The Rev. Dr. Janet F. Fuller, who has dedicated her professional career to higher education ministry, most recently as chaplain for Hollins University in Roanoke, Va., has been selected to serve as the next chaplain at Elon University.
Fuller’s 24 years at Hollins has been marked with significant growth of worship services, student leadership and spiritual programming, and multi-faith development. She led prayers at all university convocations, initiated morning prayers at the university, implemented a Student Chaplain leadership program and re-created the Spiritual and Religious Life Association into a multi-faith umbrella group.
Fuller also helped form the Jewish Student Alliance and the Muslim Student Alliance, as well as the campus Habitat for Humanity chapter. Hollins started two annual events, the Religious Communities Fair and the Student Spiritual Communities Fair, during her tenure. She initiated and coordinated the Student Outreach and Support emergency fund, and she led grief support and education groups as part of her pastoral care. She has developed and taught a range of Religious Studies courses as well.
She has served in a variety of leadership roles for the National Association of College and University Chaplains, and she holds membership in the Omicron Delta Kappa national leadership honor society, and the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature. On Oct. 7, 2010, Fuller was ordained an Episcopal priest, serving as priest associate for Christ Episcopal Church in Roanoke.
Prior to her work at Hollins, Fuller served as the Baptist chaplain at Yale University from 1982-87, and as an adjunct professor of higher education ministries at the Yale Divinity School from 1983-87. She worked as a pastoral associate and interim pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in New Haven, Conn., from 1980-82.
The daughter of Baptist missionaries to the Middle East, and bilingual in Arabic and English, Fuller earned her undergraduate degree from Hollins in 1978 and a Master of Divinity from Yale University in 1982. She completed her doctoral studies in 1999 at Wesley School of Theology, where her thesis examined bereavement and theology for young adult women.
Fuller succeeds the Rev. Richard McBride, who retired in 2009.