Thomas P. Boland Jr., who joins
the College as the new Catholic chaplain, sees his position as “a form of
educational and pastoral ministry, the opportunity to help students grow in
their faith as well as to accompany them at this privileged and important stage
of their lives when they are exploring intellectual, social, personal and
spiritual questions.
“A religious program
on campus,” he said, “is important as a way of ministering to the whole person,
helping students integrate their academic lives with the rest of who they are
as persons.”
Boland, who teaches
part-time at Siena College,
will be full-time at Union after the end of this
academic year.
Boland said he recognizes that
while a lot of undergraduates may not necessarily embrace or regularly practice
a religious tradition while in college, the presence of a religious ministry is
nonetheless vital to campus life. “There are times, as we saw recently [with
the deaths of Craig LeDuc '05 and Kyle Schrade ‘06], when students are looking
for spiritual meaning to life's challenges,” he said. “At its core, the role of campus ministry is
to help students discern their life's meaning and direction–‘who am I, and
where am I going?'”
A native of White Plains, he earned his
bachelor's degree in political science from Holy Cross, and his master's in
divinity from Harvard University. He is a Ph.D. candidate in theology at Boston College, writing his dissertation
on the development of Catholic social teaching on the death penalty. When not at Union or Siena, he also serves as assistant director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty,
working with its executive director, David Kaczynski, husband of Associate
Professor of Philosophy Linda E. Patrik.
After earning his undergraduate
degree, he joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and lived in San Antonio, serving an
inner-city parish and elementary school with a large Mexican-American
population.
While working toward his
master's, he was on the staff of a Cambridge, Mass.,
homeless shelter.
Boland began with the College at
the end of last term, meeting students at the Sunday evening Mass at nearby St. John's Church. He helped conduct the LeDuc and Schrade
memorial service earlier this month with colleagues Viki Brooks-McDonald,
campus Protestant minister and interfaith chaplain, and Bonnie Cramer, Hillel
program assistant.
His on-campus hours are all day
Wednesday, Thursday morning, and Sunday evening, with Mass at 7:30 p.m. at St. John's followed by a social hour in the Everest Lounge of Hale House. His office is in the basement of Silliman
Hall. He can be reached at ext. 6087 or
on email at bolandt@union.edu.