2025 Chaplains Conference - Moral Injury

Please join us for this year's Chaplains Conference, October 7-9 at the Holiday Inn and Suites Syracuse Airport (400 7th North Street, Liverpool, NY)

‍Conference cost includes membership in the NYS Protestant Chaplains Association - you must register by September 30!

October 7 - 9, 2025 | Holiday Inn and Suites, 400 7th N St, Liverpool, NY

Register for the Conference

Call the hotel 315-451-1511 by September 20 to reserve your room for $139 or use Protestant Chaplains to reserve online.

Schedule

Tuesday, October 7

11 AM Conference Check in begins‍

1 PM Welcome

1:15 PM Opening Worship, with Musician Paul Sabatine          

1:45 PM Keynote Rev. Dr. Anthony Hedley “Understanding and Treating Moral Injury” Rev. Dr. Anthony Hedley, Emeritus Professor of Pastoral Care, Asbury Theological Seminary

3 PM Break

3:30 PM Keynote part 2 Rev. Dr. Anthony Hedley

4:30 PM Break

5:30 PM Dinner

7 PM “Inside Out” Dr. Reiko Hillyer, Professor of History, Lewis and Clark College

-Many opportunities for incarcerated persons to experience the outside world have been lost since the “war on crime” and the Willie Horton incident brought up during the 1988 presidential race. We seem more focused on banishment, not rehabilitation.

-Contact between the worlds inside and outside the prison walls can result in powerful learning and major changes in attitudes.

8:30 PM Fellowship

Wednesday, October 8

8:30 AM Morning Worship

9 AM "The Work of the End Prison Violence Coalition"

Rosemary Rivera, lead organizer of the formerly incarcerated for End Prison Violence

Eric Schneiderman, former NYS Attorney General

10:45 AM Break

11:30 AM LUNCH

1-1:30 PM Meeting with DOCCS Commissioner Daniel F. Martuscello III

1:30-3 PM Meeting with the Department of Corrections

3:30-5 PM “The Spiritual Component of Moral Injury” Sister Donald Corcoran, OSB. Adjunct Professor, St Louis University.

Sr Donald is the former co-director of the Institute of Religious Formation at St. Louis University where she also headed the M.A. in Spirituality program. She is the co-founder of Transfiguration Monastery in Windsor NY

5 PM Break

6 PM Dinner

7 PM Annual Meeting of the New York State Protestant Chaplains Association and Conversation with New York State Council of Churches

8 PM Fellowship

Thursday, October 9

9-10:30 AM “Understanding and Treating Moral Injury” concludes, Rev. Dr. Anthony Headley

11 AM Closing Worship with Musician Paul Sabatine

Our Speakers

Dr. Anthony Headley

Dr. Tony Headley is a licensed psychologist and health service provider in the state of Kentucky. He is particularly interested inworking with people in ministry. As a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary since 1990, he has taught courses in the institution’s three counseling degrees: mental health counseling, marriage and family counseling and pastoral counseling.

Besides his teaching responsibilities at Asbury, for several years Dr. Headley provided coaching for many ministers including Doctor of Ministry Students at Asbury Theological Seminary.

Dr. Headley has published five books including “Achieving Balance in Ministry” and “Reframing Your Ministry” He has also conducted seminars on ministry topics such as self-care, stress management, burnout, flourishing in ministry, conflict resolution and similar topics for many church-related organizations. For the past four years, he has taught a course titled “Flourishing in Ministry” for Asbury University.

Education

·      Ph. D., Counseling Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 1993.

·      Dissertation: “Personality Characteristics on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and Stress and Burnout Among Persons in Ministry.”

·      MS, Family Studies, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 1990.

·      MS Ed., Counseling Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 1987.

·      Master of Divinity, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, KY 1981.

Dr. Reiko Hillyer

Professor of History and Department Chair at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR

Hillyer is a social and cultural historian of the U.S. in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

She brought the “Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program” to Lewis & Clark. The program brings undergraduates inside prisons to learn alongside people who are incarcerated. The course, “Crime and Punishment in US History,” is taught at Columbia River Correctional Institution (CRCI) in North Portland to an integrated group of Lewis & Clark and incarcerated students. 

Influenced by her teaching experiences in the “Inside-Out” Program, she wrote a book titled: “A Wall is Just a Wall: The Permeability of the Prison in 20th Century America,” which traces the decline of practices that once connected incarcerated people to the free world more regularly. Her research has been featured on CNN, NPR, and The Boston Globe.

Hillyer has published scholarly work on the civil rights movement and public memory, community policing in New York City, and prison litigation in Virginia for several journals. 

Dr. Hillyer holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University and a BA in Political Science from Yale University.

Sister Donald Corcoran

Sister Donald Corcoran, OSB, is a native of Minnesota, USA. She has been a Benedictine nun for over 60 years. From 1976 to 1979, Sister Donald was co-director of the Institute of Religious Formation at St. Louis University where she also headed the M.A. in Spirituality program. She remains an adjunct professor at St. Louis University where she returns every January to teach a course on the history of Christian spirituality. She has a Ph.D. in theology from Fordham University with a specialization in spirituality. Her dissertation is entitled “The Spiritual Guide: Midwife of the Higher Spiritual Self,” a study of the classic master/disciple relationship in the great spiritual traditions. In 1979, she helped found the Transfiguration Monastery in Windsor, New York, where she currently lives. Her present interest is a comparative study of Benedictine and Confucian spirituality.