Edington named first Epps Fellow and Chaplain to Harvard College

The Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in The Memorial Church, has announced the appointment of The Reverend Mark D. W. Edington as the first Archie C. Epps Fellow and Chaplain to Harvard College.

Named for Archie C. Epps III, senior associate dean emeritus of Harvard College, the fellowship will offer a two-year appointment to a recently ordained seminarian for the purpose of serving as a chaplain from The Memorial Church to Harvard’s undergraduate community.

In announcing the appointment, Gomes commented, “Throughout his long and distinguished service to Harvard, Archie Epps has always championed the importance of the ministry of the Memorial Church, and its role as a resource for the spiritual development of Harvard’s undergraduates. The establishment of this fellowship in his name will serve as a lasting tribute to his concern for all dimensions of student life at Harvard, and to his staunch friendship to the work of Harvard’s church.”

Funded in part by gifts from the many friends of Dean Epps upon his retirement in 1999, the Epps fellowship is intended as both a permanent tribute to the dean and an extension of the specific ministry of the Memorial Church to Harvard College.

Gomes said that he took great pleasure in appointing Edington as the first Epps Fellow and Chaplain. “Mark is a known and valued quantity, having been both my student and our seminarian. He will set a high standard for this new ministry.”

The Epps Fellow will join the Senior Common Room of Adams House, where he will live as a resident scholar.

The Rev. Mr. Edington, a native of East Lansing, Mich., was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church on May 27, by the Right Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, S.S.J.E., bishop of Massachusetts. He will receive the master of divinity from Harvard Divinity School in June. He is also a doctoral student in the Ph.D. program of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. A summa cum laude graduate of Albion College in Albion, Mich., where he was Phi Beta Kappa, Edington has an extensive professional background in foreign policy and international relations and currently serves as consulting editor at Dædalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he is also the executive director of the Boston Committee on Foreign Relations. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Atlantic Monthly and the New York Times.

Edington will take up his two-year appointment on July 1, 2000.