AROUND THE WORLD
From Goldman to chaplain Before arriving at 10600 Preston Road, Rev. Stephen Arbogast worked in politics, religion, business and academia in various jobs located in cities and countries across America, Europe and Africa.
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e was a political campaigner as a teenager and became a Jesuit after college. He’s led a training program at Goldman Sachs and volunteered for the Peace Corps at Benin. He’s been a teaching assistant at Yale and taught history classes at independent schools. As a teenager, Rev. Stephen Arbogast had no idea his career would take him across the United States and over the Atlantic Ocean to Europe and Africa before ultimately culminating as the chaplain at 10600 Preston Road. “If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that you don’t know what the future’s going to bring,” Arbogast said. “You really have to be open to whatever is going to come up. Be flexible because you never know when an opportunity is going to come. I think that’s the cool thing about life. If you’re in the right place at the right time, and you’re ready, you can take advantage of the opportunities that come your way.”
October 29, 2020
The ReMarker
10600
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After growing up in Lewisburg, PA, Arbogast explored his interest in politics when he was a sophomore in college. “I ran Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign over four counties,” Arbogast said. “I beat a state rep. I beat a mayor of one of the towns. I won over some business guy and was the youngest elected delegate at any national political convention. I was just barely, by a couple of days, old enough to meet the requirement. You had to be 18 by a certain day, so when I was 17, I started running the campaign and ran my own campaign for Carter at the time.” In college, even though his whole family is Protestant, Arbogast decided to become Roman Catholic with the intent to join a religious community. He joined the Society of Jesus because Jesuit ideology appealed to him, especially the Jesuits’ historical emphasis on education. “They basically built high schools and colleges all over Europe and educated the most powerful young men of Catholic Europe at the time,” Arbogast said. “I was very impressed with their effort to build an international school system, and even today, the Jesuit system is probably the biggest and most sophisticated of all the school networks in the world. And I was really impressed by the guys I met.” Liberation theology, a religious Places he’s movement from the 1960s that lived emphasizes aiding • Pennsylvania (numerous the most marginal places) • Baltimore, MD people in society • New York City, NY through political and • Boston, MA civic affairs, inspired • New Canaan and New him to become Haven, CT Roman Catholic. • Paris, France • Avignon, France “[In liberation • München, Germany theology], your • Blaubeuren, Germany character is defined • République du Bénin by how you treat the • Grahamstown, South Africa • Ibadan, Nigeria people that need the • Washington, D.C. most help,” Arbogast • Dallas, TX said. “If you want to
serve God in the best way, you need to do whatever you can to help them. If you want to help the largest number of people, if you can convince someone who has a lot of power to do something, you can have a huge impact upon society.” After being a Jesuit for six years, Arbogast decided to leave the Catholic Church because he wanted to move on to try something new. “I was exhausted and burnt AFRICA TO AMERICA Rev. Stephen Arbogast and a few travellers (top) stop out and wanted nothing to do to rest as they head toward the Plateau du Djado in Niger. Arbogast (above left) reads the gospel at the weekly All-School Chapel Service at the National Cathedral with the only three things I School in Washington, D.C. Friends (above right) visit him at the National knew about: education, social University of Benin, where he taught about the cultures of global corporations. service and religious work,” Arbogast said. “A friend of a friend got me a job at Goldman Arbogast said. “But when I went back to school later, Sachs. It proved to be more interesting than I I didn’t do any of that. I took what I wanted to and expected it to be, and I ended up being there for 12 knew what I wanted to get out of things.” years.” In another two years at Harvard University, he When Arbogast arrived in New York City, earned a Master in Theology and wrote his thesis on Goldman Sachs was trying to initiate a training African business and professional ethics, enjoying program for its managers as the company was the university’s unique community. preparing to expand globally. Arbogast’s skills in managing and communicating between different I never, never in my wildest dreams groups of employees allowed him to provide would have imagined being here. I was born in Dallas, but my family’s not from valuable assistance to the training program. here. I was here for two years as a child, “I stayed there as we were building this but I’m not connected to Dallas in any management training program — arguably, at the way. It’s a little ironic to me to think that time, people said it was the best in the world of its after all these years, I’ve come back. type,” Arbogast said. “I did that for about six years Rev. Stephen Arbogast, Chaplain until there was an economic crash, and we laid off my trainees. And then I moved to Boston to be “In one room, you had the world’s expert of this, essentially the chief inside guy responsible for a lot that and the other thing,” Arbogast said. “It’s just so of the internal functions.” cool to be in a place where you’ve got extraordinarily After a nine-month vacation in France, Arbogast smart, hardworking, talented people who can put took two two-year terms with the Peace Corps and you in contact with anybody. In that respect, it was lived in the Republic of Benin in Africa. Staying in like the Jesuits and Goldman Sachs — if you wanted Benin for four years allowed Arbogast to immerse to know anything or wanted to meet anyone in the himself in the local culture, being more than just a world, you basically had to ask one other person. visitor. In his first two years in Benin, he assisted Anybody was willing to give you half an hour of his farming cooperatives practice modern management or her time.” techniques, and during his second two years, After studying at Harvard, Arbogast taught Arbogast taught at the National Economics Institute at various independent schools, including Groton through the Fulbright Program. School, Trinity School and National Cathedral “When I lived in the country, there were about School, before finally coming to 10600 Preston Road 60,000 people in the province I was in, and there may in July 2015. have been 200 people that were literate,” Arbogast “I remember when I was in middle school, said. “It challenged me because it made me think sitting in front of the courthouse with my three that what I assumed to be fundamental to the human buddies, and we were imagining what life was experience wasn’t. But once you’re there, it’s just going to be like,” Arbogast said. “We imagined that like a fish in water. It really made me think about the between middle school and high school, there were world very, very differently.” huge changes, and then after college, you got a job, After his time in Benin, he spent two years at bought a house, got married — basically, nothing Yale University teaching graduate students and happened from the age of 21 until 65, when you getting a Master in Divinity, which allowed him to retire. Well, we had no clue what life was like. That’s be ordained. He was glad to return to pursuing a the cool thing about life — you never know what’s graduate education. going to come around the corner.” “When you’re younger and you go to school, you don’t necessarily know why you’re going to STORY Sai Thirunagari, Myles Lowenberg school, and you’re taking courses that are required,” PHOTOS Courtesy Stephen Arbogast
McDonald’s Week charity event postponed to March due to COVID-19 health concerns by Morgan Chow cDonald’s Week, a Junior Class charity event benefiting the Austin Street Center, has been moved to March 1-4 after a decision was made by the administration with respect to the health risks related to COVID-19. Junior Class sponsors GayMarie Vaughan and Bryan Boucher said this choice was made to give enough time for safety guidelines to be met before reopening McDonald’s to the school. McDonald’s Week raises money for the Austin Street Center, which provides shelter and basic needs to homeless men and women every year. But according to Vaughan, there are still concerns with distancing and spacing, leading to the delay of the
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fundraising event. Fortunately, a new organization was created to figure out exactly what to do. “We don’t know, even in March, what the capacity will be,” Vaughan said. “But we have a new committee this year called the Health and Safety Committee. Those guys will work with the administration, McDonald’s and [school nurse Julie Doerge], in terms of city regulation, to make sure what to do at McDonald’s or how to handle food distribution here [on campus].” The co-chairs — juniors Sal Abassi, Alex Nadalini and Ashvin Nair — have already decided on a theme and are in the process of creating a video. But there are some things they have yet to figure out, especially with
finding patrons. “They’re already working on the video and we have a theme,” Vaughan said. “I know our sponsorship team is trying to get sponsors to sign on. It’s harder because a lot of PrestonRoyal is gone, so we don’t have access to as many potential sponsors. So, we’ve expanded the range a little bit. Fortunately, people know Austin Street and St. Mark’s and are willing to jump on board, but I think that’s been a lot more challenging now than before.” Even with these difficulties, Vaughan knows how important McDonald’s Week is to Austin Street Shelter and believes things will have to be adjustable in order for the event to even take place.
“It’s just another opportunity for us to exhibit flexibility,” Vaughan said. “These last few years have really called us to put our words into action. I think it’s easier to be flexible particularly with this because it’s so important to the people at Austin Street, and, particularly in this pandemic where they’re seeing the need for food and need for donations go up. We really don’t want to let them down when they really need our help.” Vaughan is glad the delay is happening so McDonald’s Week can still provide for Austin Street Shelter. “If it had to be in November, we wouldn’t be able to have it,” Vaughan said, “so postponing is definitely a win, especially for Austin Street.”
