By Julia Oller | Echo
One week after applications opened for Taylor's vacant campus pastor position on Feb. 12, 40 resumes rolled in. A week later, that number doubled.
The current count is 97, and members of the Inter-Chapel Task Force committee will meet today to consider closing the position to further applicants.
"I was expecting a good number, but this is a little overwhelming," Skip Trudeau, vice president of Student Development, said. "I have no knowledge of any other position in my tenure at Taylor that has drawn this much attention."
Committee members are narrowing the pool down to between eight and 12 candidates who will undergo phone interviews and submit sample sermons.
From there, the two to four finalists will visit campus in April for in-person interviews with members of the chapel committee, the Provost's Council and Community Life Committee.
"I feel kind of bad for these poor folks; they're going to get seen by 80 people while they're on campus," Trudeau said. "We'll put them through their paces."
Once all interviews are completed, the committee plans to fill the position by June 1.
The hiring process comes at the end of the committee's extended effort to create a job description and chapel philosophy that highlights the centrality of chapel at Taylor.
Tom Nurkkala, a committee member and associate professor of computer science and engineering, created a system to define desirable campus pastor criteria. According to Nurkkala, these qualities were divided into "have-to-haves," foundational values such as standing with Taylor's Statement of Faith and other policies, and 'nice-to-haves,' such as a willingness to assist in crisis situations.
One 'nice-to-have' new to this version of the job description is an increase in the diversity of the chapel program. The document states that the pastor must be "supportive of women in ministry," a clause that Dean of Faculty Development Faye Chechowich believes is important regardless of the pastor's gender.
"We need to have people who are encouraging women to be in roles where their gifts and abilities are used to the fullest," Chechowich said.
She also desires to see a wider range of chapel speakers who can speak to many different constituencies, including more international speakers to better connect to international students. "We need for what's up front to represent (who) we are in the audience," Chechowich said.
Out of the 97 current applicants, 12 are women, and a similar number are from varying racial and ethnic backgrounds.
Diversity is the key quality senior Tori Calderhead hopes for in the new pastor. While she said that she would endorse a female pastor, she doesn't believe many on campus would follow suit.
"I know people at Taylor that actually don't go to chapel if they know a woman's speaking, so I can't imagine how they'd feel about a woman pastor," she said. "I think we just need to take into consideration not limiting ourselves to man or woman, white or black."
Although he, too, would like diversity in the campus pastor position, for Nurkkala, the most crucial characteristic of the new pastor is gender-neutrality.
"Some of those other things are important but not as important in the grand scheme of things as a strong emphasis on Scripture engagement," he said.
