Meet the class of 2016

One of the first students from Malaysia to graduate from Messiah, Bryan Leong ’16 sought out many opportunities to make the most of his College experience—even if that meant occasionally leaving the Grantham campus to hop over an ocean or two.

China. Spain. Italy. South Africa. For a boy who arrived in the U.S. from Peru at the age of 8, Jeffrey Stiles ’16 made the most of Messiah’s education abroad opportunities while double majoring in Chinese and politics with a concentration in international relations. He also happens to have a minor in Spanish.

When Hanna Lazio ’16 was named valedictorian of her high school class of 800+ in Patchogue, New York, she applied to 14 colleges—many of them Ivy League—but the only Christian one of the group was Messiah. Although she had applied as an engineer everywhere else, she knew Messiah had a great nursing program.

When Naomi Henry ’16 was visiting colleges as a high school student, she wanted a place that felt like home. Her mother urged her to visit Messiah, just two hours from their hometown of Philadelphia.

“The faculty was so much more welcoming than all of the other colleges where I auditioned,” said Henry, a music major with a minor in pre-counseling and therapy.

It’s tough to find someone more passionate about urban housing policy than Christina McIntyre ’16, a double major in politics and sustainability studies with a concentration in community and urban development.

“We need to reform the structures that perpetuate the barriers,” she explained. “Place shouldn’t determine the opportunities someone can have.

Finding her way to Messiah was a smooth journey for Esther Miller ’16. As a Lancaster high school student researching which colleges offered peace and conflict as a major, her brother—who was already a student at Messiah—informed her, “They have that at my school.”