Major Gift, Partnership Announced between Fellowship in Prayer, HIU

Fellowship in Prayer, a pioneer in interfaith, peace and social justice movements, has pledged a major gift to Hartford International University to support the Master of Arts in International Peacebuilding (MAP) program.

The gift will provide $200,000 over the next four years to give students financial support through the establishment of a “Sacred Journey Student Resource Fund.” These resources will provide each student up to $5,000 per year for living expenses, including housing, food, healthcare, books, and educational supplies. This major gift comes after Fellowship in Prayer has donated $75,000 over the past three years to HIU.

The gift will also continue the Ephraim Isaac Peace Prize, which recognizes graduates of the Peacebuilding program. These awards have been made for the past three years. The prize recognizes students for their capstone projects and offers a significant financial award for several graduates. Dr. Isaac, an internationally known Ethiopian scholar, teacher, peace activist, and Fellowship board member, visits HIU annually to guest lecture in classes and work directly with its peacebuilding students, sharing his expertise and wisdom while building community.

The partnership with Fellowship extends beyond just funding. In 2024, HIU and Fellowship entered an agreement for Hartford to receive and care for all archivable material from Fellowship’s long and distinguished history. This material will include all copies of more than 500 issues of Sacred Journey, a publication that began in the 1950s. The HIU library staff will provide the leadership and skills to have all journals digitized and made available to individuals, practitioners and researchers.

“The decision to increase and extend the partnership and the financial support is based on the joy and confidence we have in President Joel Lohr and the Hartford International University community,” said David Newton, Chair of the Fellowship Board. “Our partnership is not about paper and things past but rather a living legacy that honors the important work of Fellowship by celebrating the future of Hartford.”

HIU’s MA in International Peacebuilding program is an intensive one-year, residential, 36-credit, master’s degree program where students develop interreligious literacy and acquire constructive conflict intervention skills through a combination of service-learning, traditional courses, experiential courses, and project-based learning. Many of its students receive full scholarships and live in interfaith housing on campus. Donations such as those made by Fellowship are essential in sustaining the program each year as over half of the program costs are funded directly by donors.

“It’s hard to imagine a more important program than HIU’s MAP degree,” said President Lohr, “and Fellowship in Prayer’s increased commitment affirms this powerfully. More importantly, our unique partnership, enabling the sacred journeys of promising peacebuilders, gives me, as well as our board and our larger university community, immense hope. These are the gifts that keep on giving and bless the world.”