PAGE 4 // WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2011
NEWS
THE
pendulum
Childhood experiences shape new chaplain s faith
Anna Johnson
Editor-in-Chief
It took several years before Janet Fuller would eat
chicken or strawberries again.
“The bombers were coming over and overnight
anti-aircraft guns were set up in the empty field
across the street from our house," said Fuller, Elon
University’s new chaplain. “So we had the shrieking
of bombers coming over us and the anti-aircraft
shells would fall on our roof and roll into our yard.
Fuller’s family knew war was coming and would
be forced to stay inside their home. Knowing food
would be scarce, her mother and father stocked up
on frozen chicken and strawberries.
Before being pegged as the successor to Richard
McBride, Elon’s former chaplain who retired in 2009,
and serving 24 years as the chaplain at Hollins
University, Fuller lived through four wars in the
Middle East as the daughter of Baptist missionaries.
During the Six-Day War in 1967, Fuller was sleeping
on a mattress in the hallway of her home with her
family until they were evacuated to Iran by American
forces.
“1 was, for a long time, really traumatized about
those experiences," she said. “Hiding in hallways,
in shelters and basements. In high school, jumping
under my chemistry lab desk when bombers flew
over."
Fuller lived in various nations across the Middle
East including Lebanon, Jordan and Iran as a blonde
haired, blue-eyed minority. Her parents chose to
work in an Arab nation because of their appreciation
for the culture, food and people.
“I have to say that my parents were a very
respectful breed of missionaries and I really credit
my upbringing for the passions that 1 come to Elon
with,” Fuller said. “I wasn’t born or raised with the
sense that 1 am right and you're wrong and I need to
convince you to see things my way. I wasn't raised
with that culturally or religiously.”
Tragic events marred Fuller’s childhood and
made her question her religious background and ask
difficult questions of her faith.
While visiting the church her father preached at
on the Saturday before Easter,* Fuller witnessed the
destruction that would become commonplace. She
was playing with her friend, Ibtisam, in an empty
field when Ibtisam stepped on a landmine and was
killed by the explosion. The blast knocked Fuller
back and left her deaf for weeks.
“I remember being alone and then everyone came
running,” she said. “Everyone thought I was hurt
because I was bloody. My parents arrived with the
crowd and they didn’t know what to do for me. They
didn’t know how to help me, they were clueless about
war.”
The family choose to ignore what happened and
didn’t speak of it, she said. .As a result. Fuller became
the one in her family who began to ask difficult
questions and challenge the status quo.
ELIZABETH EVERETT | Staff Photographer
Janet Fuller, Elon's new chaplain, said she was excited to begin her time at Elon University after 24 years as the head chaplain at Hollins University.
Fuller ended her contract as a teacher and went
Fuller left the Middle East to attend then-Hollins
College as an undergraduate. After she graduated,
she returned to Lebanon to teach and marry her
childhood sweetheart, Saad Ziyadi.
Ziyadi was studying to become a Greek Orthodox
priest and was a member of a Christian militia.
“I was uncomfortable with him as an active
participant in the military,” she said. “And, of course,
the civil war had its most terrible years in 1978 and
1979. So he made an agreement with his leader that
he would not actively fight but would stand guard
duty."
Less than six months after they were married,
he left their home to guard the station when he was
struck by a drive-by bombing.
“There was nothing left to identify him," she said.
“I jumped into the car and found him. I was the first
to arrive and then his colleagues arrived shortly
after. It was the most painful moment of my life. It
shattered everything 1 had planned."
It was that crystalizing moment that made her ask
why the world was the way it was. It’s a question many
face, she said, and often leaves people wondering
how there can be a caring deity in a world rife with
suffering.
to seminary at Yale’s Divinity School. After she
graduated she served as the Baptist chaplain at Yale
before becoming the full-time chaplain at Holhns.
The difficult moments in her past helped her
relate to students who are struggling to find out who
they are and how that shapes their religious and
spiritual practices, she said.
“I’ve met some people who have never had any
questions as to why they believe the things they
believe,” Fuller said. “But that seems strange to
me when 1 meet it. But that is why 1 love students.
They are inherently asking questions and making
connections.”
Fuller accepted the position as Elon University's
chaplain this summer and officially began last week.
She made the move, she said, because Elon was able
to bridge aspects of her life that are normally left
unconnected.
“One of the things that excites me about this work
at Elon is that I do feel I get to draw on everything that
I have ever done,” she said. “It pulls together all of
the things I have experienced and studied and cared
about and wanted to do. It feels like it integrates
parts of my life that are not normally integrated."
Development of Jewish Studies program progressing
Caitlln O’Donnell
News Edtor
Jewish life on campus will get a bit more academic
this year with the arrival of Geoffrey Claussen, the first
professor of Jewish Studies.
Part of Claussen’s responsibility this year will be
developing the parameters for what a Jewish Studies
program would look like at Elon University.
A main component of the task is developing the
courses that will provide the foundation of the program.
Claussen said he plans to draw
from different departments,
including religious life,
philosophy and history, while
playing to the strengths of the
professors from each.
Jewish identity for students,
faculty and staff is an interwoven
package of religion, culture,
history, academic pursuits
and even culinary pursuits,
according to Nancy Luberoff,
Hillel campus director.
As the academic nature of
Jewish life is strengthened, these
other aspects will be strengthened as well, she said.
The population of Jewish students on campus
currently sits at 7 percent of the Class of 2015, though
she estimates the actual number is much higher.
“We only know by who tells us," Luberoff said. “The
way Elon asks about religion, you have to be one thing
or another. .A huge percentage has one parent who is not
(Jewish).”
For decades, the Jewish population hovered between
1 and 3 percent, she said. That all changed with the
hiring of a Hillel staff member.
As the infrastructure is strengthened, the national
presence of the campus is likewise bolstered.
“The institution can hover at 1, 2, 3 percent forever,”
Luberoff said. "But once you start breaking out, students
come to the university not despite of being Jewish, but
because it’s more welcoming.”
"By implementing the Jewish
Studies program at Elon,
the university is saying that
it believes in the importance
of understanding and
respecting the diversity of its
students.”
-Mason Sklut
CLASS OF 2014
There will be some overlap between Hillel and the
Jewish Studies program but not all students who elect
to participate in the academic programs will also be
an active member of Jewish religious life, according to
Claussen.
“Some students who take Jewish studies courses
have a strong attachment to Jewish traditions or to
the Jewish people," Claussen said. “Others don’t have
personal attachments but, for any number of reasons,
have profound interest. .And some are just curious.”
Sophomore Mason Sklut, a Hillel member currently
working to create a Jewish fraternity
on campus, said he finds the study
of Judaism fascinating because
it transcends beyond the topic of
religion and also encompasses
culture, language, philosophy and
history. It also includes discussions of
interfaith cooperation.
“By implementing the Jewish
Studies program at Elon, the
university is saying that it believes
in the importance of understanding
and respecting the diversity of its
students," Sklut said.
The university was recently
recognized in an edition of “Reform Judaism” magazine
as one of six overlooked schools across the country that
have “gone the extra mile" to make their campuses more
attractive to Jewish students.
This will be the first year that the university hosts
a full program of High Holy Day services, according to
Luberoff, including Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur In
the past, participating students had to travel to either
Greensboro or the University of North Carolina.
“Elon has developed a reputation as a campus that is
very supportive of Jewish students and word has gotten
out within the Jewish community, especially on the East
Coast, though through the rest of the country, as well ”
Claussen said.
Claussen said the administration has been supportive
of both the academic side of the program, but also the
development of Jewish life on campus
‘t. •***
ELIZABETH EVEHETTI
Geoffrey Claussen started this semester as the first Jewish Studies p
His arrival is part of a larger move to exparuj Jewish life on campus.
“It goes above what other schools are doing,
respects,” he said. “Some of that stems from t
interest in fostering a more multicultural campus.
commitment to multiculturalism has meant very
things for students interested in Jewish studies a
further developments here on campus.”