moving, some in Africa, mostly in Europe—Vienna, Austria being his home a majority of the pre-university years. After attending Princeton (B.A. History 1985) and graduate studies in Cambridge England (M.Phil. Divinity 1992) Jon with wife Anita (Yale ‘88) settled in New Haven where they have raised their 3 daughters. As an Associate Fellow of the Rivendell Institute Jon’s writing, research and teaching centers on contextualizing Christian faith and practice within the contemporary academy. As Co-Director with Anita of the Student Fellows program Jon provides guidance for those who as believers in the academy find their lives the locus of the need for a healthy integration of vibrant faith and vigorous scholarship.
Anita Hinkson
Since she could talk Anita has always been asking questions. Many of her questions at present relate to her passion to help women navigate the varied and vying pressures of the academy and there experience a flourishing within the totality of life – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. This passion grew out of her own experiences among women as an undergraduate at Yale gathering up conversations on the college fence and intensified within her professional experience in news production for CBS (NYC) and NBC (Europe) with her unofficial role as confidante to many a colleague. Prolonged plaguing of a debilitating autoimmune disease (two decades) coinciding with marriage and motherhood, yielded in certain respects an externally fallow life season but one, when assessed in a sanguine mood, rich in germination internally. It is from this store Anita draws in her capacity as Co-Director of the Rivendell Student Fellows program.
Hear from our Student Fellows
“One thing I really enjoyed was dedicated time to deeply discuss theology and Christian living with other academics across disciplines and life experiences. The curriculum content is fantastic.”
— Amanda Vines, Cell Biology PhD,
Student Fellows Cohort 2018-2019
“This was truly one of the most enriching and fulfilling parts of my Yale experience, and I will remember it for the rest of my life.”
— David Baugham, Yale School of Public Health,
Student Fellows Cohort 2019-2020
“I entered the Fellows program convinced that I would probably have to choose between following God and being a lawyer. I left the program with a deep certainty that I must follow God first and always—and that, in doing so, He will use all of me, including my work in the law….Life changing!”
— Rebecca Lewis, Yale School of Law,
Student Fellows Cohort 2019-2020
“The Fellows program changed the way I think. And it changed the way I love.”
— Daniel Bondeson, Molecular Biology PhD,
Student Fellows Cohort 2015-2016
Learn more about the Student Fellows Program
Interested in supporting the Student Fellows Program?
Your financial contribution provides hospitality and supplies for our seminars, retreats, and mentoring meetings, allows us to host engaging colloquia speakers, and helps us to cover our administrative and operating expenses.
Check donations should be made out to the Rivendell Institute. Please write “Student Fellows” in the memo line so that we know how to designate your support. Donations can be mailed to:
Rivendell Institute
291 Edwards St.
New Haven, CT 06511
For questions about donations or for a copy of our 501(c)3 status, please email info@rivendellinstitute.org.