Installation of new University pastor is Sunday

The official installation of the Rev. Charlene M. Rachuy Cox to serve as University Pastor is at 3 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 28, 2011 at 3 p.m. in the Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University.

All are invited to attend the installation service. Clergy are invited to vest in green.

Cox works alongside the Rev. James Wetzstein, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod University Pastor. Valparaiso University, an independent Lutheran institution, recently hired the Rev. Brian T. Johnson as Executive Director of Campus Ministries.

Cox served the past two years as Campus Pastor at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa. From 2004 to 2009, she served as Campus Pastor at Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa. She has prior experience as Campus Pastor for University Lutheran Ministry at Illinois State University from 1997-2000.

Cox was ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on June 30, 1991, after earning her Master of Divinity from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. She earned a Master of Sacred Theology from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania in 2008. Cox received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D. in 1987.

Cox, who has an extensive background in campus ministry, succeeds the Rev. Darlene Grega, who pioneered the role of ELCA ministry leader. Cox replaces the Rev. Phyllis Kersten, who served as interim pastor during the 2010-2011 academic year, following Grega’s death.

“Part of what drew me to Valpo is that Valpo is trying to model how to do something different,” Cox said as her appointment was announced. “After hearing President Mark Heckler’s concept that we must move beyond hospitality and embrace a table large and wide and fully include all voices in faith and the search for truth, I’m very excited to be a part of an institution and academic community with such a central focus.”

Influenced by the many and varied people who have crossed her life’s path, Cox is a lover of stories and is passionately committed to finding creative ways for the gospel narrative to be woven into the stories of her life and the lives of others. Cox and her husband David, a professional interim pastor, are the parents of daughters Torie, 14, and Elianna, 12.

Cox joined the Valparaiso University community in July.