The new Vera Richardson Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life was dedicated during ceremonies held Monday, Oct. 11 on campus. Details...
The new center, located at the corner of College and Antioch Avenues just east of the main campus, was made possible by a gift from Douglas and Edna Truitt Noiles of New Canaan, Conn. It is named in honor of Edna Noiles’ mother, who raised her family in Alamance County and sent all six daughters to Elon.
Programs in the Truitt Center will allow Elon students to explore a variety of religious and spiritual traditions, along with the spiritual dimensions of their lives.
Edna Noiles, a 1944 Elon graduate, said coming back to her alma mater after 60 years in New England did not make her want to go back in time.
“I walked some old streets and saw the changes on campus, but I found no desire to go back, for the things going on here are too exciting for looking back,” Edna Noiles said. “And if that is true of the physical setting, then what is possible of our inner selves?”
Edna Noiles remembered her mother as “an educator of the mind and spirit. Neighbors and friends shared their difficulties and their lives with her.”
Two students, Ann Marie Leonard and Erin Keys, hold leadership positions in the new Truitt Center, and said their lives have already been enriched by its programs.
“Already this semester, I have been challenged in ways I never imagined were possible,” said Keys, who serves as coordinator of Elon’s Thursday Chapel service. “Chapel is a way of building new bonds between faculty and students.”
President Leo M. Lambert said the dedication is “a wonderful day for Elon.” In dedicating the Truitt Center, “we do so knowing the founders of Elon must be nodding their heads in approval, for the Truitt Center is an academic center that nourishes mind, body and spirit.”
Lambert praised Doug and Edna Noiles for their vision of what Elon students could accomplish.
“They had a vision,” said Lambert. “Both saw the great potential of Elon students to make a difference in the world, in Edna’s words, ‘to make the world a more human place.'”
The Noiles’ gift will fund five new programs and seven internships. Each spiritual life intern will receive a $2,000 stipend and a $1,000 grant to fund a study abroad experience. The interns will serve as student leaders of Elon’s weekly Chapel and vespers services as well as the five new programs in the Truitt Center. They will also work closely with Elon’s campus ministers and area clergy to plan and promote aspects of the overall program, meet regularly with Elon chaplains for spiritual renewal and participate in an annual retreat.
The five new programs in the Truitt Center will include:
- A spiritual leaders-in-residence program, which will bring religious leaders to campus to speak and meet with classes and student groups
- An interfaith speaker series featuring leaders of diverse religious traditions
- Retreats and workshops to help students focus on service for the common good and to identify core spiritual values at the center of their life choices
- Life skills and values workshops to help students make smooth transitions to life after college
- A study abroad course that will focus on important pilgrimage sites. The course will integrate academic learning about pilgrimages with students’ personal experience of pilgrimage. Each spiritual life intern will participate in this course.