The chaplaincy is one of Carleton’s oldest offices, established in 1946 with roots extending to the college’s beginning.

Carleton was founded in 1866 as a congregationalist college and would retain a distinctly Christian identity through the 1950s. At various periods it would engage formally also with the Northern Baptist and Episcopalian churches. Early documents speak of the college’s goal to “provide an education liberal and thorough, embracing moral culture as well as mental discipline; and securing a symmetrical Christian character.”

The first floor of Willis Hall served as the first college chapel, and after a devastating fire, the chapel was moved to the second floor. Another chapel was built in the now lost Gridely Hall, a women’s residence hall. In 1916, the current Skinner Memorial Chapel was completed and quickly became the emblematic symbol of Carleton. Near this time the predecessor of the Carleton convocation began as a Community Vespers Service, designed to attract “the ablest men of the American pulpit.” The chapel would also become the home of the music and the religious departments for many years, as well as services and religious programming.

By the 1940s, Christianity was becoming less central to Carleton. Laurence Gould was hired in 1945 as the college’s first non-clergy president. As religion became less ubiquitous, Carleton sought ways to institutionalize religion more intentionally. In 1946, Carleton hired its first chaplain, Philip Phenix, who served as the first “Counselor in Religion. Nine years later, the college would found the religion department.

Carleton remained committed to institutionalized religion, requiring mandatory attendance at religious services until 1964. That requirement would be challenged by a group of students who, supported by both the Chaplain and members of the religion faculty, organized the Reformed Druids of North America. The Druids held earth-based rituals in the arboretum with the goal of making the religious services requirement appear absurd and meaningless. While formed in protest, the Druids continued to meet after the requirement was removed. Today there are groves around the world.

In 1977, Chaplain David Maitland, who had arrived at Carleton in 1956, instituted the pioneering Chaplain’s Associate program. Known ever since as CAs, the program offered students a chance to serve as religious leaders, facilitating services, programs, and discussion groups. The CA position, along with the religion department, would make Carleton a leader in producing religious professionals and clergy, eventually becoming known as the top undergraduate feeder school to Harvard Divinity School.

The chaplaincy in its modern form began to emerge in the 1980s as it moved away from the centrality of liberal Protestantism. In 1986, Maitland retired after 30 years of service and was replaced by Jewelnel Davis, the first woman and person of color to serve as Carleton chaplain. Her chaplaincy, and that of her successor, Carolyn Fure-Slocum, sought to celebrate the diversity of world religions and channel the chapel’s expansive prophetic voice into all areas of campus life. They embodied that now oft-repeated phrase that the chapel is the “conscience of the college.” The Office of the Chaplain became not only a purveyor of religion, but a voice for the whole person and a champion of justice, equity, and diversity.

In 2024, the chapel hired its current chaplain, Schuyler Vogel.