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By Erik Alsgaard
UMConnection Staff

The office for the chaplain at American University is in the basement of the Kay Spiritual Life Center, better known, perhaps, as the “Flaming Cupcake” because of the sculpture on the roof. The office environment looks pretty much like one might expect: white cinder-block bricks; students hunkered down studying laptop screens or checking Facebook; coffee mugs in various states of use; magazine racks dotted with copies no one has looked at in months. Two cases of soda pop sit on the floor, courtesy of a man wearing what looks like a black clergy shirt.

Upon further inspection, it is a black clergy shirt, being worn by the Rev. Mark Schaefer, the United Methodist campus minister at American University. Now in his 12th year, there’s a reason he wears a collar twice a week, even if he’s just returned from a Costco run (“We’re serving dinner here Sunday night,” he said by way of explanation. “It’s homecoming weekend.”).

More on the shirt in a moment.

As chaplain, Schaefer’s days are varied. In the course of a week, Schaefer will plan and help run two worship services: a prayer/healing/Communion service on Thursday nights at 11 p.m. (really), and a more traditional service Sunday night at 7 p.m. Schaefer usually does the preaching on Sunday night, while students or the pastoral intern will preach Thursday night. About 40 students attend the services.

In both cases, Schaefer is quick to emphasize that the students plan the worship.

“I tell them what I’m going to preach on,” he said, “the Scriptures I’m going to use, and they either find prayers or write prayers, they select the hymns and worship music … they lead the service.”

And, in the course of that same week, Schaefer will serve as advisor and/or facilitator for one of several ministries students are involved in, from hospitality and outreach, to social justice and service opportunities. There’s the United Methodist Women’s group that meets every week, Bible studies (either his or student-led), discussion groups and informal fellowship, not to mention counseling. “This is most often “completely unscheduled,” he said. People, he added, “rarely make appointments; they just drop in.”

Schaefer’s biggest excitement in his ministry is watching the students take ownership of their own ministry and claim their faith.

“What the church forgets, so often,” Schaefer said, “is that the faith of the high schoolers that we graduate has been shaped by a lot of well-meaning people: the parents, the pastor, the teachers. But that faith has to be claimed at some point. College is that time when people are asking, ‘Who am I? Am I that person my parents always said I am? Am I the person I believed I was?’”

Schaefer said that one key part of a university experience — and of a ministry presence on campus — is to provide that space where students allow faith to be a part of that formation and conversation.

“If we’re not here,” he added, “who knows how those questions get answered.”

And that’s why he wears a collar, twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays. “It’s not just my presence, but the presence of the church here on campus. I wanted people to know why I was on campus, that I was here as the chaplain. I wanted to be the physical presence of the church on the campus. I think that that says a lot; that we care enough to come meet you where you are.”

Bishop Marcus Matthews serves as a member of the executive committee of the Board of Trustees at AU as the Resident Bishop.  He, too, finds the values of the church at the Board level.

“The Board does recognize that this continues to be a
church related institution,” the bishop said. “AU serves the Washington area and is still helping meet needs in our community and our church. Our chaplain, Mark Schaefer, represents our conference very well. He is making a difference in the lives of so many young people who search for meaning and truth in life.” 

Up until 2002, there had not been a full time United Methodist chaplain at AU for 30 years, even though the school was founded by the then Methodist Church in the late 1890s. In the 1980s and ‘90s, Schaefer said, he doubts that even five percent of the people on campus knew AU was a Methodist-affiliated school.

AU’s history dates back to 1893 when the school was chartered by Congress. According to the school’s web site, Methodist Bishop John Fletcher Hurst, leader of the Washington area, founded the university that, at the time, was on the rural fringe of Washington, D.C. Groundbreaking for the new school was in 1896, and the school opened in 1914, with President Woodrow Wilson giving the dedication speech. The first 28 students included five women (in the days before women could vote), and an African-American student won a fellowship in 1915 to pursue a doctorate. Undergraduate studies began in 1925.

The church, Schaefer said, felt it needed an academy, a place to train leaders for service to the church and the world. The Methodists of that era, he said, were also well aware that the Catholics had built their university across town and were starting to get a foothold in the nation’s Capitol.

“It’s one of the reasons we’re called ‘The American University,’” Schaefer said, placing the emphasis on the word “the.”

Methodist values

Methodist values have been part of the culture of AU since its start, especially since the founding of the School of International Service in 1957.

“It wasn’t just about learning. The idea was to train people who could then lead internationally,” said Schaefer. There’s a plaque, he added, that used to be in the old SIS building, that the school was founded to raise up students for service to the church and the world.

Other Methodist-related values Schaefer noted are plurality of opinion, respecting others and respecting freedom of conscience.

Until the 1950s, attendance at chapel services, held at the then Metropolitan Methodist Church across the street, was mandatory. After the services were discontinued, a small chapel still occupied a corner of the SIS building. Today, it’s a coffee lounge.

In 1965, school president Hurst Anderson met with a Jewish businessman named Abraham Kay, and invited him to be on the board of trustees. Kay was the one who noted that plans for a stand-alone on-campus chapel had been long in the works, but had never been built. Kay put up a sum of money, the Methodist Church matched it, and then the Catholic and Episcoal dioceses matched that.

“I consider it somewhat of a moral victory today,” Schaefer said, “that if you go out on the quad and ask the students, you might get 50-50 that would know this is a United Methodist school.”

Schaefer said that because he is the United Methodist chaplain at a United Methodist-affiliated school, he bears some responsibility for the success of the university.

“The success of the university is also for the success of the church,” he said. “The two are connected.”

“My main job is to just be present,” Schaefer said. “There are a lot of different pieces as to what that presence looks like, how it works out. Sometimes it’s driving people to the airport, sometimes it’s buying groceries, sometimes it’s writing sermons. But mostly it is just having the door open.”