Nearby, three other hidden chaplains from dining services, Jackeline Davis, Mumu Pwee, and Thomas Stallone (“as in the Italian Stallion,” he said), sat with Rosmeilyn Jerez, a senior from Miami, who’d nominated Stallone. ‘You see this crazy woman? I hope my crooked smile is making you happy!’ ” And I feel like these kids are part of my kids. He asked me, ‘How do you have so much energy?’ And I said, ‘If I don’t talk to you guys, I’ll feel your sadness.’ My job is very simple. She wore a blue button-down and jeans: “I met Kyle in 2014. This unwitting ministry combined elements of angelic supervision, parental nurturing, and what Berlin called “quietly glorious acts of caring.”Ĭatalina Maldonado-Lopez ( the Catalina) sat in a corner with her daughter Gloria. “Hidden chaplain”: this, then, would be the term they’d use for staff members (not professors!) who, in their regular encounters, brightened students’ days. The woman responsible for swiping the diners’ meal cards had been smiling and chattering with students as they filed by, converting a glum procession into a buoyant parade. One morning, Weiner told Berlin about something that he’d noticed at lunch the day before. Institutions do not, as a matter of course, perpetuate kindness. They’d been batting around the question of compassion, and how to cultivate it in a high-powered setting, where the emphasis seemed always to be on matters of excellence, performance, efficiency, and survival. He often met at 8 A.M., under a Korean dogwood tree on campus, with his chaplain, Matthew Weiner, the school’s associate dean of religious life, known to students as Dean Matt. Berlin, from Arroyo Grande, California, was the valedictorian of the class of 2018. This was five years ago, well before you-know-what, and at Princeton University, a rarefied realm of how could this be. Kyle Berlin was recently recollecting the genesis of an idea: “Every student I knew was in some way or another anxious or depressed, and I’m not sure why.
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