Ken Childs Portrait (1993)

A portrait photograph of Ken Childs, chaplain at Springfield College, taken in 1993. He is inside a building wearing his minister robe.Reverend Kenneth A. Childs (1942 - July 28, 1998) was the beloved Chaplain at Springfield College for 26 years. Childs grew up in Ripon, Wisconsin, and graduated from New Trier High School in Wilmette, Illinois. In 1964, he received a BA from Beloit College in Wisconsin. After graduating, he moved east and earned a BD and an MA in sacred theology from Yale University. Childs graduated in 1968 and was ordained the same year. He moved to Wilbraham, Massachusetts, where he served as an Associate Minister at the Wilbraham United Church of Christ and founded the New Covenant House. In 1973, Childs moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he served as director of Jobs With Justice, director of the Workers’ Rights Center, director of the Pioneer Valley Project, and an active member of the Greater Springfield Council of Churches. During this time, Springfield College hired Childs as chaplain. In his “Principles of Humanics” speech, Dr. Peter J. Polito remembers Childs as “always there for us, both in times of joy and especially in times of sorrow and anguish. . . [As] a man of deep conviction and a man of conscience who risked his own wellbeing to speak out, so often for the silent majority. We remember his warmth, his gentleness, and his strength in the face of adversity. We also remember his special gift of humor and wit.” On July 22, 1998, Springfield College President Bromery fired Childs for “outspoken and caustic criticism” of the school administration. On the early evening of July 28, 1998, after emptying his office, Reverend Childs suffered a fatal heart attack