Charles Berardesco Has Steered Duke Chapel in Serving Students, Raising Its Visibility
The first time Charles Berardesco, T ’80, heard a pipe organ was when he walked by Duke Chapel his first year on campus and overheard the newly installed Benjamin N. Duke Organ (Flentrop) being tuned.
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Charles Berardesco, T ’80
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Charles Berardesco, T ’80
Charles Berardesco, T ’80
“It was the first time I’d ever heard anything like that, so one of my friends and I decided we were going to go to Chapel,” said Berardesco who grew up singing in the choir of a small Methodist church in his hometown of Brick, New Jersey. “I just was blown away because not only was there the Aeolian in the front … but all of a sudden there was this huge choir processing up the nave.”
The decision proved to be significant for Berardesco, a political science major and marching band member at Duke, as well as for the Chapel. Berardesco would eventually become chair of the Chapel’s National Advisory Board from 2012 to 2021, supporting the Chapel in engaging students and rising its visibility, nationally and internationally, among other churches and university chapels.
He began attending Chapel services regularly.
“The main thing the Chapel did for me was focus my spirituality,” he said in a recent phone interview. “I had grown up in the church and I was a believer, but it helped me think about my own spirituality and practices.”
For example, he remembers hearing influential sermons at the Chapel by Martin Luther King, Sr. and William Sloane Coffin (listen to those sermons by clicking here and here).
With its preaching, music, and liturgy, the Chapel became an anchor for Berardesco, who was one of the first people in his family to go to college.
After Duke, Berardesco went on to law school and a successful career as a lawyer in the energy industry. He formed a family with his husband Jeffrey Thurston and found a church home at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. where he sings in the choir.
It wasn’t until about twenty years after he graduated that Berardesco began reconnecting with Duke.
“As I thought about what I wanted to support long-term, my college and law school were the game changers,” he said. “They were the institutions that enabled me to do the things I’ve gotten to do in my career, and I had been a scholarship student at both places.”
In reconnecting with Duke, Berardesco was drawn to the Chapel. He joined the Chapel’s advisory board and became chair in 2012, just as Chapel Dean Luke A. Powery was hired.
As board chair, Berardesco has had a significant impact, acting as a sounding board for Dean Powery, advising on the Chapel’s strategic plan, and setting up an endowment, the Charles Berardesco and Jeffrey Thurston Chapel Fund.
He has been an advocate of putting students at the heart of the life of the Chapel.
“Students come to Duke now, some with very deep faith backgrounds, but a lot with none,” he said. “I think it’s very important that the Chapel reaches out to students, that it be seen as a place where students may ponder their own beliefs, that the Chapel is there for them.”
Another emphasis for Berardesco has been bringing more national and international visibility to the Chapel’s strengths in liturgy, preaching, and sacred music. As examples, he cites the Chapel’s digital preaching archive and sacred music publication series.
“A vision for me would be that Duke Chapel is thought of as one of the great resources for other faith institutions in the world,” he said. “That you look at Duke Chapel no differently than King’s College, Cambridge or St. Thomas Church in New York City or the Washington National Cathedral.”
As he concludes his time on the Chapel’s National Advisory Board this summer, the pandemic has kept Berardesco from visiting Duke campus for more than a year. The last time he was on campus was in March 2020, when Chapel Assistant Dean Bruce Puckett officiated at a small memorial service in Duke Gardens for one of Berardesco’s close college friends.
Even with the distance, Berardesco looks back on his time on the board with fondness.
“It’s been a real pleasure to serve on the board,” he said. “I will miss that.”