Welling Hall served as the Friend in Residence at FCNL. Her perspective as a longtime Quaker educator and civil servant is useful in strengthening FCNL’s educational outreach.
She comes to FCNL as a member of West Richmond (Indiana) Friends Meeting, and the New Association of Friends. As a Friend and a political scientist, she has a long-standing passion for Quaker pedagogy and the faith-basis of Quaker lobbying in the public interest. Welling has a variety of assignments at FCNL reflecting her many talents and experiences. She is working with Strategic Advocacy and Field staff to deepen curricular connections to the Spring Lobby Weekend and the Quaker Public Policy Institute. She is engaging staff in discussions about moral communication and understanding how FCNL’s messages can reach across the political spectrum. As a visual artist with a practice focused on eliciting emotional responses to gun violence, Welling will also give an artist’s talk on the role of faith and the arts in beating swords into plowshares.
Dr. Hall has 30 years’ experience research and teaching in the areas of international public law and organization, civic engagement, and social justice and peacebuilding. Her Ph.D. in Political Science is from The Ohio State University and B.A. from Oberlin in Ancient Greek and History. Dr. Hall served as Documents Editor of the Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace (2011), edited the Peace, Justice, and Security Studies Curriculum Guide (2009), and won a McKinley Award for one of the first online publications of scholarly conference proceedings with Women, Politics, and Environmental Action (1994). Her work has also appeared in journals such as International Studies Perspectives, the ISA Compendium, the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, PS, POLIS, Alternatives, the Journal of Peace Research, and Political Psychology.
Welling has been the recipient of grants and awards from Phi Beta Kappa, Dobro Slovo, Title VI, the Ford Foundation, Arms Control Association, Academic Council for UN Studies, Fulbright, and the Great Lakes College Association. She serves as a charter member of the American Political Science Association’s Distinguished Teaching Award. As Plowshares Professor of Peace Studies at Earlham (1987-2018), she inspired generations of college students to pursue careers in international diplomacy, national politics, and both human rights and humanitarian NGOs.
Outside the academy, Welling has been active in the public policy community. As a nuclear freeze activist, she was instrumental in creating the Reverse the Arms Race Federation of Ohio. She has served as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow, working as a legislative assistant to Congressman Keith Ellison. As a Franklin Fellow at the US Department of State, she helped to stand up the Department’s new museum, providing guidance on the design and development of exhibits, advising on USDC education programs, and creating educational outreach materials to better tell the story of U.S. diplomacy to the public at home and abroad.
Dr. Hall has also served on numerous Quaker boards and committees, including the FCNL Policy Committee and the Quaker United Nations Committee. She feels lucky to kick off a new episode in her life by bringing many strands of vocation together in this Washington adventure.