Loura Burnette and David Olson hosted the quarterly meeting of the Commission on Ministry in Higher Education (CMHE) of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. Almost 30 lay and ordained volunteers and staff representing active campus chaplaincies at more than a dozen private and public institutions of higher education between Raleigh and Charlotte met at Elon on Nov. 14.
Burnette and Olson were assisted by Elon students Roberta Hawthorne, ’10, Ross Denyer, ’11 and Jeffrey Serra, ’12, officers in the LEAF Community, an Elon student-life organization.
After a morning of meetings, the group toured Holt Chapel, where the LEAF Community meets for worship and fellowship most Sundays in the academic year. LEAF (Lutherans, Episcopalians and Friends) is an ecumenical student organization with support from the North Carolina Lutheran Synod in Salisbury and the North Carolina Episcopal Diocese of Raleigh.
Burnette, program assistant in advancement, and Olson, chaplain to the LEAF Community through the Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life, are members of the CMHE. The Raleigh Episcopal Diocese’s budget devotes 20 percent of its annual operating funds to support ministry to college-aged persons, the largest percentage of any Episcopal Diocese in the United States.
Episcopal support of student life dates back to at least 1963, when the Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter, a downtown Burlington, NC parish, sponsored and operated Elon’s first coffee bar, All Saints Coffee House, in the Oak Lodge, the former residence of Elon’s fourth president, William A. Harper (1911 – 1931).