Elmhurst University sophomore Emerson Azcoitia was recently selected to join the national student leadership team of the World Student Christian Federation-U.S., an ecumenical, global federation of student Christian groups.
This year, the student leadership team will meet regularly to build a community with one another; develop partnerships with student Christian movements in other countries; and plan, organize and lead the federation’s Fall 2023 National Student Conference, which will be held at Elmhurst University.
The World Student Christian Federation, or WSCF, welcomes people from all Christian traditions and encourages dialogue between students of different traditions. Members come from Protestant, Orthodox, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions, and from other faiths.
Azcoitia was named to the student leadership team after attending last fall’s WSCF-US conference at Princeton University.
“WSCF has given me the opportunity to meet people that I would have never connected with without the conference, and I am eager to build that space of support, conversation, and education for more students this year,” said Azcoitia, who is studying elementary education with a double minor in special education and dance education. “I am excited to work with amazing individuals from all over the country as we work toward imagining what truly inclusive Christianity is and how our roles in this world impact systems around us.”
Elmhurst University was founded in 1871 by the German Evangelical Synod of the Northwest, a predecessor of the United Church of Christ. The church’s core values of open engagement and social justice have guided Elmhurst’s values ever since. Azcoitia joins a long line of Elmhurst students and alumni who have helped to build national and worldwide student Christian movements, said Chaplain H. Scott Matheney. Notably, he said, Reinhold Niebuhr ’10 traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, in 1946 to rebuild worldwide student movements after World War II.
Established at Cornell University in 1895, the WSCF has been building young leaders for lives of service, faithful intellectual rigor, and movements of social change in the U.S. and around the world. As a federation of student movements, the WSCF encourages a culture of democracy to mobilize youth to become proactive in society, promoting positive change through dialogue and action between different traditions and cultures.