Madison lost one of its saints last month. Not that the Rev. Ed Beers would have described himself as a saint. Nor does Madison exactly have a civic category for sainthood. But for a lifetime, Beers moved between the worlds of sacred and secular, leaving both of them better off for his presence. As a campus minister based at Pres House on State Street in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he breathed in the tear gas of the anti-war clashes. He served as a bridge between students and university administrators. He helped students navigate their way through that turbulent period. In the process, he helped redefine the way religious groups went about serving students and faculty in campus settings.
Office of Strategic Communication