The Rothko Chapel, one among Houston’s most-recognized landmarks, has a brand new president. The chapel’s board of administrators has named Abdullah Antepli to the position. He begins his tenure on September 1. Antepli succeeds David Leslie, who retired in June after 10 years on the Chapel.
Antepli brings a long time of stewardship, scholarship, and advocacy throughout greater schooling and the nonprofit sector to the position. He’s a globally acknowledged chief in cross-religious and cross-cultural dialogue, with a deep dedication to pluralism and mental variety, in line with press supplies.
“It’s with nice pleasure and a deep sense of objective that I be a part of the Rothko Chapel – a sanctuary the place the sacred, the inventive, and the simply converge,” mentioned Antepli. “I’m wanting to stroll alongside the Rothko Chapel household as we write the subsequent chapter of its exceptional journey. At a time when the world is fracturing alongside non secular, partisan, and ideological strains, the Rothko Chapel dares to supply a sacred house the place artwork, silence, and justice meet, and I’m humbled to assist steward that house ahead.”
Antepli is a Turkish-born American imam and one of many few students working on the convergence of religion, ethics, and public coverage. He at present serves as director of POLIS: Heart for Politics at Duke’s Sanford College of Public Coverage, the place he’s additionally professor of the follow of interfaith relations.
He built-in the Civil Discourse Challenge into POLIS, broadening the middle’s scope and sharpening its deal with the civic and ethical dimensions of public life. Antepli can be a senior fellow on Jewish-Muslim relations on the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, the place he based and co-directs the Muslim Management Initiative.
Antepli led faith-based humanitarian and aid efforts in Myanmar and Malaysia, and served as Wesleyan College’s first Muslim chaplain. He was the affiliate director of the Islamic Chaplaincy Program and interfaith relations at Hartford Seminary, and served as Duke College’s first Muslim chaplain and director of its Heart for Muslim Life and later as its chief consultant for Muslim affairs. He additionally held the place of affiliate director of the Duke Islamic Research Heart.
He accomplished his graduate work at Hartford Seminary and his undergraduate research at Ondokuz Mayis College in Turkey. He’s the one Muslim chaplain to have delivered prayer on the Home of Representatives, first in 2010 and once more in 2017. In 2018, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
“Abdullah’s spirit, values, and successes resonate deeply with the Rothko Chapel’s mission,” mentioned Troy Porter, chair of the board. “We’re assured that he’ll efficiently implement the formidable strategic plan we’ve simply adopted, and that his management will information the Chapel into its subsequent chapter as a convening house for religious exploration, inventive expression, and the pursuit of justice.”
Antepli joins the chapel at a time of change and daring plans. Final yr, it was introduced the chapel would spend $42 million on a campus enlargement, including new buildings simply north of the prevailing Chapel on the opposite aspect of Sul Ross St., together with an Administration and Archives Constructing, the Kathleen and Chuck Mullenweg Meditation Backyard, and a brand new Program Heart.
Lengthy a spot for contemplation, the chapel shuttered after Hurricane Beryl tore by means of Houston final summer time, inflicting thousands and thousands in harm. It reopened final December, following much-needed repairs. Funds for the repairs got here through a Financial institution of America grant.
Based by Houston philanthropists Dominique and John de Menil, the chapel was devoted in 1971 as an interfaith, nonsectarian sanctuary. It’s open day-after-day of the yr, freed from cost.
