New Directions Series

The Tufts Humanist Chaplaincy is the first and only professional Humanist program to be fully funded by an American university. It represents an investment by Tufts University in avenues of spiritual care and community not yet explored by many peer institutions, and speaks to a commitment to the greater project of student-centric campus chaplaincy. As the landscape of how people identify with and practice religion in America changes rapidly, so too must the ways chaplaincies and other spiritual life programs in secular institutions engage with their communities.

As a program at the forefront of that change, the Tufts Humanist Chaplaincy facilitates an annual New Directions in Chaplaincy series. The purpose of the series is to bring together chaplains, experts, and activists in the field of chaplaincy to discuss how they’ve witnessed and engaged with that changing landscape in their chaplaincy work.

The first New Directions program in 2015 brought together Humanist chaplains from different fields of ministry–university chaplaincy, ethical culture, and the military–to explore how their Humanist chaplaincy work informs their commitment to social action. The second program in 2016 brought chaplaincy professionals of different backgrounds together to discuss how they’ve connected with the rising population of nonreligious Americans in their work. The third program in 2017 then honed in on a particular dimension of chaplaincy work–end of life care–to explore how that field is changing alongside the changing demographics in American religion. The fourth program in 2018 welcomed scholar Anthony Pinn for a lecture and conversation around Black Lives Matter, contemporary Humanism, and building social movements.

Feel free to write to walker.bristol@tufts.edu with any suggestions or questions about upcoming education events, and look into our archives to see previous programs in the New Directions series!