Pastor of University Church at Yale to Be Installed in Special Service on Sunday

The Reverend Ian B. Oliver will be installed as pastor of the University Church in a special service of worship on November 16.

The public is invited to attend the service, at 2:30 p.m. in Battell Chapel, corner of Elm and College streets.

Installation is the Protestant Christian traditional ritual by which a pastoral leader is received by a new church and the pastor and congregation make a covenant of mission, service and support.

The University Church Choir, under the direction of Dominick DiOrio, and HyeHyun Sung, University Church organist, will perform at the service.

The Reverend Sam Speers, director of the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life at Vassar College, will preach at the service. An ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Speers has recently served as director of the “Secularity and the Liberal Arts” project, which is exploring secularity in liberal arts higher education.

Vice President and University Secretary Linda Lorimer and University Chaplain Sharon M.K. Kugler will participate in the service along with representatives of the University Church’s Church Council and student deacons.

Representing Oliver’s sponsoring church body, the New Haven Association of the United Church of Christ, will be the Reverend Michael Penn-Strah, South Central Connecticut Regional minister, and the Reverend Andrew Nagy-Benson, pastor of Spring Glen United Church of Christ and chair of the New Haven Association’s Committee on Ministry.

Oliver assumed his duties as pastor of the University Church and senior associate chaplain for Protestant life at Yale in July, after serving 12 years as university chaplain at Bucknell University. Previously, he was an associate of the United Church Board for World Ministries serving at the Kodaikanal International School in India 1990–1996.

The University Church at Yale was the first college church in America, founded on July 3, 1757, in response to a demand from the Yale community for a church of its own. The University Church today engages students, faculty, staff and community members from many different Christian/Protestant traditions from around the world.