About The Compass Center, Our Staff, and Community Advisors
Who We Are and the History of The Compass Center (formerly the Center for Faith and Vocation)
For over 20 years the Center for Faith and Vocation had been a part of Butler’s landscape to help cultivate communities of religious diversity and distinctiveness while also partnering with students, faculty, and staff on exploring the pursuit of their life purpose. To increase our goals of being inclusive to all students, we updated our name to The Compass Center in 2024. To carry out our mission, we have a dynamic staff, student interns, and an array of campus and community partners.
CONTINUING OUR LEGACY:
In 1995, Butler University received a $70,000 Lilly Endowment grant to create what has been the Butler Seminar on Religion and Global Affairs, which is now the Butler Series on Religion and Society. Building on this relationship, a roughly $2,000,000 Lilly Endowment grant was provided to Butler in 2002 to establish the Center for Faith and Vocation, and the Seminar was folded in as a flagship offering of the CFV. Between 2006-2009, then President Bobby Fong included a fundraising priority in the capital campaign to sustain the CFV. Since 2010, the CFV has been independently funded through university support, endowments, and external grants. Under its new name, The Compass Center will continue this important legacy of furthering the dialogue and lived experience of religious and secular diversity while encouraging big questions related to meaning, purpose, and contribution. We are proud of this history and the important offerings the Center has been able to facilitate, both on campus and within Indianapolis, using the language of “Faith and Vocation” for over 20 years. Moving forward, The Compass Center is excited to emphasize these same themes while maintaining our commitment to ensure that all are included in the exploration of religious, spiritual, and secular life, and the pursuit of meaning and purpose.
The Compass Center Staff
Daniel Meyers is director of the The Compass Center, which helps Butler students, faculty, and staff explore multifaich communities, interfaith engagement, the pursuit of meaning and purpose, and spiritual life. A graduate of Willamette University (Oregon) in Biochemistry and Religious Studies, Meyers earned a Master of Divinity at Yale Divinity School, was ordained in the United Church of Christ, and completed a two-year position as Earl Hall Religious Life Fellow in the Office of the University Chaplain at Columbia University. He has served in his current role at Butler University since June of 2015.
Marguerite Stanciu is assistant director of The Compass Center at Butler University. She graduated from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and English and the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco with a Master of Arts in Intercultural Philosophy and Religion. Marguerite is an authorized meditation instructor and teacher in the Buddhist and Shambhala (secular) traditions. Her interest in social justice issues reflects her commitment to valuing community and honoring varieties of religious, cultural and vocational experiences that call us to be more of who we are and to contribute to the greater good when we are able. Marguerite serves as staff adviser for Butler Meditation.
Imam Anisse Adni has served the Central Indiana and DFW areas for over 15 years as a religious leader and community organizer. Imam Anisse graduated from Marian University and studied Islamic Theology and Sciences at the Qalam Seminary in Texas. Passionate about facilitating meaningful conversations and helping others wherever they are on their journey, Imam Anisse strives to maintain a safe and welcoming environment where everyone can freely share and express themselves without fear of judgment or reprisal. Currently, he serves as the Imam of the Alsalam Foundation in Carmel, the Muslim Life Advisor at Butler, and the Executive Director of Inspyred, an initiative addressing the socio-spiritual needs of Muslim youth, young adults, and families, inspiring and empowering them to develop and sustain a proud and reflective American Muslim identity.
Michael Aronson joined The Compass Center as Jewish Life Advisor in April 2023 during a Future Faculty Teaching Fellowship year at Butler University’s College of Communication. Michael holds a master’s degree in Jewish Studies from Hebrew College in Newton Center, Massachusetts, and is working towards his doctorate in Media Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington. Michael serves the Jewish community at Butler by channeling his passions for living in community, Jewish learning, adult education and pluralism towards helping The Compass Center create an inclusive and loving environment for all people at Butler.
Biography
Born and raised in southcentral Pennsylvania in one of only two counties in the Commonwealth without a traffic light, Brent Hege earned his BA in Religion and History with a minor in Classics from Gettysburg College (PA) in 1998. He completed the Zentrale Mittelstufenprüfung Diplom (German Language Certificate) at the Goethe Institut in Dresden, Germany, in 2000 while completing his MA in Historical Theology with a minor in New Testament at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg (PA). He earned his PhD in Theology with Distinction from Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, VA, in 2007. His dissertation was awarded the 2010 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise by the Forschungszentrum Internationale und Interdisziplinäre Theologie at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He was honored by his alma mater with the 2013 Gettysburg College Young Alumni Achievement Award and in 2015 he was elected an honorary member of Butler’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. In 2017 he received the Outstanding Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching from Butler’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. In 2017 he was appointed The Compass Center Scholar in Residence and in 2020 he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Religion. He has taught at Butler since 2008.
Teaching Duties
As a faculty member of Butler’s Religious Studies program, Hege teaches the yearlong First Year Seminar, “Faith, Doubt, and Reason,” occasionally teaches the introductory course in world religions, and teaches the following upper-division courses: God, Theologies of Liberation, Evil, Religious Pluralism, and Ecotheology. In 2015-2016 he directed the Butler Seminar on Religion and World Civilization on the topic “Religion, Race, and Culture” and in 2018-2019 he directed the newly renamed Butler Seminar on Religion and Global Affairs on the topic “Sacred Spaces: Intersections of Religion and Ecology.” In 2022-2023 he directed the Butler Seminar on Religion and Global Affairs on the topic of “Faith and Activism.” Hege is also the Center for Faith and Vocation Scholar in Residence, where he works with a cohort of student CFV Scholars on issues of interfaith engagement and vocational discernment. Hege holds affiliate faculty status in the programs of Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Science, Technology, and Environmental Studies, and the Center for Urban Ecology and Sustainability. In 2022, Hege successfully chartered Butler’s chapter of Theta Alpha Kappa, the national honors society for Religious Studies and Theology, for which he serves as faculty advisor. Hege is also the faculty advisor and current board president of Grace Unlimited, Butler’s Lutheran-Episcopal campus ministry.
Scholarship
Hege’s research focuses on the history of Christian thought and contemporary Christian theology, with special focus on 19th- and 20th-century liberal Protestant theology, continental philosophy and philosophical theology, contemporary constructive theology, Lutheranism, and theology and culture. In addition to his award-winning first book, Faith at the Intersection of History and Experience: The Theology of Georg Wobbermin (Wipf and Stock, 2009), he has published articles and invited review essays in a number of European and American journals, including Zeitschrift für Neuere Theologiegeschichte/Journal for the History of Modern Theology, Theologische Zeitschrift, Theology and Science, Radical Philosophy Review, Politics and Religion, and Teaching Theology and Religion. He is also a frequent reviewer of books on historical and contemporary theology for Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology. He has presented papers at national and regional academic conferences, including The American Academy of Religion and The Southwest Popular Culture Association and The American Culture Association, as well as being a frequent guest lecturer and panel member for school, church, and community programs. His second book, Myth, History, and the Resurrection in German Protestant Theology, was published by Pickwick Press in 2017. His most recent book, based on the first semester of his popular Butler First Year Seminar, is Faith, Doubt, and Reason (Wipf and Stock 2020). In 2020 he was elected to the editorial council of Dialog: A Journal of Theology, the world’s premier journal of Lutheran theology.
