“People keep asking, ‘What are we going to do? How is Brown going to be Brown without you?’” said Cooper Nelson, who is on an administrative sabbatical for the Spring 2025 semester. “But I’m struggling with the inverse of that question: How am I going to be me without Brown?”

A trailblazer in her own right, Cooper Nelson was the first woman to serve as chaplain of a university in the Ivy League. Beyond Brown, her insights have informed programs, staffing and organizational structural for religious and spiritual life at institutions across the nation, from Stanford University and Dartmouth College to Emory University and the College of Wooster. In 2024, she earned the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Association for Chaplaincy and Spiritual Life in Higher Education for her invaluable contributions over the decades.

While buoyed by many recognitions and accolades throughout her career, Cooper Nelson said she’s always been driven by the people she serves.

“There is a quality about Brown that tells me there’s a magnet in that hill that just draws some of the most amazing people here,” Cooper Nelson said. “Why ever is that true and why ever it drew me here, I’m not sure, but I can say that I don’t feel anything more strongly than gratitude.”

A guiding light for religious life at Brown 

When Cooper Nelson was in college, she initially envisioned a career as a physician but instead pursued history and education, earning degrees at Wellesley College, Tufts University and ultimately Harvard Divinity School. After prior roles at Vassar College, Mount Holyoke College and the Church of Christ at Dartmouth College, she arrived at Brown in 1990 — when the Office of Chaplains and Religious Life looked very different, she said.

“In those first few years, I found myself thinking: If you were brand new to Brown, what would you see?” Cooper Nelson said. “How would you see yourself reflected in who we were as a team? What ought we to look like?” 

Cooper Nelson led a survey of more than 1,500 students, faculty and staff about their religious needs and perceptions of campus. Their input helped inform a restructuring of the office in 1998 that ushered in a vibrant, inviting team of multi-faith associate chaplains and a comprehensive set of advisory religious life affiliates. 

“Brown prides itself on being a place that is deeply inclusive, that actually espouses a strong respect and regard for diversity of thought, faith, cultures and identities,” said Professor of Sociology Prudence Carter, who directs Brown’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America. “In my opinion, Janet was the perfect person to marshal that.” 

Cooper Nelson has a keen interest in religious identity, religious literacy and interreligious cooperation — tenets she has woven into the very identity of religious life at Brown. 

“For some, it’s about the religiosity, the doctrine, the dogma — but not for her,” said Carter, a friend and colleague since the 1990s. “Her inclusiveness and the ecumenical nature of her work has kept me close to her, because I think you can be comfortable with people who make you feel welcome.” 

Among many collaborative endeavors she has initiated, Cooper Nelson led the Religious Literacy Project, a semester-long non-credit course open to all faculty, staff and students in the Brown community that meets weekly to explore five major global religious traditions. At her home in Providence, she hosts monthly Thursday Night Interfaith Suppers, a key initiative of the Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life that includes dinners, inspiring speakers, a respectful exchange of ideas, and invigorating interfaith conversations about spirituality.

Beyond serving as the home of myriad religious groups on campus, the office that Cooper Nelson leads provides resources that include dedicated prayer and meditation rooms, support for expanded dining options for students who observe kosher and halal diets, and support for events like the annual Spring Thaw Powwow and silent retreats for the Brown Meditation Community.

“I said in my very first performance review that I thought I was overworked and underutilized — I don't think that anymore,” Cooper Nelson said. “I’d almost say that we became overworked and overutilized, and maybe that was the goal.”

When Philip Torphy interviewed for a position on Cooper Nelson’s team seven years ago, he asked about her favorite part of working at Brown. 

“I guess I was expecting some highfalutin spiritual answer,” said Torphy, now a program administrator in the office. “But instead, she said, ‘I like that we have a discretionary budget completely under our own control that we can use to directly help students.’ I'm always very impressed by her grounded, practical side. She knows that in order for students to thrive, the basic necessities of life need to be provided for.” 

Decades of support for the Brown community

In addition to Cooper Nelson’s contributions to the chaplaincy, she serves as a clinical faculty member at Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School, where she teaches future doctors the interconnected nature of pastoral care and patient support. 

Helping people navigate life’s painful and tense times is one of her gifts, said Brown Class of 1968 graduate Shelley Fidler, who came to know Cooper Nelson under tragic circumstances: the death of a Brown student who was close to Fidler’s son, also a Brown student at the time.

“Janet Cooper Nelson is a huge part of the reason I am still in love with my University,” Fidler said. 

Cooper Nelson said she has connected several Brown parents and families who have experienced loss, which has led to lasting relationships based on common experience. For years, she also led Brown’s Bereavement Group, an informal gathering that welcomes students from all programs who are seeking support to shoulder grief. 

“Those sad days have given birth to friendships and loving and living memorials that have enriched the lives of students, families and the University,” Fidler said. “She was — and is still — at the center of all the best things that came from an unthinkable loss.” 

Providing an empathetic, nonjudgemental environment for others to experience discomfort is another quality that has made Cooper Nelson such a beloved chaplain, said Brown senior Amir Tamaddon. 

Tamaddon, a Jewish and Muslim student from Iran, first met Cooper Nelson at International Undergraduate Orientation in 2019. In the years since, he has been struck by her ability to navigate tension, especially in the wake of recent conflict in the Middle East, by advancing dialogue and understanding. 

“You have these conversations where things get political or religious or otherwise tense, and others try to resolve it by saying, ‘Oh, let’s just agree to disagree,’ but Janet is not like that,” Tamaddon said. “By the end of a conversation with her, people are able to acknowledge something deeper about who they disagree with, softening what were previously rigid perspectives.” 

Cooper Nelson has supported generations of students at Brown, like Kate Creasey, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History, who was navigating recovery and sobriety when she arrived at Brown. 

“The ways in which Janet gave me support to be a graduate student and be a person in recovery made my experience at Brown a much more wholesome one than it would have been otherwise,” Creasey said.  “I’m planning to finish my degree this year, so I’m really glad that I don’t have to imagine being at Brown without Janet.” 

A farewell, but not an ending 

Now, Cooper Nelson is beginning to imagine her life after — not necessarily without — Brown. 

In retirement, Cooper Nelson plans to stay in Providence, where she will continue teaching at the Warren Alpert Medical School. She will remain committed to her board appointments with Home and Hospice Care of Rhode Island, Ensemble Altera and the United Church of Christ Palestine Israel Network, and she’s eager to dedicate more time to her favorite activities. 

A creative and prolific chef, Cooper Nelson said she’s never met something she didn’t want to cook, especially if it came from her own garden, which she’s looking forward to tending. Travel is high on her list of priorities, and she daydreams about riding the Eurostar from London to Marseille. In the meantime, she said her near-term adventures are likely to be slightly closer to home — maybe some kayaking on tidal inlets in Tiverton near a small, 19^th-century farm that she and her family are gradually restoring.  

“Filling up my time will probably not be the problem,” Cooper Nelson said. 

Although she recognizes she’ll be missed by members of the Brown community, Cooper Nelson is enthusiastic about the University’s next chapter. 

“Brown just has to keep being itself,” she said. “I expect to be cheering for all of it, especially the work of my colleagues. I know that when I talk to someone from Brown a few years into my retirement, they’re going to say, ‘Oh my gosh, this place is great. Can I tell you all about what’s happening?’ And that — that will be the best thing.”