The Miscellany News

Every once in a while, a writer is tasked with a behemoth, daunting task. One that makes them question not only their capabilities but also their worth. In my case, it was a task I eagerly jumped at the chance to pursue. I grappled with those questions and my decision as I power walked to meet Reverend Sam Speers in his old office in the Chapel tower. I heard Rev. Speers was retiring on a nondescript Monday night in The Miscellany News office. I immediately incredulously exclaimed, “You’re kidding!” It was not a question or even a statement. It was denial, the first stage of grief. I thought by the time he had agreed to be dinterviewed about his time at Vassar, I would be at the last stage: acceptance. As I write this article weeks later, reviewing both Rev. Speers’ contributions to our campus and the number of times he gently validated my journalistic chops by saying, “I appreciate the question,” let me assure you that I am not. 

You may have seen Rev. Speers at Pratt House, speaking heartwarmingly at campus gatherings and events, or being tugged around campus by his family’s dog, Ray. In other words, he is a campus fixture, urging me to get to know him better: his past, his advice and his plans after almost 26 years of being the Associate Dean of the College for Religious and Spiritual Life and Contemplative Practices (RSLCP). 

Before calling Poughkeepsie home, Rev. Speers was raised in Connecticut and would later move to Chicago for a formative 14 years. There, he graduated from divinity school at the University of Chicago, worked in their campus Chaplaincy, eventually earning the role of the Associate Dean of the campus chapel, got married and started his family. When offered his job at Vassar, that connection to the city remained. He shared, “It took a long time before I could let go of being a Chicagoan.” When asked to compare and contrast our small, quiet liberal arts college with his alma mater, Rev. Speers admitted that while both institutions are very different, he affirmed his love for what will be our alma mater by saying, “I’ve always loved it here, the will of the spiritual life and the intellectual life, that’s a lot of what drew me to chaplaincy in the first place.” 

Rev. Speers’ career and role at Vassar have had many chapters and undergone many transformations. I asked him to start at the very beginning of his career here. And so, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and half-packed boxes of papers and trinkets, I took a trip down memory lane with him. The way Rev. Speers’ own responsibilities have changed over the last two and a half decades speaks volumes about the religious landscape on campus, in the country and also in the eyes of Rev. Speers himself. He originally guided his work by focusing on a more traditional view of chaplaincy, which mainly focused on community engagement and spirituality. But that would change as he took note of the student community’s response. 

“We started and oversaw the Good Neighbors program, which gives small grants to community-based organizations. That certainly was the model for a time, as much as ten years. It started to become clear that students didn’t necessarily want to come to this office in order to do community-engaged work,” he shared. Eventually, this would lead to the establishment of important initiatives and offices on campus such as the Office of Community Engaged Learning (OCEL). Now programs such as the Good Neighbors program are facilitated by the OCEL, and while Rev. Speers stays involved by being on the board, his ability to take on and let go of responsibilities as best serves the community would continue to make Vassar a more inclusive campus. 

Rev. Sam Speers shifted his work to address the gap between the needs and beliefs of students and the campus’s religious life offerings: namely, the question of secularity. “We did a lot of work, we did about a ten-year project, just exploring the question of what does it mean that we call ourselves secular?” he explained. Acknowledging the importance of dialogue and diverse perspectives, Rev. Speers ensured that the project was built on a bedrock of the voices of experts and stakeholders. “We got support from the Teagle Foundation, we worked with three other campuses on that project, we assembled teams of chaplains and faculty members to do a qualitative study of our campuses, and the kind of invisible secular borders that people bumped into on their campuses,” he elaborated. 

Out of this decade-long project emerged a wealth of knowledge and experience that would go on to inform the last leg of Rev. Speers’ time at Vassar. This period culminated in the establishment and success of Pratt House and the choice to include contemplative practices within the office’s area of focus. This is when the RSLCP and the campus we know today begin to emerge. These changes broached the question of secularity and involved beloved, accomplished campus faculty such as Professor of Political Science Himadeep Muppidi and Associate Professor of Political Science and Africana Studies Samson Opondo to imagine a non-religiously marked space for the RSLCP. 

Rev. Speers posed me the question he used for the foundation  of Pratt House: “We’ve made a primary question while as long as we’ve been at Pratt House, something that I learned from Professor Himadeep Muppidi and Professor Sam Opondo, to really ask ourselves in an ongoing way, do we always have to reproduce the religious and secular either or? You know, in the fancy language, the religious and secular binary?”

I cannot think of a better space that embodies that constant interaction between faith, community and life than Pratt House. It is home to Buddhist Sangha sits, Iftar and Passover celebrations, Luddite Club meetings, student-faculty dinners and more. No aspect of Pratt House can be reduced to the binary that we have been socialized to reckon with. Instead, it becomes an inviting home for nuance, love and curiosity—all things that cannot be watered down to “either or.” 

In this transition to Pratt House, the RSLCP engages with the student community in increasingly holistic ways. “We’ve really seen the significant growth of our Muslim community over the last five to 10 years. That’s the student community right now that’s growing the fastest, within our area. We are also seeing a significant growth in our Buddhist Sangha and students who are interested in different forms of mindfulness practice. Our Jewish communities have been, for some time, the most vibrant on campus.” Rev. Speers shared, explaining the impacts of Pratt House at Vassar. He also noted how this significantly subverts the campus’ history as a predominantly protestant institution, even within the Christian faith. 

Upholding the intention to be a resource for students, Rev. Speers does not shy away from the strong beliefs and activism that Brewers bring with them into Pratt House. “It feels like it’s part of our job to support those students and help them ask questions about how it is that, their religious and spiritual formation is an important source for what’s motivating them to be engaged,” Rev. Speers commented, contextualizing the role of RSLCP in the undeniable interconnectedness of activism and religion. 

And with these three interconnected eras of facilitating and guiding religious life on campus, I could not hold in my unprofessionalism. I asked Rev. Speers why, after years of navigating conflict and tumultuous cultural and political moments with Vassar students, he picked this moment to bid us farewell. With everything happening in the world and on campus, can Rev. Speers not see that we need him more than ever? Amused and full of humility, he told me, “It is not easy, right? It’s really not easy. I really have loved being here. The people here, the place and the opportunities that I’ve had, it’s pretty remarkable.” 

But his goal of creating structures that prioritise inclusivity and dialogue amongst students, such as introducing the positions of full-time Jewish and Muslim life advisors, had come to fruition, giving him the impression that it was someone else’s turn to step up to the plate. “I’m not part of the search at all, but I’m hearing very good things about the candidate pool and I certainly know they’re. You know, the whole field of chaplaincy has changed remarkably over my time at college and I just know there’s some very gifted people out there,” he assured me. 

While Rev. Speers plans to spend his newly free schedule reading, writing, spending time outdoors, and of course, contemplating, I asked him for a parting gift of advice that Brewers who may not have the honor of conversing with Rev. Speers can use in his absence. And as always, Rev. Speers made me rethink my mentality by candidly saying, “Advice often becomes our way of putting distance between us and another person and almost a sense of imagining, ‘oh I know.’ And the other person needs to hear my wisdom that I can pass on to them.” He humbled me, and I humbly nodded in agreement. 

However, although he did not call it that, he did impart a little bit of wise advice, which, upon hearing, only further convinced me, “Oh, this man does know.” “Do the work. Figure out what your self-work is and embrace it. It’s never too late,” he encouraged. 

I stepped out of the shadow of the Chapel tower into the sun, mind racing with thoughts, heart jittery to start writing and a pep in my step. I was not sure if the warmth I was feeling was from his attentive listening or the spring sun—a conversation with Rev. Sam Speers can do that to you. And this is why I wrote this piece: To record for posterity the impact of having someone with an open mind and aptitude for learning as a resource during some of the most unusual and confusing four years in a person’s life. It is also why I told him his successor has pretty big shoes to fill. To which he charmingly responded, straightening his sneaker-clad foot out to inspect himself, “I do wear a size 13.” Rev. Sam Speers will always be cherished at Vassar College, but more importantly, his vision and ability to foster true community will forever be embedded into the fabric of this institution as a rich tapestry of differences and the importance of talking and building across them.