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Syracuse University announces new dean of Hendricks Chapel

Kiran Ramsey | Senior Design Editor

Rev. Brian Konkol's appointment has been approved by the Board of Trustees Executive Committee. Currently, Samuel Clemence is Hendrick’s interim dean.

By Satoshi Sugiyama

Syracuse University Chancellor Kent Syverud on Friday announced Rev. Brian Konkol will be appointed the new dean of Hendricks Chapel.

Konkol, who is from Amherst Junction, Wisconsin, will be taking on the position effective July 15, according to an SU News release. His appointment has been approved by the Board of Trustees Executive Committee. Currently, Samuel Clemence is Hendrick’s interim dean.

“Brian has an impressive depth of experience in spiritual leadership and campus outreach that will generate wider community engagement with the chapel, its facilities and services,” Syverud said in the release. “This is a pivotal year for Hendricks Chapel. It will expand its role as the spiritual center of a global university where all viewpoints are explored and respected, and where diverse constituencies can come together and find common ground.”

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Courtesy of Syracuse University

Konkol had been chaplain at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, since 2013, and also is a faculty member of the college’s Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies program and is a faculty liaison to the men’s basketball team, according to the news release.



Before his role at Gustavus Adolphus College, he was co-pastor of Lake Edge Lutheran Church in Madison, Wisconsin, where he was involved in multicultural engagement and public advocacy works, according to the release.  Prior to that, he was country coordinator of the Young Adults in Global Mission program of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, stationed in South Africa between 2008 and 2012.

Konkol’s appointment fills the Hendricks dean position left vacant by Tiffany Steinwert, who served as dean from 2010 to 2015. Steinwert left SU in August 2015 to take a position as dean of religious and spiritual life at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, according to an SU News release. Clemence has served as interim dean since then.

“At a time when engaging such matters of religion, spirituality and ethics is increasingly viewed as an educational necessity, I am honored and excited to carry forward the profound legacy of Hendricks Chapel,” Konkol said in the Friday news release.





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