Robbins Peace Emphasis

Berea College has commissioned the Campus Christian Center (CCC) to create programs that will encourage and empower students, staff and faculty to work toward precisely the kind of world that the mission-statement envisions.  One feature of the mission: “Adherence to the College’s scriptural foundation, ‘God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth, (Acts 17:26)’ shapes the College’s culture and programs so that students and staff alike can work toward both personal goals and a vision of a world shaped by Christian values, such as the power of love over hate, human dignity and equality and peace with justice.”

The Center has developed and administers the Robbins Peace Emphasis as one of the programs through which the department fulfills its commission from the College and promotes those essential values for authentic community.  Through the Robbins Peace Emphasis each year, the CCC offers “The Earl G. and Sue D. Robbins Peace Lecture,” which occurs in the Convocation Series, currently during the spring semester each year.

In 1988, Earl Robbins, a Berea College alum, and his wife, Sue, provided funding to establish an annual lecture series on peace and peacemaking at the College.  The couple made this choice because, as Mr. Robbins stated at the time, while attending Berea he learned that what is important in life is the true humanity of all of us.  Robbins was intentional in connecting the program to the CCC.  “While I was a student at Berea, the Chapel programs were the most stimulating, ideal-building facets of the entire educational program,” he once said.  Since the passing of both Earl and Sue Robbins, the Robbins family has continued to support the Robbins Peace Lecture Series in substantial ways.

Chaplain Clementina (Tina) Chéry is the founder, President and CEO of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, a center of healing, teaching, and learning for families and communities impacted by murder, trauma, grief, and loss. Chéry founded the Peace Institute in 1994 in Boston, Massachusetts after the murder of her 15-year-old son Louis. For more than 25 years, Chéry has used her experience as a survivor to serve families impacted by murder, advocate for Survivors of violent crimes, and develop best practices for homicide response. 

Chéry is on a quest to spread the Peace Institute’s knowledge and success nationally, and form new partnerships in peace to support Survivors in all walks of life. Chéry has present at the National Office for Victim Assistance, Harvard University’s Schools of Divinity and of Medicine, Boston College’s Schools of Social Work and of Law, Temple Israel, Trinity Church Boston, and to multiple police departments including Boston and Miami. is a founding member of the National Coalition for Survivors of Violence Prevention.

Ordained as a senior chaplain with the International Fellowship of Chaplains, Inc. in February of 2012, Chéry also holds honorary Doctorate Degrees from Regis College, Mount Ida College and the College of the Holy Cross. Chéry was born in Honduras and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts where she currently lives. Her proudest accomplishment is being a mother to Louis, Alexandra, and Allen, and grandmother to Alexander.