Promising to tackle religion’s ‘hard questions,’ to uphold and promote the university’s motto of ‘Learning, Virtue, Piety’ and attempt to form an all-ages Sunday school, Robert Neville was installed as dean of Marsh Chapel and chaplain of Boston University Sunday.
In his remarks during the ceremony which Chancellor John Silber, Provost Dennis Berkey, Executive Vice President Joseph Mercurio and about 100 others attended Neville emphasized the strong connection between religion and education, particularly at Methodist-founded BU.
Until Silber became president in 1971, all BU presidents had been Methodist ministers. As part of the university, the chapel also has a strong educational bent, Neville said.
‘What distinguishes the university church is the promotion and pursuit of inquiry, both in the university and in the community,’ Neville said. ‘The university church should raise hard questions about research and university life.’
‘We should ask how religion should impact how things are researched there are always issues and ethics,’ Neville said in an interview after the installation. ‘We should make sure those issues are pressed harder. I also have an obligation to preach on political issues. Next week I have a sermon about humility in the government.’
In his remarks during the installation, Neville said he understood the importance of keeping education free from ‘religious ideological control.’ However, the religious aspect of learning should be remembered along with secular concerns, he said.
‘Many faculty members might be upset to work at a Methodist university if they believed that meant anything,’ he joked.
‘More professors could be involved [in the chapel] than are now,’ Neville said after the installation. ‘Some are hostile to religion. But it could be an outlet for professors with charitable impulses.’
Neville said creating a Sunday school open to the entire community will be another tactic to involve more BU faculty and students. He said he hopes to start the school, which would be divided into primary and junior high divisions, by January 2004.
‘I think he’s changing the mission [of the chapel] not university-based, but family-based,’ said Pauline Jennett, a School of Theology graduate student. ‘Sunday school was how I learned about the Bible, so I think it’s wonderful.’
‘It’s typical Bob Neville ambitious,’ said John Berthrong, STH associate dean and a colleague of Neville’s during his tenure as STH dean.
Neville also said he would focus strongly on educating BU students according to the school’s motto, ensuring they would leave BU with ‘more than a fifth-grade religious maturity.’ Neville is already holding discussion groups every Sunday to discuss the previous week’s sermon.
Trelawney Grenfell, president of the STH student body, said Neville will be up to the task of enhancing students’ minds.
‘He takes religious questions very seriously and makes people who aren’t used to taking them seriously take them seriously,’ Grenfell said. ‘Having Dean Neville as a professor drastically altered my life I understood at a new level how brilliant religion can be.
‘I have a background as a scientist, so I have a pretty good B.S. detector, and he’s not full of B.S.,’ she said.
Neville said his current term as dean and chaplain runs through three years. He wants to serve at least six years, and evaluate his health before committing to another term, he said.