Winter 2006 - Sacred Heart Schools

Building
Community
As University Chaplain, Sharon
Kugler (SHP‘77) deepens
understanding among 25
religious groups
Many who attended Sacred Heart
with Sharon Kugler (SHPʻ77)
remember that extra spring in her
step and that great smile that seemed
permanently set on her face. The grades
appeared to come effortlessly and all
the faculty and students enjoyed easy
conversation with her. She served as a
leader in the Honors Society and was
President of her senior class.
Now, almost three decades after
her high school graduation, Sharon
is enjoying great professional success
in an area she never would have
expected: chaplaincy.
Sharon is a rarity on the national
scene, a lay person who serves as
University Chaplain at a major
institution, John Hopkins University
(JHU). How did she end up there
It was a series of steps, beginning, of
course, at Sacred Heart. Sharon recalls,
“At Sacred Heart I was comfortable
exploring lifeʼs large questions in and
out of a classroom setting with faculty,
staff and fellow students.”
After graduating from the Convent,
Sharon pursued a bachelorʼs degree in
math at Santa Clara University, where
she was very involved with campus
ministries and joined the Jesuit
Volunteer Corps. She was sent to
Cleveland through the Corps, where
she worked with battered women in a
shelter. During her motherʼs illness,
Sharon moved back to the Bay Area
and accepted a job at Santa Clara
University as Associate Campus
Minister. “I loved my work at Santa
Clara— I had the opportunity to
preach regularly at the Universityʼs
mission and to work at all the spiritual
retreats,” said Sharon. “The campus
had a social activist air about it, and I
found the Jesuits very empowering.”
Next, Sharon and her husband
moved to Baltimore, and she took a
position as the Director of a Hospice
for AIDS that was funded through
ecumenical church donations. “This
was my first exposure to work outside
of the Catholic Community,” said
Sharon, “While in this job, I became
very interested in chaplaincy on
college campuses, so I interviewed
“MINISTRY OF GASTRONOMY”:
Above, Sharon (SHP‘77), far
right, serves up food at an interfaith
dinner with her daughter
Zoe (center) and a Muslim student.
THE FIRST OF ITS KIND:
Left, Sharon speaks at the open-
ing ceremonies of the
Bunting-
Meyerhoff Interfaith and Community
Service Center at JHU
the several chaplains who sat on the
hospice Board of Directors and wrote
a paper about it.”
Little did Sharon realize where that
paper would take her. At this time
(1993), Johns Hopkins University
administrators were considering the
elimination of their chaplain position.
They couldnʼt seem to find a way
to make chaplaincy work in such
a religiously-diverse environment.
When they read Sharonʼs paper,
they recruited her to come work as
a consultant to help them restructure
their chaplaincy program.
While consulting full-time for JHU,
Sharon worked toward her Masters
degree in Comparative Religions at
Georgetown. Her thesis, entitled The
Limits and Possibilities of Building a
Religiously Plural Community, thrust
her into the spotlight for groups across
the nation that were wrestling with the
questions of religion in universities
and in society. Sharonʼs thesis was so
well-received that it has been adopted
by the United States Department of
Defense as a tool for new chaplains in
the military.
After a few months of consulting,
JHU asked her to stay on staff as the
full-time chaplain and implement her
vision of an inter-faith structure. “As
University Chaplain, I advocate for the
religious needs of students, professors,
and staff members,” said Sharon,
“My goal at JHU has been to build an
inclusive sense of community within
our religiously plural population.”
Obviously, Sharonʼs hard work
has paid off. Since Sharon became
Chaplain, her center went from
14 Winter 2006