Chaplains

Elon Ross is joined by Chaz Howard and Sana Saeed, who introduce themselves as university chaplains at the University of Pennsylvania. The chaplain's office supports various spiritual and religious life communities on campus. Sana grew up as a Muslim in different parts of the world and Chaz was raised Christian. In college, Sana became more involved in interfaith communities and Chaz reconnected with his faith towards the end of his senior year. Both were inspired to pursue chaplaincy, with Chaz initially considering a monastic life. They believe chaplains are there to support and care for individuals regardless of their religious background. Sana now identifies as a UU Muslim and appreciates the inclusivity of Unitarian Universalism. They both did clinical pastoral education and have experience working as chaplains in hospitals and hospices. Hello, hello. My name is Elon Ross, and we're here back for another episode of God at Penn. I'm joined here by Chaz Howard and Sana Saeed, who I want to give them the floor to introduce themselves. Chaz? Hello. I'm Chaz Howard. I'm a Penn alum and serve as university chaplain and one of the vice presidents here at the University of Pennsylvania. Thank you, Chaz, for being here. Sana? Hi. I'm Sana Saeed. I am an assistant chaplain here, associate chaplain, and I use she and her pronouns. I'm excited to be here with you. Amazing. Thanks. So just before we get into kind of the real questions, many people at Adelstein Interactive have not interacted with the chaplain's office on campus. So we wanted to give you a little bit of an overview of what the chaplain's office does and your role here. Yeah. Our chaplain's office is really unique in that it supports around 56 different types of spiritual, religious life communities here. So we help support students in those groups. We support their chaplains, their rabbis, ministers, advisors, and through our Penn Religious Communities Council. We are a confidential resource center, so anyone that wants to come to you and talk to us can be comfortable knowing that it will be kept with us and won't be shared anywhere. So I think those are some of the overarching large ways that we serve the community here. That's good. Thank you. Okay. And I'll start and tell you guys as individuals. So Sana, did you grow up within a specific religious tradition? Yes. I grew up Muslim and had a really good experience growing up Muslim in many different places of the world because I was born in England and lived in Pakistan for a while and lived in Japan and also lived in Spain. So I moved around quite a bit until we came to the U.S. and got a really diverse experience growing up as a Muslim. Chad? Yeah, I was raised Christian. I've plugged into a range of Christian denominations over the years. I think I'd probably say I kind of came up in the black church tradition, specifically like non-denominational AME church, Chapter Methodist Episcopal Church, which was wonderful and deeply formative to who I am. I tell this story sometimes. I also have this sort of parallel religious upbringing. I spent my summers going to a sleepaway camp and from age 11 to 22, I was at a Jewish sleepaway camp, which was, again, extremely formative in certainly my journey toward chaplaincy and moving in a way that affirms and loves different traditions and is fed by different traditions, too. Okay, so you were at a Jewish camp for 11 summers growing up despite... I grew up there. I definitely learned a lot. I sang Shabbat every Friday night all those years. I learned enough Hebrew to help me pass a couple of seminary classes. There's a lot of stories, a lot of stories. That's beautiful. Okay, so as you're growing up, that's kind of where your world was, and once you got to college as an undergraduate, what was your relationship with religion looking like then? I think I swung towards being a bit more agnostic in college. I was involved in student groups like the Pakistani Student Association, which ended up being kind of another version of the Pakistani Student Association because a lot of the students were Muslim, and then there were a group of Pakistanis who identified as Christian or Catholic and felt a little bit left out, so we had our own little group just hanging out and connecting over culture. I was in the periphery, I would say, when it came to being involved with religion. I was definitely diving more into interfaith communities, wanting to connect with people holding different religious traditions, so I got heavily involved in interfaith communities in the D.C. Maryland Junior area because I went to George Mason as an undergrad, and I felt deep connection and relationship in those communities, and I think that was the starting point from where I ended up moving towards chaplaincy. All right, we'll get to that one in a second. Chad? Yeah, my kids are sometimes surprised to find out I wasn't deeply involved in religious life as an undergrad here. My faith has always been important to me, and I think I've had a personal journey with the divine in my private life, but I was in a fraternity while I was here. I partied a lot. What fraternity were you in? I was in Alpha Phi Alpha, the historically black frat here. Didn't party too much, but partied enough, and I was involved in student government, and I was on the track team for a long day, hocked acapella and stuff like that. Toward the end of college, the summer before senior year, I think was when I kind of re-plugged in and joined some groups on campus and began to discern a call into ministry. Beautiful. So that leads us in very nicely, and Chad, I'm going to start with you right here, but what inspired you to pursue chaplaincy and then ultimately working on a secular campus? Yeah, I don't think I at first heard chaplain in my heart. I think I heard that the next step for me was seminary, and I don't think I had a lot of clarity of what life looked like on that. I don't think I felt called at the time to be a pastor or the clergy person in a congregation necessarily. I don't think I wanted my name on the front of the building or to sit in a big chair. I don't think that didn't feel right either. I don't think I knew the chaplain here when I was an undergrad. We were very close, and I loved him, and I still love him, but I didn't want his job. There was nothing about what he did that was like, I want to do that. I think I was drawn to a study of religion, study of theology. Much of seminary I thought I was called to a monastic life, so I was sort of in discernment and formation to become a monk, and I was fully at peace with that and excited about that. A part of seminary is you have to do something called a CPE, clinical pastoral education, which is essentially an internship, mostly usually at a hospital or healthcare place, and so I came down here and did an internship at Penn Hospital up across the street, and it was really hard, and loved it, really sort of being a pastoral presence for individuals in the hardest times of their lives. I fell and fell into that, and I came back after I graduated seminary, did another year at a hospital, and did a hospice chaplaincy after that, which was heavy and sacred. Went back to grad school for my doctorate, and while there, it was kind of hard balancing being a hospice chaplain, and I don't say this flippantly, but it's just giving last rites in the morning, and then going to class after lunch. So I talked to the former chaplain, Will Gibson here, and he was looking for an associate chaplain, and he invited me to apply, gave me a shot, and that felt like much more of a balance between academic university, higher ed chaplaincy, and being a grad student. It was meant to be a very temporary thing, but 20 years later, I'm still here. And just quickly, when you were being a chaplain in the hospital, and for hospices, for religions across the border, is that a great position? Yeah, I think most chaplains, in most settings, are for anyone in that institution. I think this is true, certainly in health care. You never know who's going to be on the floor. You never know who's going to come in the ambulance to the emergency room. The charge is to care for and love this person, wherever they are in their spiritual journey. The same is true here on campus, with us in caring for students and their colleagues who are It's sort of true in the military as well, for military chaplains. I think military chaplains tend to be called by a certain religion, and yet, and they may have services for a particular religion, and yet they're there for the whole troop, for the whole everyone there, particularly if there's an emergency. All of the individuals serving are in that flock, to use a tropical ministry. Thank you. Yeah, I think, so my journey to college chaplaincy began, I mean, I became interested in ministry when I joined a Unitarian Universalist congregation in 2009. I was hired at the time, I mean, I was still identifying as a Muslim, but they hired me to work with their youth and children's religious education program, and it was a life-changing experience. I was there for three years. As a Muslim. As a Muslim. And I find, we shorten the name to UU. Unitarian Universalists tend to be, the spaces tend to be more interface, for me. They're open and welcoming to people holding different religious traditions, and also wanting to be a part of a community that is focusing on work around justice, or just tend to be a bit more extensive in my experience. And so I had a good time with those kids. I always talk about them when it comes to my journey, and went on to apply for seminary after that experience. I ended up leaving the congregation to work for the Interfaith Alliance in D.C. for about a year and a half, and then moved to Japan. But I had gotten into Harvard Divinity School. Harvard, the pen of the North, as they call it. And decided to go into Unitarian Universalist ministry from there. So now I identify more as a UU Muslim, and that's a growing community of people within Unitarian Universalist communities. They have a lot of different kinds of folks, including UU Christians, UU Atheists and Humanists, UU Jews, UU Hindus and Buddhists. So it's like a little hodgepodge of an interfaith community. And it's funny that I'm talking about it here, because I'm going to be preaching about it on Sunday. On a hot Sunday. I have to somehow hold a space for everyone, and that's what I think I really love about Unitarian Universalism, that I get challenged in these ways to hold a really complex container and space for people coming from many different perspectives and traditions under this umbrella of Unitarian Universalism. And I had the same journey as Shaz. We had to also do clinical pastoral education, CTE, and I did that at Einstein Hospital here in Philly after I retired here at Penn. Wow. A real journey to finally end up in chaplacy from there. So now thinking about your time here at Penn, what have been some of the unique challenges and or opportunities that you faced as a religious leader while in a predominantly secular community, environment even? Let's load it. I know that. Yeah, I mean, I think the first gentle pushback I would say is I tend to not describe Penn as a secular place. I mean, I think of... Ben Franklin would be very upset with that answer. Ben Franklin is a complicated man. When I think of the types of colleges and universities there are, certainly like religious schools, we're not a religious institution, we're not St. Joe's or Villanova. There are secular schools that are devoid of religion, a place that does not have chaplains, that does not have religious studies departments, that actually doesn't even allow religious groups to gather on campus. That's what I think of as a secular place. And there's some schools on the main line here in Philadelphia that are like that, where you can believe whatever you believe and on the weekend if you want to go somewhere, great, but we will not use university funds to fund a club, a chaplain, or even a class. Interesting, none of those exist. Yeah, and we're not meant to be sort of cruel or anything like that. I think they're just really taking misinterpretation of secular, of separation of church and state. I think they're taking that a little far, but they exist and they're okay and some students want that. It depends on that. The phrase we use is non-secretarian, meaning we are not plugged into any tradition. In fact, we affirm a range of traditions. About a third-ish of students are involved in religious life to a range of degrees. That's more than the Greek system, that's more than athletes, that's a huge part of our campus. And if you include people who kind of go once or twice while they're here, it's a whole lot of students. So we're certainly not like a place that is devoid of religion, we're not a secular school, even though a lot of people call us a secular school because we're not a religious school. I think some of the challenges, I think there's the institutional challenges and there's just the hard seasons of chaplaincy. I think some of it is not being a religious school. And so even as open as a non-secretarian place is, there are always people who are like, why is there a chaplain praying at graduation or at convocation? Or recently I heard the baccalaureate ceremony seemed highly religious. It certainly, it was even more religious a few years ago, 20 years ago. And so that's much a challenge, but I think people question it. I think that that's there. I think that our gifts often have a shadow side. And the gift of being a cosmopolitan place that draws students from around the world is in so many ways why people choose Penn. It also brings real challenges. So global challenges are very present on campus right now. I think people wanting to sort of, the kind of competitiveness that happens between different groups, separate from global challenges, I think, is why do they have a building? Why do they have that kind of staff there that's here making sure every campus group is resourced, is funded? Those are sort of hard things that are unique to Penn but are here. So that's the thing, and I'll stop rambling. I think that just the hard moments of chaplaincy where we lose a student or we lose a colleague. And it's our job as chaplains to call someone's family and tell them the thing they fear the most has happened. Passed upon you guys. At the office of the chaplain, we make that call. Wow. And it's exactly as horrible as one imagines it. It's heartbreaking. And, you know, certainly the last couple of years, Sama takes more of the lead on this. And then going to their friends and their teammates and their frat brothers and sitting with them and crying with them, it's really, really hard. Or like global vigils for a tragedy that happens on the other side of the planet, but people are feeling it here on campus and standing outside looking at candles with wet-faced students who are heartbroken and scared. It's really, really hard stuff. Really hard. Wow. Especially after time in hospital, working for hospitals, I can't imagine the weight that you carry for that. It's hard in different ways. You know, saying goodbye to a 90-year-old who's lived a good, long life with their family around them, kind of singing them to the other side is very different than burying a 20-year-old who had their whole life ahead of them. So, Sama, challenges or opportunities that you found on campus? I mean, Chad's covered a lot. No, I'm glad you did. I think, you know, some of what I would also, some of the same pushback around defining Penn as being a secular campus versus a non-sectarian campus, I think even reading Ben Franklin's papers and books and different things, he really held onto the importance of having morals and values and guiding you as a person, right? And that, he openly says, is inspired by some religious figures that he held as important in his life. And so I think for him, when he was founding Penn as a secular campus and using that terminology, he wasn't separating it entirely from this idea of having some morals and values to guide your path. And I think that's really important in how we think about spiritual communities on campus. They're really important in helping people develop a set of morals and values while they're here in the college experience. I think using the term secular ends up limiting us and ends up making some folks, some spiritual communities on campus feel martialized and silenced. And so I think that's one of the larger challenges I've seen on campus is how do we help people feel like they can talk about spirituality and religion. And that's gotten so complicated over the last few years, too. Like, how do we talk about these things with respect and seeming humanity in each other, right? And not fearing dialogue around religious diversity on campus. So how do you do that? How do you go about supporting students, faculty, and other staff on campus in exploring or questioning their religious identity in such a diverse community on campus? I mean, I think it happens in a range of ways. I think we have a pretty robust Rhythm Studies department that teaches dozens of classes every year. And then there are sort of religion, spirituality classes outside of the department that students plug into all the time. That's a self-selecting group. But it's a good number of our students. And it's students. It's classes on world religions. It's classes on religion and the law and medicine and all that sort of stuff. I think that's the first thing. There's obviously the organic religious education, religious literacy that happens when someone is coming from a particularly homogenous community. And their roommate is from a different country and a different religion. And they stay up late at night talking about the big questions. What happens when we die? And are you allowed to marry someone outside your religion? And why don't you eat that? And why don't you drink that? And why do you wear that? That happens without us doing anything. That's almost college housing has more to do with that kind of than anything else. And that happens in acapella groups and in prats and sororities and on the sports team. And in a way that I think is unique to colleges. That sometimes doesn't happen in the workplace. And sometimes doesn't always happen in other spaces. But people become friends and start to trust each other and can learn from one another. Then our office and our, again, 50-plus campus ministries do a lot of wonderful things themselves. So over the years we've had like prayer exchanges where students will go to Juma and they go to Shabbat and have conversations afterwards. Or service learning trips together. Or like soccer games against each other. There's like an MSA. I always love to see that every day. It's cool. I don't think they're talking a whole lot about religion out there. They're talking about trash out there. But afterwards when they go and get something to eat, some cool stuff happens there. So our office does formal things. There's a prison that does events where you can learn about each other. But I think the best learning happens organically with the magic of college life helping us learn about the world. And to produce religiously literate citizens. It's got to go out in the world. I was going to say the exact same thing. Organic. I think that is really essential, the organic way that it happens on campuses. I think if students are organically having those conversations and organizing around dialogue, then it's harder to get by it when we do things like that. When we have spaces like that. I think also the increase in prayer spaces around campus and multipurpose spaces for meditation or reflection is an indicator of how this organic organizing around dialogue is impacting. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Like where are there going to be spaces? Yeah. So there's spaces. Obviously in our office we have a multipurpose prayer meditation space. We also have it at Wharton. Some of the college houses also now have dedicated spaces for that. So we're hoping one day we'll get a map together of all the different places because we're just hearing more and more places that people can do reflection and meditation when they need to at the moment. And I think that is just a really amazing way to bring people together to have a conversation, not just at a student level but also at a staff and faculty level. Because they are some of the decision makers in these spaces being created. Seriously. So I do really appreciate that organic aspect of that being the key to students' journeys through religion while on campus. But as the chaplain to people turn to and also learning now that you guys are the ones that are called to leave families and work with students, how has that impacted your faith in your relationship with design? I think for me it goes back to the training that we went through with CPE was really heavy. Training. I mean that was constant. Like notification of someone passing in a hospital or something terrible happening to someone and holding families through that. So I think that really helped prepare me at least for being able to navigate this journey in higher education as a chaplain. Part of it was also being mindful of our own emotions, being self-aware of what we're holding and how we hold it and managing burnout, which is why I value that experience so much. And I think that's what I've been focusing on is brushing up on that self-awareness. I think we made it through the pandemic. And so much more. I think as a chaplain it's strengthened my own sense of morals and values. It's strengthened why I see chaplaincy as a really critical part of campus life. We've helped people navigate having a sense of belonging on campus, helping journey with them through loneliness and depression and things like that. And I think I've seen the important role that chaplaincy plays in higher education that's so different than some of the other parts of campus. And how it can be a partner with people like student counseling and health to help hold the community in times of need. How has this experience been for you as someone who's gone on their own book journey? Yeah, I think this experience has been amazing. I've been here for seven years. And I'm still willing to stay. I'm not going to lie. At times it's been very frustrating and it's been challenging and it has challenged my own sense of morals. But I think leaning in on the most important thing that a chaplain needs to do in moments of crisis is to listen and hold faith. And I think grounding myself in that lesson has been a journey. And I feel like, yeah, this is where I'm meant to be. That's beautiful. I've been on campus for 29 years now. And I've known, gosh, three or four directors of Hillel, ten priests at Newman, five or six home campuses, dozens of Protestant folks here, Hindu, Buddhist, all that. And they've both been colleagues and friends, but also like teachers. And to almost sort of be in seminary for like 30 years here has just been wonderful. And the amount of learning and sort of things one catches from watching someone's life, hearing someone quote their scripture, visiting their worship services, their meditation services. It's been so good to do deep Torah studies, to do deep Quranic studies, to do deep Bible studies and learn about the Upanishads. It's been really neat to learn, just as kind of like a religious nerd, I kind of enjoy that. But the kind of wisdom that I think people have tried to pour into me over the years is something I deeply cherish. And not just colleagues, but students as well. I think I first learned about the Baal Shem Tov and the Kapsker Rebbe from a student. They brought in stuff and I was like, this is so powerful. I first learned about Rumi from a student. How do you deal with Rumi? Sufi, Muslim, religious leader, scholar, more known today as like a poet, but like so much more than that. And like the gift. So I think that's been one thing I've gotten over the years, along with colleagues who become my best friends and like family. And the gift of being a chaplain here, like you get to do your friend's weddings and their kids' weddings. And like to sort of share life with people and to get old with them. The people I used to like play ball with after school, now we're like middle-aged and like ice on our knees together. It's just been nice. That's been something I've loved too. I think I add to that, like Penn has given me a life. I think it's allowed me to provide for my family and my spouse here and my kids were born across the street here. My kids go here. So this is home and it's a very imperfect home, but it's my favorite home. That's so nice. All right, so we're going to take a little break. We'll be here for a second. We'll be back soon.