Meet the 2021 Scholarship Awardees!

The awardees of the 2021 Lucile Murray Durkin Scholarship

The Women’s Ordination Conference and the Durkin-Dierks Family are happy to announce the awardees of the 2021 Lucile Murray Durkin Scholarship:

Tammy Fuqua
Susan Russell
Jemma Suwa
Meredith Toussaint

Please join us in celebrating the courage and resilience of Tammy, Susan, Jemma, and Meredith, who walk a prophetic path toward equality. We challenge our Church to open its doors to truly listen to their voices and learn from their experiences. God is calling them to lead!

Donate to support the scholarship fund

Meet the 2021 Recipients

Tammy
Fuqua

Susan
Russell

Jemma
Suwa

Meredith Toussaint

Tammy Fuqua

Tammy felt the calling to ministry the moment she walked into her home church of Saint Matthew Ecumenical Catholic Church in Orange, California and saw a woman priest at the altar. After going through an inquiry class shortly after joining the church in 2002, she was baptized, confirmed, and received communion at an Easter Vigil. Tammy then got to work in every ministry she could at the small church – usher, Eucharistic minister, youth minister, altar server, and sacristan, were just a few of the roles she immersed herself in. Within a few years she began to have a deeper calling and asked if she could become a deacon. The pastor, Bp. Peter Hickman, convinced Tammy to go back to school and pursue her education. With this, she completed her undergrad work with honors at California State University, Fullerton with a Bachelor of Science degree in Human Service with an emphasis in mental health and administration. She then attended the St. Cyprian School of Theology and received her theology studies in preparation for ordination. Tammy was ordained a deacon on January 5, 2020.

Shortly after being ordained, the pandemic hit. Tammy’s dedication and service to her beloved community increased immensely. From teaching members how to use Zoom to video taping masses to keep the community spiritually fed during a time of quarantine, she was there. She joined the pastoral team, a group of advisors to the bishop, to keep the church running during this difficult period.

Her calling has not ended. Tammy is now enrolled in a graduate program in Pastoral Theology at St. Joseph’s College in Maine. She will finish the program December 2023 and walk with her class in May 2024. Upon completion of this program, she will pursue ordination to the priesthood. She would also like to work with men and women either in prison or transitioning into life after prison. Another passion she would like to more fully pursue after finishing school is her continued work with social justice issues, particularly homelessness and domestic violence.

Tammy would like to express her sincere gratitude to the Women’s Ordination Conference and the Durkin-Dierks family for selecting her as a recipient of the Lucile Murray Durkin Scholarship. She is incredibly humbled to have been chosen for this grant knowing the committee could have chosen other ways of distributing the funds.
She would also like to thank them for their efforts and continued support in encouraging higher education for women seeking ordination. Your kindness and generosity are greatly appreciated.

Susan Russell

Susan Russell is currently living in Medina Ohio with her 3-year-old black Labrador Retriever, Joey. She will continue her Master’s in Theology at John Carroll University this fall. Last semester, she completed a research paper on theologian, John J. McNeill, exploring the concepts he presented to facilitate change in LGBTQ policies with his 1976 book, The Church and the Homosexual. Her two main research interests include LGBTQ treatment and the ordination of women in the Catholic church.

Susan, her brother, and three sisters were raised in Medina OH by her parents, who instilled Christian values. Their mother was raised in the Church of Christ and their father was raised Catholic and attended Catholic elementary and high school and spent several weeks in the seminary, before deciding against becoming a priest. She has one adult daughter, who is married with three daughters.

Susan is an independently licensed social worker and chemical dependency counselor in private practice with Cornerstone Psychological and Counseling Services LLC in Medina. She is in the process of becoming certified to work with nonbinary and transgender individuals through the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). She made this decision after losing a client to suicide and learning about the high rate of suicide and violence against transgender individuals.

Susan has been active in music ministry at several parishes, served as Eucharistic minister, provided Eucharist for persons in nursing homes, and also presided at Eucharistic services when the priest was unavailable. She also briefly led a grief group for parishioners who had lost their spouse. She has also been a volunteer in youth ministry.

Susan is currently attending virtual services with Living Beatitudes Community in Dayton OH, which is a ministry of Dignity Dayton. She chose this community due to their open welcome to LGBTQ individuals. Susan believes the Catholic church should be a place where all are truly welcome and desires to become a trusted ally. Susan is honored to be selected for the Lucile Murray Durkin Scholarship, and is grateful for the generosity of the Durkin Dierks family. She will do her best to honor the family and their gift through scrupulous scholarship.

Jemma Suwa

Jemma Suwa was born and raised in Nigeria, and has now lived in the United States for about a decade. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Communication, Master’s degree in Professional Media, and is currently enrolled in a dual degree program at Vanderbilt University – Divinity & Community Development. Jemma is committed to continuing to explore ministry at the intersection of her deepest passions – congregational ministry, community development, and storytelling/video production. She describes her sense of the call to ministry as a “deep knowing” that has endured in her heart for as long as she can remember; one that she has wholeheartedly
embraced at times, and then wrestled with at other times.

Jemma’s faith is an integral part of her life and sense of self. Her faith principles have always framed her view of the world and her decision-making. In the last six years, she has opened herself up to new paths, perspectives, relationships, and questions that have challenged and
expanded her view and practice of faith and spirituality in big ways. She is excited about the possibilities of encountering God in the most unexpected situations, blurring the strict binaries of what is considered sacred versus mundane, and embracing the in-between & both/and spaces.

Being raised in the home of two ordained ministers comes with certain expectations that can be both empowering and constricting. So, it has been liberating to embrace new and different ways of engaging with the divine and her community; assessing what is helpful to continue to hold on to from previous knowledge and what to let go of. She cherishes the experience of journeying with folks on the journey of opening up their imagination and understanding of the divine, community, and what is possible in the world when we come together in unity.

There are a number of areas that inspire Jemma’s ministry, including a passion for interfaith dialogue and collaboration, envisioning church outside of the 4 walls, pastoral care, issues of identity, home, and belonging; contemplative spiritual practices, amplifying the voices of
women, working for equity and justice, decoloniality, and pan Africanism, among others. She currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee, and has just begun the ordination process in the Tennessee region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Jemma is involved with local organizations that are organizing for social change, and recently accepted a position on her campus that will allow her to facilitate interfaith conversations on questions of identity, place, and purpose.

Jemma enjoys dancing, movies, long walks, journaling, listening to music and podcasts, and talking about her nephews and niece.

Meredith Toussaint

Meredith Toussaint is a recent high school graduate who will begin her first year at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota this fall. She looks forward to learning more and combining her passion for her faith with her desire for change and equality in the Catholic Church.

Meredith and her older sister were raised in Decorah, Iowa, in a devout Catholic family. She attended a Catholic school until eighth grade, and was deeply immersed in the faith tradition. Throughout elementary school, she served at Mass countless times, and fell in love with the pattern and the beauty of the liturgy. Hearing songs like “Table of Plenty,” she loved the vision of everyone coming to “the feast of heaven and earth.” Before she was old enough to even put it into words, she was inspired by the Catholic ideals of justice and care for others, and the conviction that God is always present. She comes from a long line of empowered women who were not afraid to stand up for themselves, who worked to break down barriers that stand in the way of women rising to their full potential, and who instilled in her the courage to never settle for what women have been told they are allowed to do.

During her senior year of high school, when she was unable to attend Mass because of the pandemic, Meredith helped her family and members of her community find creative ways to worship God, which led her to seriously question the church’s ban on women’s ordination.

Throughout the year, she found a passion for women’s ordination justice in the Catholic church. She began to question the church’s teaching that women are not fit to be priests, began to care deeply about this cause, and was then connected with the Women’s Ordination conference, an organization that gave her hope for the future of the church.

Meredith is excited for her future at St. Catherine University and beyond, and will continue to advocate for justice in the church for as long as it takes. She dreams of a church where all are welcome, of a priesthood that includes all priestly people, no matter their gender, and of a radical faith, where the final word is love. She prays that the church will embrace justice and equality, and be a place where all really are welcome, but knows that this is not possible unless all are welcome to lead. Meredith is honored to receive this scholarship and is so grateful for the Durkin Dierks family’s generosity.