Tufts Freethought Society
About Us
The Tufts Chaplaincy, in its current form, includes representatives for the Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, and Jewish populations on campus. The chaplains provide counseling, community service opportunities, interfaith events, and spiritual and social guidance to their respective students.
But what about the nonreligious? Almost a third of the Tufts student population espouses no religious belief, yet could still find a chaplain who provides the aforementioned services useful. A Humanist Chaplaincy at Tufts University would allow for nonreligious, atheistic, agnostic, or humanistic students to become more involved in interfaith work, participate in service opportunities, find solace through counseling, and build a community of like-minded individuals.
A Humanist Chaplaincy would be entirely funded by private donors, and would not directly affect university spending. Humanist chaplaincies at other universities, including UToronto, Rutgers, and Harvard, have already been successful in creating meaningful fellowships of nonreligious students and furthering education regarding the Humanist movement.
The Committee to Establish a Humanist Chaplaincy at Tufts is overseen by the Tufts Freethought Society, and is chaired by Walker Bristol ('14). For the last two semesters, the Committee has been working tirelessly to encourage community support for and bring the university closer to this goal.
To find out more information or to learn how you can get more involved, join our Facebook page or email Walker.
A Charter for the Humanist Chaplaincy Committee
This charter hereby establishes the Humanist Chaplaincy Committee overseen by the Tufts Freethought Society. The purpose of the Humanist Chaplaincy is to provide both individuals and the Tufts community resources which are unobtainable by other means. This Committee shall be open for all to join and serve the following purposes:
Philanthropy: The Tufts Freethought Society as well as the Humanist Chaplaincy Committee believes that ethics must be applied in action to better unite the Humanist community and to promote interfaith activism. We seek a Chaplain who will encourage community service within the framework of Humanism and secularism as well as within a framework of shared religious and interfaith values. Through regularly organized philanthropy activities nonreligious students can give back to a larger society.
Humanist Community: The Humanist Chaplaincy seeks to establish an organized social network aimed at uniting students with secular and Humanist values. By creating this community, individuals can develop a sense of belonging and cultural identity, an important aspect of any worldview. This network is open to all students, regardless of their personal beliefs or preferences. Students questioning their faith would be able to receive aid from a nonreligious perspective. Students who may not know what Humanism is can discover the worldview and adopt it if they desire, and those already self-described as Humanist or non-believing have access to a larger community of like-minded people.
Interfaith Advocate: Serving as an interfaith advocate, a Humanist Chaplain can provide greater representation to nonbelievers on campus through organized interfaith activities. Furthermore, the Tufts Freethought Society acknowledges the importance of all-inclusive pluralism as a means of uniting individuals with varying beliefs. By further developing Tufts' interfaith network and building a more inclusive interfaith community, the establishment of a Humanist Chaplain would benefit all worldviews. This unity, established by meaningful interfaith interaction, is crucial to spread information relating to varying beliefs so as to eliminate fear, prejudice, and misinformation.
Counseling: We understand that many students coming to college do so with important metaphysical and ethical questions. These questions can include how to cope with college life given one's ethical outlook, how to better adapt to a greater pluralism of beliefs on a college campus and how to deal with personal crisis within a religious framework. Working with students on these problems and related dilemmas within a specific spiritual framework is an important part of the work done by any Chaplain. A Humanist Chaplain would help students approach these dilemmas from a Humanist perspective thereby serving those students who already consider themselves to be Humanists as well as those who are questioning their values.
The goals stated here will be met by the Committee through weekly work communicating with other students to determine need, meeting the University officials to work out logistics and to ensure continued progress and to regularly publish articles advocating for the Humanist Chaplain through various mediums throughout campus.
This Committee is dedicated to creating a Chaplaincy to serve the Tufts community at large, including both the Humanist and nonbelieving communities. The Committee understands that any successful Chaplain must not only educate and serve those within the same tradition but work toward a sense of global citizenship on campus by actively encouraging dialogue and cooperation between other religious groups. Because ethics often serve as a foundation for many religious traditions the Chaplain shall take special care to nurture sensitivity to ethical issues thereby educating and empowering the Tufts community to confront them effectively.