The university or college chaplain performs a complex role, moving in the arenas of decisionmaking, piercing the fronts of factionalism and misuses of knowledge and power, serving as a reconciling and healing influence in the institution, and revealing, through symbol and ritual, the moral and spiritual resources of the religious traditions. In order to perform this role, he must maintain a theological openness, a critical distance, compassionate and empathetic concern and a profound sense of the limitations of his own wisdom and authority. The chaplain must be both involved and detached. This job is possible only with the full support of both the academic and religious communities. The campus minister is in the university but in some ways not entirely of it; in some ways of the religious institution but not in it. The chaplain will be fulfilling his role when he can live and work effectively in this tension. (Author)