A Time to Explore

Higher education is a place and the time for students to explore. This is a critical time in the molding of beliefs for students who may be wavering. This is also a critical time for students who may have felt oppressed by the religion they have been brought up to believe. So what is the role of higher education in shaping their student's religion? This is a particularly tough question for state institutions. With that, my response is complicated. Provided that public institutions allow for every religion to have an opportunity available for all students who wish, it is a great place to help foster religion and spirituality. Peter Laurence's article Can Religion and Spirituality Find a Place in Higher Education makes a valid point that "when religion in all of its expressions is actively engages, the threat of control by one religion evaporates, and religion can once more become a viable element in campus culture." That being said, the students should be responsible for forging forward with the organizations, asking for the funding, and requesting for faculty advisors. It is the students who must take the initiative to make this possible and the institution to provide the support. The overarching goal should not be to produce religiously minded scholars, but it should be to know that the institution is doing everything possible to yield students who are open-minded to learning, have a solid understanding of other religions, and who are tolerant.

Laurence also mentions in the article that religiously affiliated institutions would probably have a much more difficult time accepting other religions to be recognized on their campuses. This is not to say that they cannot be tolerant of the students who do not practice their beliefs, but what opportunities does the school have really have to offer? If it is a Catholic school and a critical mass of students who are Muslim enroll, should the institution begin to provide prayer rooms? Should the institution begin to serve Halal meat? Would the institution provide religious studies courses that are from an Islamic perspective rather than Catholic? I am not sure if there is a correct answer to this, or if the institution has an obligation to do so.

Spirituality is an even tougher answer; and it is mainly because there is no one definition of  that can apply to everyone. Laurence points out the main problems academics often see with spirituality; the subjective nature, and the "lack of a common definition."  Because of this, I think fostering spirituality on a college campus could be challenging, but not impossible. I think it is especially important for it to be understood that students may very well identify as spiritual and not religious. There are times when students may have a spiritual connection in a course that would may not traditionally be thought of as eliciting that type of emotion. Laurence describes an experiment at Wellesley College where the dean asked students to discuss a time when they had moments of "inspiration, connection, wonder, and awe" in the classroom and then relayed this to the faculty. The dean stated the faculty were then able to see the connection between spirituality and scholarship.

Courses are not the only way for institutions to assist in spirituality on campus. Offering yoga, meditation, open mic nights, painting, well-being, holistic and/or homeopathic living seminars, in addition to providing a safe space where students and faculty can have an open dialogue on spirituality an, would all help pave the avenue for spirituality awakening on campus. The challenge could be, however, that just because a student has one spiritual moment in one time, does not mean that it will continue.

President Obama has taken notice that higher education is a place for religion and spirituality to take shape. Just two weeks ago, the president even proposed the Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge. "For over two hundred years, Americans of all faiths have come together, put their shoulders to the wheel of history, and made this country what it is today. And I know that as we go forward, it’s going to take all of us – Christian and Jew, Hindu and Muslim, believer and non-believer – to meet the challenges of the 21st century."--President Obama. This challenge is to bring students of different religious and nonreligious backgrounds together for a common good while creating "positive meaningful encounters," (Patel and Meyer, 2011).

President Obama's Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge is poignant because as Laurence points out that while education has become secular and there has been an overall acceptance of religious diversity, religion itself has been denied. Acknowledging and allowing a presence as well as providing opportunities is exactly where public institutions should draw the line. The purpose of higher education is to supply students with the tools needed to survive, not to make any religious decisions or submit any type of religious or spiritual propaganda on them.