Reverend Heidi Heath

As the Interim Director of Religious and Spiritual Life, Reverend Heidi Heath spends much of her time leading the spiritual communities on campus. A strong believer in intersectional learning, Heath’s work also extends to the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and various affinity groups. As she begins her fourth year at the Academy, Heath hopes to continue her work as the spiritual heart of this community.At Exeter, much of Heath’s work is in an interfaith setting. “My primary role is spiritual care for the whole community, and that can look like a lot of different things,” she said. “It can mean helping make sure that there is space and time for students and adults in the community to practice their spiritual practices or their religious tradition.” Heath runs the Interfaith Council and works closely with other religious leaders on campus to ensure that spiritual life continues to thrive. While this type of job differs somewhat from congregational work, Heath’s preparation for interfaith work is abundant. “My chaplaincy work has always been in a broad and interfaith setting, and I studied for a ministry and an intentionally interfaith environment,” she said. “My Christian seminary shared a campus with our rabbinical college. At one point, we jointly employed a full time Muslim scholar.” Living in these multi-faith communities prepared Heath well for her work at Exeter. In many ways, the boarding school setting was also a long-awaited “dream” for Heath. “Campus work is really my passion in ministry,” she said. “I loved the congregation, but this opportunity to work with teenagers, asking big questions like ‘Who am I?’ and ‘How do I make meaning in the world?’ and ‘How do I make sense of myself in a particular context?’ is really, really exciting to me.”In addition to her interfaith work, Heath “shepherds the Protestant Christian community.” While she is an ordained minister, Heath has adjusted her leadership to best serve the Academy’s student-driven spirit. “I try to adapt and shift based on who the group of students are…The students take on the bulk of the work,” she said. “Of course, I’ll fill the functions that are specific to an ordained minister—communion, for example …  Otherwise, I really lift up and empower other voices and try to make the space as nourishing as possible for whatever others’ needs are.”Instructor in History Hannah Lim noted that Heath has an ability to empower the members of the Exeter community, religious or not. “Not every student on campus has a very deep, spiritual life, yet somehow, I think [for] every student I put in touch with Rev. Heidi, she’s able to just give them really helpful advice, encouragement, and support that they need,” she said. “For many members of the Exeter community who are lucky enough to get to know her and interact with her on a personal level, she really lets them shine on their own terms in a way that those people feel really special.” Although the Academy has employed chaplains for a long time, her appointment did mark several firsts—Heath was the first woman and first queer person to be appointed to her position. “For some folks in this community, I might be the first out, queer and practicing religious person that they’ve met,” she said. “When I was younger, I really wanted and needed to see out, queer adults living healthy, happy, fulfilled lives, especially the kind of life I thought I might want to live. And so I don’t take that responsibility lightly.”Instructor in English Mercy Carbonell met Heath after returning from sabbatical, during which President Donald Trump was elected. “That, in and of itself, was unsettling … Returning to discover that Rev. Heidi was an openly queer woman leading our Religious Services Community was a serious gift,” Carbonell recalled. “And then I met her. And from the start, we spoke of what deeply matters within us and around us; our lives and our values and our loves and all we hope to transform.”In line with her responsibility as a role model, Heath provides queer, religious students with acceptance and love. “I went through a period of my young adulthood where I basically was asked to leave the community of faith that I was a part of for being queer. I healed from that and found a new community,” she said. “It’s important to me that our students don’t have to make those choices, that they know they can be part of our communities here … They don’t have to make the choice between being queer and being Christian or Jewish or anything else.”In addition to this one-on-one work, Heath advises the Gender-Sexuality Alliance with three other faculty members. She also serves on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee to further the idea of inclusion as a cornerstone of spiritual connection.Heath’s work in this realm has impressed her colleagues. “As a queer faculty member who is concerned with social justice, I have been so grateful for her in a crucial way … I think of the ways she has asked us to ‘see’ beyond what we grew up with, beyond colleagues, beyond into barriers meant to divide us,” Carbonell said. “She is interfaith listening. She is hope knowing the criticality of justice. She is committed to the transformation of consciousness, which is the transformation of the soul.”Heath uses this strong empathy to support students as a dorm affiliate at Amen Hall. “Being in Amen is really a chance for me to get to come to students on their turf, instead of having them come to me,” she said. “I think a really special thing happens in a dorm common room at ten o’clock on a weeknight …  It feels like a little opportunity to help create some home for students.”Heath has had a profound impact on the students she’s worked with those in Amen. “She, on several occasions, has cleared her schedule to spend time with me … I cannot imagine my time at Exeter without her,” senior Tatum Schutt, one of Heath’s first advisees, said. “She goes out of her way to make everyone feel cared for and seen.”A lover of live music, Heath finds opportunities to experience performances both inside and outside Exeter. “[Music] nourishes me in my work, but I also think music takes us out of our heads and into our hearts. This is really a heart space and a space to kind of leave behind some of the pressures of the academic world,” she said. “This is why [Evening Prayer] feels really special for me that way—that interplay between music and spoken word and kind of our connection to the community around us… There’s interesting science that actually says when we sing together, our hearts start to beat in a similar rhythm and we start to breathe in similar patterns.”Heath stresses that spirituality and religion, while intertwined, are not synonymous. “Don’t feel like you have to be religious or spiritual to come in the door here,” she said. “If you are, we’re so excited to welcome you and to make space you and your practices. And if you’re not, we’re so excited to welcome you, to hear your story and to welcome you as a broader part of our community.”Regardless of faith or religion, Heath is a resource on campus to reach out to when in need of advice, encouragement or knowledge, among many others. “She has this really amazing ability to find the inner strength of a person and really highlight that and share that with other people,” Lim said. “[Heath] has this spider sense of when someone needs her. I really benefited from this a lot.” In some regards, Heath has become a spiritual rock to those on campus. “It is worth noting that even [now], I pause to look at social media, to glance at Facebook. And there is [Rev. Heath saying,] ‘Hey friend. Keep going. You’re doing better than you know. I love you,’” Carbonell recalled. “Her constancy is beautiful.”Ultimately, it is the diversity in faiths, perspectives and experiences that has kept Heath at Exeter. “I am a profoundly better chaplain and better minister for the time I have spent at Exeter. All of you provoke me, challenge me and inspire me every day to grow, to keep deepening my skills and working to be better at the work I do here and to grow as a person in the world,” she said. “It’s hard for me to imagine who I would be on this chapter of my ministry where it not for Exeter.”