Humanists Open New Community Center

Expanding out of a windowless, 80-square-foot office in the basement of Memorial Church, the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard will open its own community center this week, according to the organization’s officials.

““We’ve completely outgrown that space,” said Harvard’s Humanist Chaplain Greg M. Epstein.

The organization will host its first meeting in the new space at 19 Arrow St. later this week, said Epstein, author of New York Times Bestseller “Good Without God.”

The center’s opening marks the first time a chaplaincy in the United States has established a Humanist community center, Epstein said.

“A lot of people wanted a space to get away from all the Harvard hustle and bustle, to talk about big ideas and have a place to call their own,” said Assistant Humanist Chaplain John Figdor. He said the chaplaincy’s presence up until this point has been dispersed across campus, and events have been hosted at locations spanning the graduate and undergraduate campuses. The center, he said, will help consolidate activities.

Epstein said the new center was made possible in part through donations from Harvard alumni, but the majority of funding was provided by an anonymous donor not affiliated with Harvard who had read his book.

The community center—which currently has no official name—will host regular, scheduled community meetings on Thursday nights for graduates and on Friday nights for undergraduates. The meetings will allow for discussion and participation in service, art, music, poetry, and science, Epstein said. Aside from scheduled events, Epstein said he hopes the center will be a place for students to “just hang out” and come together.

“This is a great way to promote a community of nonbelievers; it’s something that could really break new ground here,” said Andrew G. Maher ’11, vice president of the Harvard Secular Society, the undergraduate branch affiliated with the University’s larger Humanist chaplaincy.

Epstein said the new community center—located directly across the street from the Harvard Catholic Student Center and only a few blocks from Harvard Hillel—will establish “a triangle of chaplaincies” and will create “a new focal point for religious life on campus... or nonreligious life, as the case may be.”

—Staff writer Janie M. Tankard can be reached at jtankard@fas.harvard.edu.