Living and learning together: Four years as Earlham College roommates

Christine Deena John ‘26 and Ashley Jennings ‘26 grew up worlds apart, but because they both ended up at Earlham, their paths crossed in a major way.

John found Earlham on a list of Davis United World College Scholars partner schools while she was attending United World College Japan. While she’d not heard of Earlham before, the opportunity to major in Peace and Global Studies (PAGS) was an important draw.

“I wanted to work in conflict resolution at the global level, which led me to peace studies,” John says. “I looked at the curriculum that Earlham offered, and it was super diverse and comprehensive. The big international community at a small school attracted me to it further.”

Jennings was far closer to Earlham when growing up, about half an hour’s drive away in Winchester, Indiana. Earlham’s reputation, intimate size, and closeness to home combined with Jennings’s pre-med aspirations to become a great fit.

The two of them found each other through a roommate-matching application; John and Jennings bonded over shared love of Taylor Swift’s music and found they had similar preferences for roommate life in their initial phone call. They committed to that first year together and have been pleasantly surprised by how deep the roommate bond carried them through all four years of living together.

“We’ve been through the ups and downs of college life together. It’s crazy because when you meet a stranger as a potential roommate, you hope to find a good roommate, but very rarely does that turn into finding a best friend,” says John. “Someone you can spend time with, unwind together, come back from a stressful day, and just share things, navigate four years of life together.  I consider this a big blessing.”

John will indeed graduate with a degree in PAGS but also a second degree in business when she participates in commencement in May. Jennings is completing her biochemistry degree with a pre-med focus, while earning minors in public health and psychology. Amusingly, they’ve never had a class together. 

John’s extracurricular involvement has been in Earlham Student Government, Gospel Revs, Dance Alloy, the South Asian Student Association, and Earlham Christian Fellowship, as well as serving as a teaching assistant for multiple courses and a summer counselor during Earlham Summer. Jennings has played clarinet in the College’s Orchestra, participated actively in the Center for Global Health, serving as the student coordinator for the health externship program and participating in the community health and medicine practicum. 

“Between the two of us, we’ve done almost everything,” Jennings jokes.

Despite their diverse interests, studying and spending time together has allowed them each to gain insight into the other person’s interests and widen their own knowledge.

“It’s a big part of the liberal arts experience, getting to talk to so many people of so many different backgrounds and majors to learn from them,” says Jennings. 

They each have exciting plans for the coming years: Jennings intends to take a gap year while applying to med schools. While she is open to a variety of potential schools, Jennings hopes to address the shortage of physicians serving rural areas. She’d like to practice in Winchester or nearby. 

John is waiting to hear back from a graduate program that would bring her back to Japan to study social governance at Waseda University in Tokyo. She also hopes to focus on several personal projects, such as establishing the Richmond Neighbors Nook with she started with her friend, Jimmy Freiberger ’26. She also intends to continue her marketing and fundraising work with Brooshal Sports Academy, the first all-girls soccer academy she and her friends helped establish in Yasin Valley of Gilgit-Baltistan, Northern Pakistan, to combat gender inequality by providing young women with access to high-quality soccer training, summer camps, and life-skills mentorship. Through it all, she plans to put her skills and experiences to use in a long-term career in conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction.

The friendship they’ve built will be part of what they carry away from Earlham as they go off to have a positive impact on the wider world, near and far.

Story written by Laura Leavitt for the Earlham College Office of Marketing and Communications.

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About Earlham College 

Earlham College and Earlham School of Religion foster a collaborative learning community that inspires and motivates students with transformative opportunities and experiences so they can become catalysts for good in a changing world. Located in Richmond, Indiana, Earlham is one of U.S. News & World Report’s Top 100 national liberal arts colleges and offers one of the top 20 classroom experiences in the nation, according to the Princeton Review.