About Cody

Cody Nielsen is the Executive Director of the United Methodist related Wesley Foundation at the University of Minnesota (www.gopherwesley.com), NASPA’s Expert in Residence for Religious, Secular, and Spiritual Initiatives (www.naspa.org), and president of the National Campus Ministry Association, the oldest multifaith organization of campus ministers in the United States (www.campusministry.net).

Cody has spent a decade professionally working to transform the field of higher education ministry to be more responsive to the needs of higher education as a response to the founding principles of the organizations that founded these ministries.  He has worked with Hillel International, the Interfaith Youth Core, the Secular Student Alliance, the Unitarian Universalist Association, as well as dozens of campus in the United States and Canada to help in understanding and articulating the importance of religious, secular, and spiritual identity in the college setting.

A recipient of the 2012 Louisville Foundation’s Pastoral Study Project,  Multifaith Identity in the Public University, the NASPA Spirituality and Religion Knowledge Community’s 2014 Outstanding Professional Award, the Minnesota Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church’s Jean Audrey Powers ecumenical award as well as the Francis Asbury award for work in higher education ministry, Cody holds degrees in social work and psychology from the University of Northern Iowa, a Masters degree in Mental Health Counseling from UNI and a Masters of Divinity from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington D.C.  He is a Ph.d student in Higher Education at Iowa State University in Educational Leadership (Higher Education) and has a two and a half year old son named Levi.