The Rev. Dr. Gregory W. McGonigle

The Reverend Dr. Gregory W. McGonigle serves as Emory University’s Dean of Religious Life and University Chaplain. Reporting to the President, Dean McGonigle leads efforts to support all religious and spiritual life at Emory for faculty, staff, and students. He leads the Emory University Chaplaincy team, provides pastoral care in the university community, and champions interfaith cooperation on campus, in Atlanta, and beyond.

Recruited to Emory to create a multifaith chaplaincy reflecting the university’s diverse spiritual landscape, Dean McGonigle has built a dynamic team representing multiple faith and philosophical traditions. Under his leadership, Emory has designed and opened the Emory Interfaith Center and launched signature programs such as the WISE Interfaith Pre-Orientation program and the Flourishing Fellows. He has convened a campus-wide interfaith strategic planning process, strengthened communications and policies for religious life, deepened alumni engagement, and established two new endowment funds to sustain spiritual life.

Dean McGonigle has co-led Emory’s presidential initiatives to build a relationship with the Muscogee Nation, which has included events at Emory and journeys for faculty and students to Oklahoma. He co-convenes the university’s MLK Week Committee and has helped guide Emory’s response to national conversations about justice and peace. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he led pastoral support efforts and co-directed a Faith in the Vaccine Project that paired students with local faith communities to increase public health access. He also serves on the board of Interfaith Atlanta.

Before joining Emory, Dean McGonigle served six years as University Chaplain at Tufts University in Boston, where he oversaw Goddard Chapel and the Tufts Interfaith Center. There, he expanded the chaplaincy to include Hindu, Buddhist, Africana, and Humanist chaplains, revived the nationally recognized CAFÉ Interfaith Pre-Orientation program, and received Tufts’ Faculty and Staff Multicultural Service Award.

Prior to Tufts, he spent five years as the first multifaith Director of Religious and Spiritual Life at Oberlin College. At Oberlin, he founded the Interfaith Council, opened a Multifaith Center, appointed the college’s first Muslim Chaplain, and connected the campus to the White House Interfaith Community Service Campus Challenge. He also taught courses on interfaith leadership and led an alumni travel seminar to India.

Earlier in his career, Dean McGonigle served as a campus minister at the University of California at Davis, where he helped build interfaith relationships to create a multifaith living community. His ministry has also included service in congregations, at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and at an HIV/AIDS community center. While in graduate school, he was a researcher at Harvard University’s Pluralism Project.

An ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, Dean McGonigle is deeply committed to fostering inclusive spiritual communities rooted in ethics, compassion, and the shared wisdom of the world’s faith traditions. He serves as secretary of the International Association of Chaplains in Higher Education (IACHE) and is past president of the National Association of College and University Chaplains. He has also taught and mentored future ministers through Harvard Divinity School, Pacific School of Religion, and Emory’s own Candler School of Theology.

His journey has also been deeply shaped by The United Methodist Church, including mentorship by Harvard’s Diana L. Eck, his first ministry role at the Cal Aggie Christian Association, and his doctoral work at the Boston University School of Theology. He is a trained service trip leader with the United Methodist Volunteers in Mission, and he co-led a visit of students to Africa University.

Dean McGonigle holds an A.B. in Religious Studies from Brown University (magna cum laude), a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, and a Doctor of Ministry from Boston University School of Theology. He is the author of Religious Diversity and University Chaplaincy: Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Humanist Chaplaincy in Higher Education and has contributed to several other publications, including Interreligious Studies and Secondary Education: Pedagogies and Practices for Living and Learning in a Religiously Plural World.

A lifelong learner and traveler committed to international cooperation, Dean McGonigle has visited some fifty countries. He also enjoys reading, film, and theatre—finding inspiration in the many ways people seek meaning, beauty, and connectedness in life.

Education

• DMin | Boston University
• MDiv | Harvard University
• AB | Brown University

Research and Teaching Interests

• Interfaith studies and leadership
• Chaplaincy studies and pastoral care
• Religion in higher education
• American religious history and lived religions
• Unitarian Universalism and Transcendentalism
• LGBT and other liberation theologies
• Civil and human rights
• South Asian religions