Letter from the Dean
Dear Friends,
“Not an easy road” was the title for my (Duke) Chronicle column at the end of the last semester. In the same series of columns, I wrote a piece on “Don’t hesitate to celebrate.” As I look back on the 2024–2025 academic year, I can see a place for both of these columns as they give us a glimpse of what it means to be fully human. We live with lament and joy, with celebration and challenge. Yet in faith, through every circumstance of life, we open our hearts to the Spirit of God’s breath and movement through our life and work.
We had many reasons to celebrate this year. Among the highlights of the year was the Centennial Founders’ Sunday service in September. We joined with university leaders, Duke family members, and many others to give thanks for God’s goodness in Duke University’s first 100 years. In November, we organized “We Believe” with Religious Life groups from across faith traditions. This gracious hospitality to faith has supported and strengthened the Duke community since the university’s founding.
In December, we continued our longstanding tradition of performing Handel’s Messiah, while also bringing its beauty and message of hope to more than 140,000 online viewers.
Throughout the year, students in the Chapel Scholars program—now more than 130 of them—served in worship leadership roles, gathered for study and prayer, and worked to help communities in Durham and the mountains of western North Carolina.
In the pages of this annual report, you will find many more reasons for celebration—from interfaith conversations on difficult topics and our inter-religious Bridge Internship program of reflection and service to Jazz Vespers with a musical icon and an evening with a masterful poet.
I thank you for your support of all of these celebrations. Every moment of ministry is made possible by people like you who believe in bridging faith and learning at Duke.
In my column “Not an easy road,” I gave the example of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who sat down to pray at his kitchen table at a time of heightened fear and doubt. “It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice,” King said, “saying: ‘Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.’”
Whether through celebrations or laments, I can attest that God has been with Duke Chapel through it all and will continue to be our help as we stand up for and embody our values—hope, compassion, community, justice, creativity, and joy—and humbly live out our mission of bridging faith and learning.
With gratitude that you choose to be part of the Duke Chapel community,
The Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery, Dean of Duke University Chapel
Your Support Matters
Graduating students pose after a baccalaureate ceremony.
1,700+
Students Participate Regularly in Religious Life Groups
5,000, 000 + Minutes Watched of Online Chapel Videos/Livestreams
290,000 + Visits to Duke Chapel
42,726 Social Media Followers
79 Pastoral Services (Weddings, Memorials, and Baptisms)
$64,425 Given to Local and International Nonprofits
138 Members in Chapel Choirs
134 Chapel Scholars
A Global Community of Supporters
With the financial support of faithful donors and Duke University, Duke Chapel pursues its vision of responding to God’s all-inclusive love at Duke, in Durham, and beyond.
Gifts to Duke Chapel come from supporters who live around the United States. The map below represents the places throughout the country where our supporters live with the deeper blue colors signifying the greater concentration of donors. Additionally, the Chapel received support from people in four countries: China, the Philippines, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.
2024–2025
1,162 Chapel Supporters
2,164
Gifts from Donors in
47 States and
4 Countries
Celebrating a Centennial
Duke Chapel joined in the university’s 2024 Centennial Celebration with three official Centennial events and programs.
OUR FIRST LADY OF JAZZ: CELEBRATING MARY LOU WILLIAMS
APRIL 14, 2024
This concert celebrated the life and legacy of Mary Lou Williams, the pioneering jazz artist who served as an artist-in-residence at Duke during the final years of her life. To celebrate Williams’s legacy, the Duke Chapel Choir and Chapel organists teamed up with Duke Arts Vice Provost John Brown, the North Carolina Central University Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and Patrice Turner, D ’24, the director of worship and the arts at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Together, the groups presented an array of Black sacred music, from vocal jazz and gospel to spirituals, classical, and the blues. One reviewer described the concert’s atmosphere: “The overarching sense of unification was felt in the very last pew, and I applaud the ensembles for a thoroughly uplifting afternoon of music.”
CENTENNIAL FOUNDERS’ SUNDAY SERVICE
SEPTEMBER 29, 2024
The Chapel partnered with Duke Divinity School and The Duke Endowment to give thanks to God for the university’s one hundredth anniversary, during a Sunday morning worship service that united strands of Duke history, musical genres, students, university leaders, Duke family members, and prayers of thanksgiving. The Centennial Founders’ worship service in Duke Chapel symbolized what Duke University was, is, and could become. Duke family member Charles Lucas offered remarks, students prayed in four languages, Duke President Vincent Price helped lead a litany of thanksgiving, Divinity School Dean Edgardo Colón-Emeric offered a benediction, Divinity alumna Patrice Turner sang a spiritual, and the Chapel Choir, organists, and Amalgam Brass led hymns that were sung at the 1935 dedication and fiftieth anniversary of the Chapel. In his sermon, Dean Luke Powery gave voice to the role that faith in the power of the Holy Spirit has played in the global rise of Duke.
WE BELIEVE
NOVEMBER 17–18, 2024
The university’s Centennial Celebration offered an opportunity to highlight the longstanding Duke tradition of what Dean Powery has called “generous pluralism.” Duke Chapel and Religious Life leaders teamed up to present the “We Believe” initiative with two days of campus programs that explored themes of Feasting and Fasting, Gathering and Departing, and Sound and Silence. Invited speakers and campus Religious Life leaders presented dozens of opportunities to experience the faith traditions at Duke—from chatting with a chaplain on the Bryan Center Plaza to walking the Labyrinth in the Nasher Museum of Art to a keynote address by Dr. Simran Jeet Singh, executive director of the Religion & Society Program at the Aspen Institute.
The Duke Chapel Choir and NCCU Vocal Jazz Ensemble perform during the Our First Lady of Jazz concert.
Speaking during the Centennial Founders’ Sunday Service are (left to right): Angier Biddle Duke, Jr.; Duke President Vincent Price; Mary Duke Trent Jones; and Beth Hubbard.
Students walk a labyrinth in the Nasher Museum of Art during the We Believe initiative.
The Duke Chapel Choir and NCCU Vocal Jazz Ensemble perform during the Our First Lady of Jazz concert.
Speaking during the Centennial Founders’ Sunday Service are (left to right): Angier Biddle Duke, Jr.; Duke President Vincent Price; Mary Duke Trent Jones; and Beth Hubbard.
Students walk a labyrinth in the Nasher Museum of Art during the We Believe initiative.
From the joys of the Last Day of Classes to the privilege of being the Student Preacher, students engage with the Chapel throughout the year.
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
From the Orientation Sunday service through the Last Day of Classes festival, students come to Duke Chapel to celebrate, pray, reflect, learn, sing, and more.
One student who developed a deep relationship with the Chapel community is Riley Hamp, T ’25. A biology major from Waynesboro, Virginia, she began regularly attending Chapel worship services as a first-year student. In her sophomore year, she became a Chapel Scholar, finding a faith community with other Christian students. For her remaining three years at Duke, she participated in Chapel Scholar service projects and shared meals, read scripture, and served communion in Sunday services. She also took up the challenge with other Scholars to read and reflect on the same book of the Bible every day for a month.
As a senior, Hamp was selected as the 2025 Student Preacher, so on Sunday, February 23, she stepped into the Duke Chapel pulpit with her friends, parents, and grandparents in the congregation in front of her. She had the privilege and challenge of preaching on the passage in the Gospel of Luke in which Jesus calls on his disciples to “Love your enemies, do good to those who abuse you.”
She began by citing pop star Taylor Swift’s song “Karma,” which describes how the singer’s detractors will get their comeuppance. Then, she drew a contrast with the biblical message.
134 Chapel Scholars
1,700+
Students Participate Regularly in Religious Life Groups
“Our human nature is often driven by reciprocity, yet Jesus invites us to take a different approach,” she said in her sermon “Faith Over Fairness.” “He calls us to rise above the instinct for reciprocity, and when faced with injustice, to respond with gratitude instead of attitude.”
Turning to the Old Testament reading from Genesis, Hamp described Joseph’s example of forgiving his brothers for selling him into slavery. “Choosing faith over fairness, in gratitude over attitude, in times of hardship, means that we let go of the desire for karma and embrace the peace that comes from trusting God instead,” she said in conclusion. “When we focus on God’s grace, we are free to love others, even those who have wronged us and reflect his mercy in a world that so desperately needs it.”
Hamp’s service and commitment to her Christian faith make her a true Chapel Scholar, bridging faith and learning at Duke through study, prayer, and fellowship.
Scan the QR code to watch Riley Hamp’s sermon “Faith Over Fairness.”
$39,652
Grants to support Faith-Related Student Travel and Projects
18
Students Participated in Alternative Spring Break Trips
CHAPEL SCHOLARS
In all, 134 Chapel Scholars deepen the intellectual, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of their lives through engagement with Rev. Bruce Puckett and members of the Chapel ministry team.
A signature program at the Chapel, the Scholars offered leadership in worship services, volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, and developed cross-denominational relationships with a Christian focus. Over shared meals, the Scholars found fellowship and consolation as they navigated the academic year. Together, they also read books to deepen their understanding of the Christian tradition. This year’s books included Song in a Weary Throat by Pauli Murray and The Selfless Way of Christ by Henri Nouwen.
THEOLOGY UNDERGROUND
To mark the one hundredth anniversary of James Baldwin’s birthday, the Chapel’s Theology Underground series focused on the intersection of Black literature, theology, and belief. The Chapel’s minister for intercultural engagement, the Rev. Racquel Gill, joined guest speakers in leading discussions of authors such as Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright. At the end of the year, Rev. Gill took a new position as Community Relations Supervisor in the Department of Equity and Inclusion for the city of Raleigh, N.C. She will be missed by the campus community, but we celebrate her new venture.
“At every community event that I go to for the Chapel Scholars, everyone’s very open to meeting new people, very inviting, very welcoming, and there’s just a lot of joy for the Lord that is radiated from this community.”
— Olivia Lee, T ’25
SPRING BREAK
Every year, Chapel Scholars are invited to apply for support for alternative spring break trips. This year, the Chapel provided $39,652 in funding for Chapel Scholars and other students to do faith-related service work, study, and retreats around the country and abroad.
Rev. Gill also led an alternative spring break trip to Charleston, South Carolina, for Duke and North Carolina Central University students. With a focus on “race, place, and faith,” fourteen students visited the International African American Museum, the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church, and the Avery Research Center for African American Culture at the College of Charleston.
RELIGIOUS LIFE AT DUKE
Religious Life at Duke offers generous hospitality to students as they navigate their time at Duke. Buddhist, Baháʼí, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim groups offer opportunities for the practices of their faith as well as service in the local community. Young people connect with their faith, with one another, and work together to build interfaith literacy and understanding.
More than 1,700 undergraduate and graduate students regularly participated in services, programs, and gatherings organized by the twenty-four campus Religious Life groups, convened and supported by the Chapel in collaboration with Student Affairs. Religious Life groups reach beyond their core members. Combined, these groups engage more than 9,000 students and recent graduates through email and other communications.
Scan the QR code to learn more about Religious Life groups.
Students in the Chapel Scholars program have fun posing in front of the Chapel.
Students from Duke and North Carolina Central University on an alternative spring break trip in Charleston, South Carolina.
CULTIVATING
FRIENDSHIP AND PARTNERSHIP
At Duke, friendships lay the groundwork for deepening understanding and strengthening collaboration. The friendships among Religious Life leaders were important when Duke sought to promote understanding about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in Gaza and other conflicts in the Middle East.
In the fall of 2024, the Provost’s Initiative on the Middle East presented “Universities and the IsraelPalestine Conflict: How to Discuss, How to Engage?” with Chapel Dean Luke Powery moderating. Jewish Chaplain Rabbi Elana Friedman and Muslim Chaplain Joshua Salaam were among the panelists who modeled how to promote dialogue without ignoring differences.
The Chapel was also a co-sponsor of a symposium on “Believing in the Holy Land: Religion in the Israel-Palestine Conflict” organized by the Center for Christianity and Scholarship.
THE INTERFAITH ROUNDTABLE
Convened by Assistant Dean of Religious Life Rev. Dr. Lyn Pace at the Chapel and Rabbi Elana Friedman with Jewish Life at Duke, the Interfaith Roundtable gathers Religious Life leaders to explore topics through the lens of various faith traditions, deepening their appreciation for one another and religious pluralism at Duke.
INAUGURAL PLURALISM LECTURE
Duke alumnus and First Amendment expert John Inazu described his vision for “confident pluralism” on campus and in the public square. As part of the Provost’s Initiative on Pluralism, Free Inquiry, and Belonging, the lecture offered a compelling framework for how to navigate religious differences on a campus with dozens of faith traditions.
The lecture “Pluralism, Particularity, and Possibility,” stressed “the courage to hold firm to our own convictions while making room for others to hold theirs.” Two hundred and fifty people attended the lecture in person or live online, with another 400 watching the recording.
Inazu also met with Religious Life leaders and students to discuss how faith groups can find common purpose while holding to the integrity of their beliefs.
“As I look out at all of you tonight, I’m reminded that pluralism isn’t just a theory—it’s embodied in the people we meet, the friendships we form, and the institutions that shape us.”
— John Inazu
Faculty lead an interfaith Faith and Learning lunchtime conversation.
Dr. John Inazu, a law professor and Duke alumnus, speaks at the Pluralism Lecture.
Dean Luke Powery moderates a panel discussion on Universities and the Israel-Palestine Conflict.
EXPLORING MEANING WITH SAY THE THING
Aligned with Dean Powery’s vision of a “chapel without walls,” “Say the Thing” makes spiritual and ethical formation accessible in classrooms, libraries, cafeterias, and common spaces across campus. The Rev. Leah Torrey, director of special initiatives, meets students where they live and learn, always reminding them of the larger story of who they have been, who they are, and who they are becoming.
In the last year, Say the Thing “Lark” events engaged participants more than 3,000 times in creating personalized artifacts. From the outside, Lark events look like colorful, joyful moments of art-making fun and yet at the heart of every Lark is an opportunity for deeper exploration. At one Lark, hosted at the Pratt School for Engineering, over 200 engineering students took a marker to an existing page of text to create a “blackout poem” with the words left visible. New texts, as unique as their student authors, emerged from old texts, an exercise in everyday renewal.
The Duke Office of Climate and Sustainability invited Say the Thing to showcase and
Students transformed existing texts through “blackout poetry” at a Say the Thing Lark event.
organize multiple Larks at the Southeastern Student Sustainability Conference for close to 300 student leaders from universities across the south. Conference students used bottle caps, discarded paper, and resin to create unique medallions featuring their most prized values like justice, kindness, community, and strength.
Howard Thurman said, “The desire to be one’s true self is ever persistent.” In “The Booth” from Say the Thing, participants are offered thoughtful prompts on a touchscreen kiosk, invited to a moment of silence, and then to respond to questions in a video recording. Each recording is sent directly to the user’s email inbox—a keepsake recording they can return to for further self-examination. More than 2,350 recordings have been made since the launch in 2024.
In a more intensive six-week program called “the Studio,” students draw from their own lives and the lives of influential thinkers, writers, and artists—such as Richard Feynman, Mary Oliver, and Malcolm X—to reevaluate the unfurling plotline of their personal story. The resulting short-form essays authored by Studio students are published in a variety of formats including a zine-style journal titled “our things.” Due to the Studio’s popularity on campus, Say the Thing expanded its services to the broader community. Fourteen early career Durham public school teachers participated in a program offered by Say the Thing to Duke’s TeachHouse.
The “Hamster,” another Say the Thing program, can be found on the Say the Thing Instagram channel (@say.the.thing). Polaroid photos of students are accompanied by brief narratives that link the images to key moments in their lives. Students are challenged to take a full spin through their lives and a critical look at the people, places, and experiences that shaped their unique selves.
Finally, Say the Thing piloted a new program this past spring, “the Civic Studio.” The Civic Studio builds on the Studio curriculum as participants consider the ethical and practical relationship of the self in society. After meeting
weekly for six weeks to discuss issues and structures of civic life, six students and two staff members traveled over spring break to Romania to meet with community leaders and explore cultural centers in Bucharest, engaging the relationship between individual and national narratives. “The national story informs us about what our place in
the country is,” sophomore Aaron Ng said about what he learned in Romania.
Supporting the work of Say the Thing programs are thirty students affiliated with its Self-Conscious Design Team and two Green Devil Interns funded by Duke’s Office of Climate and Sustainability.
Senior Yujin Kim holds up her creation at a Lark event—an old musical score animated by words and images of contemporary musicians.
Congregants participate in the Stations of the Cross service on Good Friday.
CHRISTIAN WORSHIP
Each week at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, hundreds of worshipers gather in the Chapel with hundreds more watching online to give glory to God in music, to pray for the life of the university and world, to hear the challenge and comfort of the Gospel, and to recognize one another as children of God. The services unite the campus and wider community, drawing upon the gifts of Chapel ministers and musicians, Divinity School professors, alumni guest preachers, community partners, student lectors, and ministers and volunteers from the Congregation at Duke Chapel. Attendance pads placed in the pews offer insight into who joins the Chapel for these services. About twenty percent of people in the pews are
26,000
Attendance at Chapel Worship Services
105,892 Online Viewership of Chapel Services
students, while another twelve percent are Duke alumni and five percent are faculty or staff. The Congregation at Duke Chapel as well as visitors and tourists comprise the rest of the gathered community each Sunday.
The growing online reach of our offerings in Christian Worship—Sunday services, Evensong, and other programs—is a steady reminder of the good news the Chapel offers to the world.
Scan the QR code for archives and recordings.
14,310
Streams of the Duke Chapel Sermons Podcast
150+
Number of Times Students Served as Lectors and Assisting Ministers
Students offer prayers in multiple languages during the Centennial Founders’ Sunday service.
GATHERING TO GLORIFY GOD
On Sunday mornings, the Chapel is home to a community of Christians who seek to follow the example of Jesus in their daily lives. Other services, like Choral Evensong and Jazz Vespers also welcome communities to gather, pray, and receive the blessings of offering praise to God.
CHORAL EVENSONG
Music is at the heart of the Chapel’s Choral Evensong services with sung psalms, anthems, and the canticles of Mary and Simeon—songs of
joyful hope and peaceful fulfilment—all speaking of God’s mercy, light, and abiding presence. The service continued with an average in-person attendance of 100 people and average online viewership of more than 500 per service.
Partnership with the Divinity School’s Anglican Episcopal House of Studies provides for student worship leaders and connections with local clergy, who occasionally preside at the service.
In celebration of then tenth anniversary of the Evensong singers, the group embarked on a weeklong tour in Oxford, England, where they sang Evensong services in six of the city’s historic chapels and cathedrals.
“The Chapel became my church home. I loved serving in worship services, reading scripture, and serving communion, as well as helping out during the Lent and Easter season with Ash Wednesday and Good Friday services.”
— Mallory Poff, engineering graduate student
Worship leaders, ministers, and faculty process during the opening of the Centennial Founders’ Sunday service.
JAZZ VESPERS
Jazz Vespers, presented in collaboration with Duke Arts and John Brown’s Big Band, celebrated its tenth anniversary in the fall of 2024. In the spring of 2025, jazz icon Branford Marsalis, along with pianist Joey Calderazzo, was the guest artist for Jazz Vespers, which drew more than 400 people. Duke poets Tsitsi Ella Jaji and Crystal Simone Smith read their original poetry for the service, while students and Chapel ministers read scripture and provided prayers. Reflecting on the service in one of his (Duke) Chronicle columns, Chapel Dean Luke Powery said: “Jazz is not just one pure thing; instead, it is made up of numerous things, whatever one has at hand in the moment to make music. Isn’t this like our human existence?... We play jazz existentially.”
BELOVED SERVICES
Christmas Eve celebrated the birth of Jesus in four services, from the 2:00 p.m. Children’s Service to the 11:00 p.m. Lessons and Carols.
Easter services filled the Chapel twice, with another 800 people attending the Easter Sunrise service in Duke Gardens.
On All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween), more than 200 students and community members entered a candlelit Chapel at 10:30 p.m. to celebrate the witness of Christians across place and time.
The Blessing of the Animals outdoor service, organized in collaboration with the Duke Catholic Center, was a favorite among pet owners.
A series of Compline services in Lent, held jointly with the Episcopal Center at Duke, offered silence, prayers, and traditional chants.
Jazz legend Branford Marsalis plays saxophone during a Jazz Vespers service.
LITURGY AND THE POWER OF PREACHING
VIBRANT LITURGY
In a Sunday morning worship service last December, when the time came for the sermon, an ensemble of singers and instrumentalists began performing Johann Sebastian Bach’s Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (“Savior of the nations, come”), BWV 62. The German cantata served as a “sermon in sound” that Sunday with its artful combination of scripture texts, hymn stanzas, prose, and poetry centered on the coming of the Christ child.
Employing a Bach cantata as a sermon was one example of a creative approach to litugy that draws on on the richness of Christian tradition.
A LIVING TRADITION
The pulpit in Duke Chapel continues to offer compelling preaching as each week, the sermons invite listeners into a deeper relationship with God in Christ Jesus. Chapel ministers, Divinity faculty, and invited guests create a vibrant witness to the power of the spoken word. Every year, new sermons are added to the digital collection.
DUKE CHAPEL RECORDINGS ARCHIVE
One example of the power of the digital archive can be found in the sermon by Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis. In 1979, Chavis was serving a decades-long prison sentence for crimes for which he would eventually be pardoned. While a prisoner in Hillsborough, North Carolina, he was also a student at Duke Divinity School. Through his campus connections, he was invited to preach at a service in Duke Chapel memorializing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and received permission to leave the prison and step into the Chapel pulpit.
To a congregation of 1,000 people, he said in his sermon “The Dream Continues,” “I believe, as Martin Luther King, Jr. believed, that this universal dream and quest for freedom existed originally in the mind of God and that Martin was one of the long evangelical succession of prophetic witnesses in the communication of God’s dream to God’s people.”
With 41,625 webpage views last year, the online collection continues to be a source for research, teaching, and inspiration for present-day preachers.
Additionally, a kiosk in the Chapel’s main entranceway (narthex) offers visitors an opportunity to print out excerpts of Chapel sermons; this past year, people took away 1,374 of these printouts as a glimpse into decades of Gospel proclamation at the Chapel.
Scan the QR code to learn more about Living Tradition.
Dr. Philip Cave, conductor-in-residence, directs a Bach cantata performance.
A Chronicle article from 1979 reports on the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Chavis’s sermon at Duke Chapel, delivered while he was a prisoner and now available in the Duke Chapel Recordings digital archive.
SACRED MUSIC & THE ARTS
Chapel Choir members sing during a Sunday morning service.
Founded in 1932, the Duke Chapel Choir is the oldest established music ensemble at Duke. Leading the community in sacred song at Sunday services and concerts each semester, the 107 choir members combine musical excellence with a strong sense of community.
This year a staff writer at the (Duke) Chronicle, Wanyu Zhang, E ’27 asked to do a behind-the-scenes photo essay and feature story about the choir. Working with junior Zev van Zanten, T ’26 the two teamed up to capture photos and conduct interviews for an article published in late spring, “Making the Duke Chapel come to life: Behind the scenes of the Chapel Choir.”
“Every Sunday, the Duke Chapel erupts with song and joy during Sunday morning services,” the story began. From there, it recounted the choir’s history, current membership, routines for
rehearsals, administrative operations, and singing in Sunday services. The piece reminded the campus that the Chapel Choir has a unique role on campus, providing musical beauty, spiritual depth, and enduring friendship.
This year, the Chapel Choir’s excellence was recognized in a national competition—the choir was awarded Third Prize in the 2024 American Prize for Choral Performance (Community Division).
Scan QR code to read The Chronicle article “Making the Duke Chapel come to life: Behind the scenes of the Chapel Choir.”
“Every Sunday, the Duke Chapel erupts with song and joy during Sunday morning services.” — Zev van Zanten, T ’26, writing in the (Duke) Chronicle
6,300 Attendance at Chapel Concerts
149,999 Online Viewership of Chapel Concerts
138 Members of Chapel Choirs
350+
Participants in Music Clinics and Summer Training Programs
FAITHFUL SERVICE RECOGNIZED
On April 6, 2025, University Organist Dr. Robert Parkins presented his farewell recital in Duke Chapel. He performed on all three of the Chapel’s main organs, selecting pieces he had previously played at dedicatory recitals for each of those instruments during his forty-seven years at Duke. Each section was introduce by a short video interview.
At a reception following the recital, Chapel Dean Luke Powery announced that the Brombaugh Organ, located in Memorial Chapel inside of Duke Chapel, had been named the “Robert Collings Parkins Organ” in Dr. Parkins’s honor.
ORGAN SCHOLAR PROGRAM
Katherine Johnson, Chapel Organ Scholar for the past two years, continues her development as a church musician this fall by pursuing graduate studies at the highly selective Yale Institute of Sacred Music.
CONCERTS OF NOTE
The Bach Cantata Series traced the renowned composer’s career from his earliest appointments in Arnstadt and Mühlhausen, Germany, to Weimar and Leipzig.
“American Voices” brought the Chapel Choir and the Duke Chorale together for the spring oratorio concert with works by Aaron Copland, Caroline Shaw, and Randall Thompson.
With the theme of “eternal light,” the Evensong singers spring concert performed music by J. S. Bach, Thomas Tallis, and the contemporary composer Lucy Walker.
The United States Naval Academy Glee Club drew an audience that filled the Chapel for its exuberant performance.
Regular weekday carillon recitals continue, supplemented by the J. Samuel Hammond Carillon Recital Series.
Dr. Robert Parkins gave his farewell recital, capping his forty-seven years at Duke.
SPREADING SACRED MUSIC THROUGHOUT THE WORLD
SACRED MUSIC IN PERFORMANCE
Chapel Music continues to cultivate platforms and venues to build up, present, and pass on traditions of sacred music. The reach is impressive. In addition to the three sold-out live performances, a compilation video recording of this past year’s Handel Messiah concerts was viewed online more than 140,000 times.
The Chapel’s Schola Cantorum choir performed in March at the national conference of the American Choral Directors Association. This invitation came after a peer-reviewed, blind jury process, and was the first time a Duke ensemble had ever been invited to perform for a national ACDA conference.
The Evensong singers, led by the Chapel’s conductor-in-residence Dr. Philip Cave, sang in six Choral Evensong services at historic chapels in Oxford, England, including Christ Church Cathedral, Exeter College Chapel, and Magdalen College Chapel. The musical pilgrimage was a way to both celebrate the choir’s tenth anniversary and the origins of Evensong in the sixteenth-century Book of Common Prayer
EDUCATING THE NEXT GENERATION
More than 350 singers came to Duke Chapel this past year to learn and practice sacred music at the Chapel’s choral clinic in January, as well as summer programs by partner organizations Chorworks and Royal School of Church Music in America. Through these workshops, singers as young as ten years old make music in the beautiful acoustic and aesthetic of Duke Chapel.
PUBLICATIONS
Choirs around the country are performing songs made possible through the Music from Duke Chapel Series, published by MorningStar Music from ECS Publishing Group. The growing collection of thirty-one compositions features pieces performed in worship or in concert at Duke Chapel, including newly commissioned works, modern editions of historic repertoire, and liturgical music by a diverse array of composers. Video recordings of selected works from the series have been viewed more than 85,000 times.
Participants in the RSCMA Summer Choral Residency pose with silly faces.
SINGING THE PSALMS
In January, ministers and musicians from Duke Chapel joined Duke Divinity School students, faculty, and staff in Goodson Chapel to chant all 150 of the Bible’s psalms. The service was notable not only for its length and monastic quality but also because the 150 psalms were original translations by Dr. Ellen Davis, the Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at the Divinity School.
Dr. Davis spent more than five years creating a new, complete English translation of the Psalms, working with Dr. Allison Hamm. Chapel Music Director Zebulon Highben and Organist Chad Fothergill worked closely with Hamm and Davis to prepare musical notations for singing. These new translations and settings are being using in worship services at the Chapel and in the Duke Divinity School.
“Although I have spent a lot of time with monastic communities, both women and men, over many years, I had never heard all 150 psalms sung in eleven hours. And just the flow of that text was moving to me—and also to hear it in the mouths of my students and my colleagues.”
— Dr. Ellen Davis
Dr. Ellen Davis, center, with the students, colleagues, and Saint John’s Bible , spent a day chanting all 150 psalms, which she had translated.
WELCOMING THE OFRENDA
A collaboration last fall with Duke Arts combined artistic creativity, religious devotion, and cultural traditions. From October 7 through All Saints’ Day, the Chapel displayed a Day of the Dead altar created by the Inter-Latin American Artist Collective. As is customary, visitors were invited to leave mementos honoring deceased loved ones, such as photographs, paper prayer chains, and devotional objects.
C. ERIC LINCOLN THEOLOGY AND ARTS FELLOWSHIP
Duke Divinity School student Jaden Dejesus Blango, D ’25 presented an exhibition at the Chapel titled Imagination and Promise: The Theological Aesthetics of Hope. Inspired by the Christian theology of God as the Holy Trinity, the exhibition comprised pencil drawings of people on cut paper layered on backgrounds textured by water marbling, gold ink, ashes, and magazine clippings. “What I want to invite people to imagine is God’s promises of a reality that is already-but-not-yet present and can be lived into and encountered,” Blango said about his exhibition.
Jaden Dejesus Blango, D ’25 was this year’s C. Eric Lincoln Fellow in Theology and Art.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Pádraig Ó Tuama reads his poetry.
“It all begins with knowing nothing lasts forever / So you might as well start packing now / In the meantime, practice being alive.” — From “How to Belong Be Alive” by Pádraig Ó Tuama
Irish poet, Pádraig Ó Tuama came to Duke last fall to deliver the Chapel’s third annual William Preston Few Lecture, titled “Poetry, Prayer, and Public Healing.” Following the poetry reading, in a public conversation with Chapel Dean Luke Powery, Ó Tuama reflected on the power of words to heal:
“What I can say is worthwhile trying, is reading peace agreements from other parts of the world because they show what language can do. When it comes to the small peace treaties that we have with our friends, with our neighbors, our family members, in our communities, and our places of work—the ways in which we look to address the past, tell the truth about the violence, and find some way to still stay together in the after of that—that is an act of communal making. It is an act of art.”
One person in attendance, Chelsea Krieg, said she appreciated how Ó Tuama drew a connection between poetry and peace. “It’s always nice to be reminded that things that are often considered softer—like poetry and prayer, these introspective things—are incredibly valuable to creating peace,” said Krieg, who teaches creative writing at North Carolina State University.
The Few Lecture brought together students, faculty, and community members for a rich consideration of the intersection of creative writing, theology, and political science. Close to 100 audience members waited in line for a moment with the poet. Ó Tuama also offered a writing workshop for Duke students during his visit to campus.
Scan the QR code to read more about the Chapel’s Few Lecture.
3,460 People Climbed the Chapel Tower
$64,425 Given to Local and International Nonprofits
5,000+ Viewership of Dean Powery’s Chronicle column
5,101 Cumulative Listenership of the Sounds of Faith podcast
BUILDING BRIDGES IN DURHAM AND BEYOND
Through the Bridge Internship, students from Duke and North Carolina Central University (NCCU) live and learn together in Durham’s West End neighborhood while also working at organizations that contribute to the welfare of Durham. The summer program arises from a partnership among Duke Chapel, the NCCU Office of Community Engagement, and the NCCU Wesley Campus Ministry.
This past summer, six students participated in the program, which included readings and discussions of purpose and the common good from the perspective of different faiths. The internship is poised to grow and strengthen.
Last year, the Chapel was awarded a capacitybuilding grant from Wake Forest University’s Educating Character Initiative to help refine and expand the program. This work will include consultations with faculty at Duke and NCCU, conversations with the nonprofit organizations in Durham who offer meaningful internships to the students, and the development of a comprehensive plan for program growth and sustainability.
“There are a lot of elements of cross-cultural communication and cultural humility,” Duke senior Amei Gove says about her internship with World Relief Durham, through which she assisted refugee families, even learning some words in Swahili. “I learned about what it must be like to experience this country as a refugee.”
THE PATHWAYS FELLOWSHIP
During the academic year, The PathWays Fellowship offers a residential program for service and discernment. Three graduate students lived in the PathWays house this year, sharing in readings, prayers, and retreats grounded in the Christian faith.
PILGRIMAGE OF PAIN AND HOPE
To better understand the people, history, and possibilities of Durham, the Chapel sponsors groups to participate in the Durham Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope. Run by the local nonprofit DurhamCares, the three-day-long walking tour of Durham immerses participants in the story of Durham and the biblical story as a way to reflect on what it means to live, study, and work in Durham. This past year, a total of forty students, local community members, and Duke staff members participated in the two pilgrimages sponsored by the Chapel.
DIRECT CARE FOR THE COMMUNITY
Venturing outside of Durham for an alternative spring break trip, the Chapel led a group of students to western North Carolina to help with ongoing recovery efforts from Hurricane Helene. Joining 100 other volunteers, they painted, removed trash, and installed insulation and vapor barriers at a mobile home park that was severely damaged.
One further way the Chapel continues to contribute to the thriving of Durham and North Carolina, as well as communities abroad, is through financial support of nonprofit organizations. In the 2024–2025 fiscal year, the generosity of Chapel supporters allowed for the donation of $64,425 to fifteen nonprofits working in Durham and abroad to feed people in need, build houses for people seeking homes, respond to natural disasters, and more (see the insert booklet for details).
Bridge Interns, their supervisors, and program leaders at the PathWays House.
“Living in the PathWays House and being deliberate in recognizing our differences in religion and backgrounds and learning to live with them and understand more about them—that’s something I hadn’t really done before.”
— Pratikchhya Rimal, T ‘26 and Bridge Internship participant
Students and community members participate in the Durham Pilgrimage of Pain and Hope.
A PRACTICE OF HOSPITALITY
The Chapel Hospitality Team makes meaningful moments possible every day. They open the Chapel’s doors in the morning and close the doors in the evening. In between, they are the warm faces that welcome visitors, answer questions, guide wedding parties, assist event organizers, and listen to the myriad stories of people who come from far and wide to experience the Chapel.
Eight volunteer docents welcomed 1,347 guests through their tours of the Chapel’s architecture, history, and ministries, and eight student ambassadors led shorter tours and provided support for events.
To provide added leadership and oversight for the team, last year the Chapel hired Beca Franca as its first Director of Hospitality and Building Management.
A PLACE FOR REMEMBRANCE
When Cathy Vanliew’s mother, Beverly Crews, passed away in the spring, she turned to Duke Chapel to hold the memorial service. Crews, N ’59, worked for nearly twenty years as a nurse at Duke University Hospital. During that time, she would often come to Duke Chapel to sit and pray after a difficult day. Crews’s family joined the Congregation at Duke Chapel, and four of her grandchildren were baptized in the Memorial Chapel.
While in Duke Hospice Care, Crews said she wanted her memorial service to be held in Memorial Chapel. Vanliew, Director of Operations, Data Partnerships with Duke Health Technology Solutions, contacted the Chapel’s hospitality team, who made arrangements for the service in Memorial Chapel that included presiding minister Rev. Kathryn LesterBacon, T ’06, Chapel Organist Chad Fothergill, and a cantor who sang her mother’s favorite song from Chapel services, “God Be in My Head.”
“It all really came full circle for her. It was her favorite place to be —many tears there and many happy, amazing times…. I’m just very grateful, and I’ll use that word a bazillion times.”
— Cathy Vanliew
At the end of the Orientation Sunday service, the Rev. Dr. Lyn Pace (right) offers a word of welcome.
A PLACE FOR PRAYER
A memorial service is one reason people visit the Chapel. There are many other reasons for the 290,000 visits last year. To name just a few others: Family members of hospital patients shared their prayers in the Prayer Box; students slipped inside for a centering moment in the midst of a demanding schedule; school children were inspired by the grandeur of a university chapel; and, a class on “Materiality of Religion” explored the scenes in the Chapel’s stained-glass windows.
A PLACE FOR NEW BEGINNINGS
For thousands of Duke alumni and employees, their most significant connection to Duke Chapel is participating in a Chapel wedding. Baptisms, graduations, and memorials are also one-time experiences at the Chapel that can produce lifelong memories. In 2024–2025, the Chapel hosted twentytwo university ceremonies, forty-six weddings, eleven memorials, and twenty-two baptisms.
OPENING THE DIGITAL DOORWAY
OPENING THE DIGITAL DOORWAY
In addition to the many people who visited in person last year, the Chapel had 172,000 visitors to its website, 572,000 views of its YouTube and Facebook videos, and an estimated social media reach of more than one million. Whether it is the livestream of a worship service, a prayer posted to Instagram, a lecture recording on YouTube, a sermon in a podcast, or a webpage with contact information for Religious Life leaders, all of these online interactions highlight, amplify, and extend some aspect of the Chapel’s mission.
WORDS FOR STUDENTS
Chapel Dean Luke Powery offered gentle wisdom and life lessons to the Duke community in his opinion pieces on The Chronicle website. Topics ranging from “Getting close enough to care” and “Jazz as a way of life” to “The courage to be curious” and “How will you end?” reached a cumulative viewership of more than 5,000 last year.
A NEW LOOK FOR CHAPEL.DUKE.EDU
This past year, the Chapel enhanced its online offerings with a new website that allows for dynamic media and easy viewing on mobile devices while retaining its extensive online archive of services, sermons, events, and announcements.
SOUNDS OF FAITH
The Chapel’s Sounds of Faith podcast explores faithrelated topics with long-form interviews and archival audio excerpts. Having finished its first full year, its number of listens across three platforms—Spotify, Soundcloud, and Apple Podcasts—now total more than 5,000. Episodes include: Chapel Music Director Zebulon Highben on how he composes Christmas music; Divinity student Spence Herrington on her research of the Duke Chapel preaching archive; and Duke music professor Roseen Giles on the musical evolution of J. S. Bach.
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WITH DEEP ROOTS IN DUKE’S HISTORY AND A BOLD VISION FOR THE FUTURE OF FAITH— WE ARE MADE FOR THIS.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CHAPEL’S PRIORITIES AND CONSIDER MAKING YOUR GIFT TODAY:
We Give Thanks The Duke Chapel Staff
OFFICE OF THE DEAN
Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery
Dean of Duke Chapel
Rev. Leah Torrey
Director of Special Initiatives
Ava West
Assistant to the Dean
Madison Daniel II
Program Coordinator for Say the Thing
MINISTRY
Rev. Bruce Puckett
Assistant Dean
Rev. Dr. Lyn Pace
Assistant Dean of Religious Life
Rev. Racquel C. N. Gill*
Minister for Intercultural Engagement
Caleb Harris
Worship and Ministry Coordinator
Nicholas Venable Music
Director for United in Praise
MUSIC
Dr. Zebulon Highben
Director of Chapel Music
Dr. Philip Cave
Conductor-in-Residence
Dr. Robert Parkins*
University Organist
Chad Fothergill
Chapel Organist
John Santoianni
Ethel Sieck Carrabina Curator of Organs & Harpsichords
David Faircloth
Program Coordinator for Chapel Music
Katelyn MacDonald*
Staff Specialist Mitchell
Mitchell Eithun
Chapel Carillonneur
Aaron Colston
Chapel Carillonneur
Katherine Johnson*
Organ Scholar
David Lim
Organ Scholar
This list includes all current staff, with (*) indicating those staff members who have retired or left the Chapel in FY25 to pursue new opportunities.
DEVELOPMENT
Amanda Millay Hughes
Senior Director of Development and Strategy
Jeff Compton-Nelson
Associate Director of Development
Jimmy Paton
Development Marketing Specialist
Erica Thomas Staff Assistant for Development
COMMUNICATIONS
James Todd
Director of Communications
Karen Huang
Communications Specialist
Nathan Dove*
Communications Specialist
BUSINESS & FACILITIES
Joni Harris
Senior Director of Business and Facilities
Lisa Best
Business and Facilities Specialist
Tasha Braswell
Financial Management Analyst
Beca Franca
Director of Hospitality and Building Management
Christina Van Werkhoven
Staff Assistant for Hospitality/Wedding Coordinator
Leslie Ballew
Wedding Director
Paquita Burnette-Thorpe
Wedding Director
VISITOR RELATIONS ASSISTANTS
Ann Hall
Ken Davenport
Benny Edwards
Larry Efird
Mary Salvarezza
Amanda Wu
Yixuan (Poppy) Zhao*
Stanley Giles*
UNIVERSITY HOUSEKEEPERS
Oscar Dantzler
Beverly Jordan
CHAIR
The Duke Chapel National Advisory Board
Grace Lee, T ’79
VICE CHAIR
Southgate Jones III
EMERITUS MEMBER
William E. King, T ’61, G ’63, G ’70
MEMBERS
David Benjamin Adams, A.B. ’08
Lauren Allen, T ’25
D. Michael Bennett, T ’77
Charles Berardesco, T ’80
John A. Bussian III, T ’76
Carter Cribbs, T ’25
M. Keith Daniel, T ’90, D ’05, D ’16
Ellen Davis
Thomas Felgner, T ’94, B ’95
Cathy Gilliard, D ’97
Elizabeth Grantland, T ’20
Zach Heater, T ’17
Sara Elizabeth H. Jones, T ’89
Carole Klove, N ’80
Kenneth Lee, T ’74
Arthur Maxwell Powell II, D ’24
Hananiel Setiawan, G ’23
Sanyin Siang, E ’96, B ’02
Dean Luke Powery greets the families of graduates during a baccalaureate ceremony.
SCAN THE QR CODE TO GIVE ONLINE.
Flags representing all of the campus Religious Life groups on display during the “We Believe” program.
VISION
To respond to God’s all-inclusive love at Duke, in Durham, and in the world.
MISSION
Rooted in the love of God in Jesus Christ, Duke Chapel bridges faith and learning by nurturing and embodying the intellectual, ethical, and spiritual life.