The Rev. Janet Cooper Nelson, the chaplain of Brown University and director of the Office of the Chaplains & Religious Life, will deliver Elon University’s 2009 Baccalaureate sermon in May.
The service is scheduled for Friday, May 22, at 3 p.m. in the Koury Center.
Ordained in 1980 by the United Church of Christ, Nelson preaches and consults to religious and academic institutions. She was honored in 1996 with Harvard Divinity School’s Rabbi Martin Katzenstein Distinguished Alumna award.
Her 1990 appointment to responsibilities with Brown University followed comparable posts at Vassar and Mount Holyoke, and as associate pastor at The Church of Christ at Dartmouth College. She is a long-term member of the supervisory faculty for fieldwork placements from Harvard Divinity School and the Boston Theological Institute.
She is past president of The Association for College and University Religious Affairs and edited its journal Dialogue. She serves on the visiting committee for The Lincoln School, the Leadership Council for Harvard Divinity School, Home and Hospice Care of Rhode Island and Brown/RISD Hillel Foundation.
Awarded the Fund for Theological Education’s North American Ministerial Fellowship in 1977, she left secondary education to complete a Master of Divinity degree at Harvard where she was also awarded the Hopkins Scholarship and the Billings Prize for preaching. Her undergraduate degree in United States Studies and History is from Wellesley College. She also earned a Masters degree in Education from Tufts University.
Elon’s 119th commencement exercises are scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Saturday, May 23, Under the Oaks in front of West Residence Hall on the Elon campus.