To read the full interview with Keli (Totten ‘16) Pennington go to greenville.edu.
MEET GU’S NEW CHAPLAIN Keli, thank you for sitting down with us. We’d love to hear your GU story. As a student, I was in choir and part of residence life. I graduated in 2016, majoring in theology and communication. After graduating, I worked in the admissions office for about two and a half years. My husband (Willem ’17) and I moved to North Carolina, so I could work on my master of divinity at Duke Divinity School. I worked at a United Methodist Church and taught online for GU. My husband had a great job and we loved Durham. Willem got a call from GU about a job. He applied and said, “We’ll see.” Within a few weeks, I’m back in Burritt Hall. Looking back, it was totally God’s hand at work to unexpectedly bring us back to GU last summer with Willem working in assessment and me working as Residence Director.
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GREENVILLE UNIVERSITY | GREENVILLE.EDU
What was your path to becoming GU’s chaplain? I started the ordination process to become an elder in the Free Methodist Church in 2016. (Keli was ordained in March 2022). This year, it became clear the Lord was calling me to serve college students. There were many conversations with Ross Baker (dean of students) about needs on campus, especially in the wake of former chaplain Lori Gaffner’s death, discussing how we can continue her work. Students also communicated how they would like to see spiritual development addressed on campus. What does spiritual formation mean when many students don’t identify as “Christian”? The challenge, or opportunity we have, is to reintroduce Christianity in a compelling way. I think especially for Gen Z – they’ve heard of
