Posted on Apr 23, 2009

Union President Stephen C. Ainlay will deliver the commencement address at his alma mater, Goshen College, Sunday, April 26, 2009. The title of his talk is “A Pilgrim’s Mind.”

Ainlay earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the Indiana school in 1973.

Stephen C. Ainlay, president of Union College, suit, 2-09

This will be the second commencement address for Ainlay. In June 2007, he spoke to 30 sixth-graders of Yates Magnet Elementary School in Schenectady. He was invited to give the graduation address after exchanging letters with the Yates students as part of a project called “Colleges We Could Attend.”

Ainlay has been president of Union since July 2006. In addition to his role as president, he also serves as a professor of sociology at the College and chancellor of Union University, a united entity composed of Union College, Union Graduate College, Albany Medical College, Albany Law School, Albany College of Pharmacy, and the Dudley Observatory of the City of Albany.

A native of Goshen, Ainlay earned both his master’s and Ph.D. from Rutgers University. Before joining Union, Ainlay was vice president for Academic Affairs at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.

His research projects have focused on investigations of blindness, aging, spirituality and various aspects of Mennonite life, all aimed at better understanding the ways in which people find meaning in their lives.

His books include “Day Brought Back My Night: Aging and Vision Loss”; “Mennonite Entrepreneurs” (co-authored with Calvin Redekop and Robert Siemans); “The Dilemma of Difference: A Multidisciplinary View of Stigma” (co-edited with Gaylene Becker and Lerita Coleman); and “Making Sense of Modern Times: Peter L. Berger and the Vision of Interpretive Sociology” (co-edited with James Davison Hunter). He has also published a number of articles and book reviews related to his research areas in such journals as the Journal of Social Issues, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Journal of Gerontology.

Among his fellowships, Ainlay was a visiting scholar at St. Edmund’s College in Cambridge University and summer fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, Calif. He held a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University’s Mental Health Training Program.

Ainlay is married to Judith Gardner Ainlay, also a graduate of Goshen College. They have two sons: Jesse, a 2005 graduate of Holy Cross, and Jonathan, a student at the University of Arizona.