Education:

• Yale College, class of 1913
• Union Theological Seminary, 1917

Life Before Yale Chaplaincy:

• Worked as an assistant in an American East Harlem Protestant Parish while attending Union Theological Seminary.
• Pastor of the Maverick Church in East Boston after graduation from Union.
• Pastor at Mount Vernon Congregational Church in Boston from 1919-1932, taking a year’s absence to study at Oxford University from 1927-1928.

Key Contributions:

• Helped to establish the Department of Religion at Yale after reinvigorating the one undergraduate religion course (bringing the enrollment from three students in 1932 up to 300 students in 1954).
• Advocated for a Jewish counseling program for the Jewish students at Yale in 1933, this program eventually evolving into the Yale Hillel Foundation.
• Co-founded the National Association of College and University Chaplains in 1948.
• Described by Bartlett Giamatti, Yale President 1978-1986, as someone who “embodied all that Yale stood for and wanted to be. Perhaps no other Yale person in this century touched as many lives in this community and beyond.”

Fun Facts:

• Affectionately known as “Uncle Sid”.
• First in his family to attend Yale instead of Harvard.
• Known for his hat collection.

Life After Yale Chaplaincy:

• Executive Vice President, Yale-in-China program in 1959, moving to Hong Kong for a year as a representative at the New Asia College.
• Retired to New Haven and stayed active in the Yale Alumni Fund, New Haven United Fund and the New Haven Council on Equal Opportunity.
• Continued to participate in religious life at Yale and in New Haven over the next two decades.