Dorm Chaplaincy
Join the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab and chaplains from the University of the South to learn about a model of providing spiritual care in higher education residential settings. We’ll discuss how chaplaincy training can be incorporated into students’ own progress through academic programs, how residential chaplains impact the experience of residential students, and how this model differs from providing spiritual care through university-wide spiritual life or student services offices.
We thank the Association for Chaplaincy and Spiritual Life in Higher Education (ACSLHE) for its support of this webinar. ACSLHE seeks to be the leading authority on religious and spiritual life in higher education. ACSLHE supports higher education chaplaincies and nurtures religious and spiritual life professionals through scholarship, education, and collaboration. Learn more here.
The Rev. Amanda Gott is the Interfaith Chaplain at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Amanda supervises the Chaplains-in-Residence program, supporting the Seminarians who live in undergraduate residence halls and serve as non-sectarian chaplains to the college students where they live. She continues to be amazed at the extent to which a dormitory laundry room is a liminal place of holy encounter, where sacred conversations often happen. Amanda came to Higher Education Chaplaincy after a long career in parish ministry, during which she moonlighted as a Chaplain in various educational contexts with children, teenagers, and young adults.
Kelton Riley is a trans-man from rural Limestone County, Alabama, where he developed a heart for small-parish ministry and volunteered with LGBT+ youth. He currently serves in the Chaplains in Residence program at Sewanee, providing pastoral care to the young adults in the undergraduate program. Riley graduated with his M. Div. from the School of Theology at the University of the South in 2023 and is currently completing a Masters of Sacred Theology. He also has a Masters in Religion from Athens State University and Bachelor’s degrees in English, History, and German.
Sam Haisten is from Milledgeville, Georgia and is currently in their final year in seminary at The School of Theology at the University of the South where they serve as a Chaplain in Residence. During their time in seminary, they have grown to love the different faces of chaplaincy and have participated in both hospital chaplaincy and dorm chaplaincy. Before seminary, they earned a BA in Spanish from Georgia College & State University, and they often joke that they work in order to maintain the standard of living to which their cats, Goblin and Mr. Neelix, have become accustomed. In their free time, Sam enjoys watching The West Wing and visiting the nearby state park.
