Nathan A. Cost began serving as the Associate Director of Lifelong Learning in 2024 after completing his PhD. His research focuses on the vocational formation of seminary students, ministers, and those in the helping professions. His dissertation explores the calling experiences of nondenominational seminary students, specifically how grief, mentoring, and religious traditions inform a sense of calling.
Prior to coming to Vanderbilt, Nathan served as a teacher and administrator, most recently as Director of Admissions at Mercer University. In 2022, he launched the Center for Calling and Vocational Formation as part of a Lilly Grant. In this role he designed and taught courses on vocational formation and developed programs to engage local churches and ministers in the formation of seminary students serving in their congregations.
Nathan is passionate about developing resources and programs that will equip those called into ministry in all of their vocational seasons and contexts.
Nathan holds a B.A. from Lipscomb University, an MTS from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University and a PhD from Mercer University.