On the last Sunday before graduation, ministers who are alumni of Spelman College held their hands up to their computer screens from their respective homes across the country. They were participating in a virtual laying on of hands ceremony for the historically Black college’s senior class. They read blessings they had written for the graduates and a student involved in the campus chapel shared a reflection.
“It was just an outpouring of spirit, an outpouring of love,” said Rev. Dr. Neichelle Guidry, dean of the chapel at Spelman College. “By the time it was over, I was ugly crying. There wasn’t a dry eye on the Zoom call.”
When classes pivoted online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, so did chaplaincy, and campus faith leaders have been getting creative to continue remotely supporting their diverse student communities.
It hasn’t been easy. Yale University Chaplain Sharon Kugler said chaplains from her campus spent a total of 175 hours virtually meeting with students the first week back from spring break.
“It kind of blew up,” she said. “The volume really swelled.”
Buddhist meditation classes drew larger online crowds. Alumni joined students’ weekly interfaith dinners on Zoom. The Muslim chaplain’s halaqa, or study group, “probably tripled in size” online.
And chaplains aren’t just running online events and counseling students virtually. As the founder and executive director of Convergence, an organization that promotes religious diversity in higher education, Dr. J. Cody Nielsen has heard from chaplains who helped pack up students’ belongings as they left for home, advocated for international students who couldn’t leave and even checked on a student’s aquarium in an abandoned dorm room, in addition to their regular tasks.
