Who Knew?

Recent data from UCLA "suggests not only that undergraduates are far more spiritual than was widely believed, but also that they're seeking help with their seeking from their colleges - mostly in vain," according to an article called "Adding Spirituality" by Elizabeth Redden from one of my favorite websites, insidehighered.com.

Who knew?

In a country that I see more and more turning away from God and from spirituality, it came as quite a shock to me to come across this article, which suggests that college students are becoming more spiritual and looking to us, as student affairs professionals, to help them cultivate that part of themselves. If you would have asked me the last age group I thought would be turning more towards spirituality, I probably would have said college students. I guess you learn something new every day.

I am a woman of faith, and at my undergraduate institution (which I hate to keep bringing up, but it is a very interesting point of reference to life at Ole Miss) spirituality was never discussed on campus. In fact, it was taboo. KU is so incredibly "separation between church and state (aka college)" driven that you never, ever would hear student affairs professionals discussing their faith with a student, and there is just no way you would ever open a meeting in prayer. Not that I agreed with the way spirituality was dealt with at KU - but that's just the way that it was. There were not many religious or spiritual organizations at KU, and most people just didn't discuss their faith in everyday conversation. Now, this is by no means saying KU was an athiest campus or anything. Quite the opposite, I'm sure, but it just never really came up. KU was such a liberal campus - which is ironic, because it is in such a conservative state.

Since I have been at Ole Miss, I have been impressed and amazed really at how strong my faith has grown. At one meeting I attend weekly, we open in prayer. I talk about my faith almost every day, either with students or with fellow staff members. I don't know if it is just Ole Miss or if it is the South, but God is very present on this campus, anywhere from daily conversation to student organizations. If I would have read the insidehighered.com article while still at KU, I would have never believed it. But now, I can see the gist of that article being true.

Responding to the data UCLA found, the lead researchers for the Spirituality in Higher Education Project "invited representatives from 10 non-sectarian institutions to Los Angeles in November to develop individual plans to better address matters of spirituality on campus." Check out the article for what schools like Carnegie Mellon, Florida State, and Miami are doing to help students with spirituality issues - http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/08/spirituality

We tend to often forget that when we work with students, we are working with the student as a whole, not as the sum of his or her parts. To many students - and, according to this article, apparently even more than we thought - spirituality is important, and anything that is important to students is something we as student affairs professionals need to know much about. Therefore, being able to handle issues of spirituality is crucial. As the article says, we need not be priests or pastors or rabbis - but we do need to know how to handle issues of spirituality with our students.