Please visit hiddenchaplains.princeton.edu if you would like to nominate a Hidden Chaplain or learn more about the program.

Hidden Chaplains invites students to identify those people on campus who change their day in small but meaningful ways through regular interaction; not their fellow students or professors or senior administrators or counselors, but rather the dining hall worker, secretary, or facilities staff who smile at them, ask them about their day, engage them for a moment. Students “nominate” a hidden chaplain by reflecting on their interaction and its meaning. The student reflections are invariably diverse and remarkable. Everyone nominated is invited to a dinner with the student nominators, and is asked to bring their own hidden chaplain, with the notion that they too have people who change their day in similar ways. This begins to sketch the informal networks of care that sustain and enrich each of our lives inside and outside of institutions. Hidden Chaplains is a project in re-orienting attention towards those who do the unglamorous everyday work of caring for and about others.