the Rev. Rita Powell
Chaplain
Rita Powell is the Episcopal Chaplain at Harvard, where she leads a diverse community committed to exploring the future of religion and Christianity through innovative engagement with land, ritual, liturgy, art, music, poetry, and the church's legacy of slavery. She has lived and worked in South Dakota, with the Taizé community in France, and at Trinity Church in Copley Square, Boston. She recently earned her MFA in poetry. She is also an avid KPop fan, yoga teacher, and distance runner.
Send Rita an email here.
Michelé Crowder
Kellogg Fellow
Michelé is a singer/songwriter, actor, writer, and perceiver of worlds presently studies Expressive Arts Therapy at Lesley University. With prior education in Music Education, Theology and Social Entrepreneurship, Michelé seeks to embrace fine arts and literature not only as tools to build community, but as Holy gifts, and a lens through which we can view contextual ministry through. She brings her Texan warmth to the chilly, northern towns she becomes called to, and desires to invite others into a spaces grounded in love while challenging each other to couragous ways of thinking, seeing, and being.
John Rogers
Organist
John Rogers is a student at Harvard, currently in his junior year studying Latin and Greek literature. Having learned to play the organ and harpsichord as a student at Groton School, he continues to play in his roles as the Organ Scholar of All Saints' Parish in Ashmont, as a continuo player in the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra, and as the president of the Harvard Organ Society. He is a person of somewhat predictable habitude and can usually be found either listening to Bach or Herbert Howells, or reading Virgil or T.S. Eliot. John is now serving his second year as the Chaplaincy's organist.
Clayton McCleskey
Pastoral Intern
Clayton McCleskey, former Fulbright Journalism Scholar and U.S. Department of State Presidential Management Fellow, is joining us as a pastoral intern this year, and is a postulant for the priesthood completing a Master of Divinity at the General Theological Seminary. A native Texan, Clayton grew up Methodist and embraces a Wesleyan passion for God’s free grace and faith as a matter of both head and heart. He came to the Episcopal Church in college, drawn by the beauty of the Anglican choral and liturgical tradition. He and his fiancé, Jonathan Ortloff, a pipe organ builder and organist, live in Boston’s South End with their Golden Retriever and Shetland Sheepdog. They share a love of music, history, and spending as much time as they can at the family cabin in Lake Placid.
Noelle Buice
Seminarian
Noelle Buice is the Seminarian for our Chaplaincy. She is a relentlessly optimistic and inclusive 2nd year Masters of Divinity student at Harvard. She focused on Religious Studies, Ethnomusicology and Psychology at the University of Virginia. After earning her undergraduate degree, she pursued her Mousters and Ducktorate degrees at the Magic Kingdom as part of the Disney College Program! Noelle loved working in Fantasyland as a Cast Member, finding particular joy in bestowing pixie dust blessings. She can often be found singing a cappella, knitting, woodworking, rowing, crocheting, or reading!
Elliott May
Pastoral Intern
Elliott May is the Children, Youth, and Young Adults Minister at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Brookline. Elliott is also a postulant for priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, which is what brings him to the Harvard Episcopal Chaplaincy this year. He has theological degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary (M.Div) and Boston University (S.T.M.), as well as the Certificate in Anglican Studies from Boston University’s School of Theology. Elliott is an AmeriCorps alum who worked in public education before discerning a call to seminary, where he found the Episcopal Church. He’s always on the lookout for God and good conversation. He writes regularly for Grow Christians and other Christian publications. Elliott and his wife Molly have two young children. In his free time, Elliott loves reading and writing, watching sports, and drinking lots of coffee.
The Board of Trustees
The Board of the Episcopal Chaplaincy is made up of alumni and friends of the Chaplaincy. They manage its financial affairs and help direct its mission. Our current board members are:
Mr. Robert Bitting, President
Prof. Kathleen Coleman, Vice President
Ms. Jane White, Treasurer
Dr. P. MacKenzie Bok
The Very Rev. Amy McCreath
Bliss Austin Spooner
Gabriel Colombo
The Rt. Rev. Julia E. Whitworth (ex officio)
