Purpose Statement

The Black Spiritual Support Group (BSSG) at Elon University serves as community to support faculty and staff who are working at the intersection of race and
religion/spirituality.

Goals

1.      To equip faculty and staff to better support student needs at the intersection of racial and religious/spiritual identities
2.      To support faculty and staff development and be a resource for engagement around the intersection of racial and religious/spiritual identities
3.      To collaborate in building a healthier and more diverse, equitable and inclusive community, where all students faculty and staff experience belonging and well-being in support of the Boldly Elon strategic plan.
Our purpose and goals are tied to the Boldly Elon Strategic Plan as well as the Multifaith Strategic Plan

Boldly Elon Strategic Plan

Thrive: We will build a healthier and more diverse, equitable and inclusive community, where all students faculty and staff experience belonging and well-being

  • Advancing a more diverse, equitable and inclusive community
  • Cultivating a culture of health and well-being on a vibrant residential campus
  • Championing Elon’s exceptional faculty and staff

Connect: We will develop lifelong alumni personal and professional learning and networks; will partner with our local communities to enhance education, health and economic development; and will win athletics conference championships and lead our conference in academic performance.

  • A vibrant college town

Multifaith Strategic Plan

Goal 1: Make Elon a more religiously diverse campus and community

  • 1.2 Develop recruitment and employment practices that contribute to a religiously diverse learning environment

Goal 3: Support opportunities for multifaith learning and engagement for all members of the Elon academic community

  • 3.1 Support spiritual formation and the expression of religious, spiritual, and secular identities, values, and practices
  • 3.5 Develop pathways for experiential and engaged multifaith learning through increased collaboration with community partners

Goal 4: Articulate the value and importance of multifaith learning as well as multifaith diversity, equity, and inclusion for all constituents

  • 4.2 Identify and create opportunities for showcasing the role of multifaith learning in student experiences

BSSG Elon University Professional Team

BSSG Community Partner Professional Team

Chelsea Yarborough

Visiting Professor at Wake Forest School of Divinity

Chelsea Brooke Yarborough is a poet, an enneagram enthusiast, an ordained minister and a lover of leadership development. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Religion at Vanderbilt University and a visiting professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. Chelsea’s current research imagines the possibilities of preaching outside of the pulpit by looking at historical Black women who were non-pulpit preachers. Her motto is “live to love and love to live each day and she is excited to continue her journey of cultivating and engaging curiosity in all that she pursues.”

Rev. Donna Vanhook

Associate Pastor at Union Chapel UCC

Rev. Donna Vanhook, a former certified law enforcement officer, earned a BA degree from Elon University where she majored in Religious Studies and minored in Human Services (Class of 2007), and an MDiv degree from Shaw University Divinity School. She has been ordained Baptist and currently serves as an United Church of Christ associate pastor in full standing at Union Chapel UCC, in Burlington, NC. Rev. Vanhook uses an intersectional equity lens as a womanist community organizer and co-educator who mentors undergraduate students at Elon University along with other young people.