The University announced Monday that it hired Abdullah Antepli to serve as its first full-time Muslim chaplain.
Duke will be joining a very small group of universities across the country-including Georgetown University, Princeton University and Yale University-that have full-time imams.
When he begins work July 1, Antepli will be taking on a number of tasks that include religious leadership, counseling and faith-based work.
He will not, however, be limited to mentoring only the Muslim community. Antepli will also teach courses in the Fall, and he said he expects to reach out to all students and promote collaboration between the Muslim community and other groups.
"One of the things I love most about Duke, which attracted me to this University, is its diversity," he said. "My ministry will tap into the diversity here at Duke, not just the Muslim community."
About 50 to 60 students are actively involved in the Duke Muslim Students Association, MSA President Ahmad El-Nagger said. Duke has approximately 300 undergraduate and graduate students who are Muslim, according to The (Raleigh) News and Observer. Because MSA lacks ways to find out which incoming students practice Islam, there is a crude process of getting the Muslim community together, El-Nagger said, adding that he hopes the process can be improved with this hire.
"This [hire] is beneficial to the Muslim community at Duke," said El-Nagger, a senior. "In the past the extent of our leadership was with a volunteer chaplain. Antepli can be our liaison between us and the administration."
For the past nine years, Imam Abdul-Hafeez Waheed of Durham has been voluntarily serving as the Muslim chaplain to the University. In April of last year Dean of the Chapel Sam Wells suggested to President Richard Brodhead that he hire a full-time University-funded Muslim chaplain.
After seven months of discussion, it was agreed that the new position would take the joint role of both chaplain and faculty. A committee was created in November 2007 for a nationwide search and the position was filled this past April.
"He has excellent experience in the U.S. and abroad, in teaching, research and pastoral care, in non-profit engagement with social disadvantage and in the daily experiences of student life," Wells wrote in an e-mail. "He's the epitome of all that's good about Duke."
Antepli will be joining more than 20 other faith leaders from various religious affiliations at the University.
Duke has roots in the Methodist Church, upon which it was founded, but the University provides support to various religious communities on campus. Muslim students comprise about 1.7 percent of the class of 2011 nationwide, according to data from the University of California in Los Angeles Higher Education Research Institute Cooperative Institutional Research Program.
"If Duke is going to make it very clear to the Muslim world, here and overseas, that we are open for business to an intelligent, collaborative Muslim presence, we need to be proactive in addressing the faith dimension of the Muslim culture," Wells said.
Antepli hails from Turkey and is coming from the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, where he is wrapping up doctoral work. Antepli, who is the founder and executive board member of the Muslim Chaplains Association, was also the first Muslim chaplain at Wesleyan University, where he served from 2003-2005.
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