Faith in Student Affairs

One topic that is always of interest to me is religion. As someone who attended Catholic schools from 7th grade through my Master's program, and as a practicing Catholic, religion and spirituality play an important role in my life. I was thrilled to see the Blog Prompt Monday post on Student Affairs Women Talk Tech about talking about religion with students. It's a very tricky issue, particularly for those of us working/attending public schools. But it's a topic with important student development implications.

"Do you discuss religion and/or spirituality at your institution or ignore it? How do you think this affects students?" asked Kristen Abell.

Now, to clarify, I'm not talking about the type of religious discussions that we would normally characterize as proselytization. There are religious people for whom discussing religion is about converting their peers to follow their faith tradition, and (I suppose) there is a time and place and sphere for those conversations. The public sphere is not one of those. To me, the question is not asking people to promote their faith to potentially interested followers looking for something greater to believe in. To me, the question asks, how do we promote conversations with students--and with each other--where we share our values, our beliefs, and better understand what's important to each of us? How do we foster conversations about that which is greater--if we even believe there is something greater--and how that impacts our experiences of education, development, and life in general?

For me, continuing to practice Catholicism is no small thing. There was a point in my life when I could have easily abandoned my faith out of despair. When I was a freshman, I had a deep crisis of faith that coincided with my coming out process and openly acknowledging that I was (am) gay. I feared that as a gay man, I had no place in the Catholic Church--the Church would never accept all of who I am, and, in particular, the Church would never bless the loving relationship I knew I would eventually enter into. Yet in the years leading up to entering college, I had developed a deep appreciation for--devotion to--my religious beliefs, especially the Church's profound traditions, and it hurt to imagine I would have to separate myself from that love.

There are many things I never loved about the Catholic Church (keeping women out of the priesthood, too loud on abortion and not loud enough on human rights, dark history around sexual abuse), but I also saw the tremendous life-giving potential associated with religious faith and devotion. Luckily, due to my desire to attend a Catholic university, I landed at a Jesuit institution--Gonzaga University--where I met many Catholics, including Jesuit priests, who helped me negotiate these two seemingly disparate identities to engage the creative tension between them and reap the spiritual benefits thereafter. I always blame the Jesuits for keeping me in the Catholic Church, and I think I became even more devout after my college experience.

None of this would have been possible if it weren't for their willingness to discuss spiritual matters with students. And one could argue that it is somewhat expected both of a Catholic university and of spiritual leaders in the college setting to discuss matters of religion and spirituality with students. But I know many students who do not have the same access to private institutions such as Gonzaga, and many of these students are grappling with similar, to-the-core issues related to religion and spirituality that they bring with them to college. Some of these issues are best addressed with a person qualified for spiritual counseling, but I wonder if students might benefit from general discussions where they are allowed to provide some insight into the make up of their belief systems and how it has guided them in life to who they are today.

A recent study out of UCLA examined students' experiences of spirituality in higher education, and the findings showed students wanted to explore these issues further while in college. Often these matters drive students' passions in their studies and in their chosen career/vocational paths; perhaps it might behoove student affairs professionals to allow students to bring these experiences into their conversations to better help guide them through their educational journey. I don't necessarily make it a personal habit to discuss matters of religion and spirituality with others as I believe it to be intensely personal and I don't want to come across as someone looking for converts. But might it be to our students' benefit to open up discussions about religion and spirituality a little more often?

Bryce
Follow me on Twitter: @BryceEHughes

What do you demand from yourself?

"The hope of the world lies in what one demands, not of others, but of oneself." -- James Baldwin

This was the content of my 2000th tweet on Twitter. I decided to follow the lead of many of my #SAchat colleagues and try to post a substantive tweet for this milestone in my usage of the social networking site. And it did warrant a couple of mentions and RTs! I was thrilled that indeed, my 2000th tweet was "epic."

Immediately after posting the quote, as happens to many of my #SAchat colleagues, a blog post started to formulate in my head. All I really had done was use a Quotionary to look for a nice inspirational quote, and in fact, the topic "hope" was the third or fourth topic under which I was looking for a quote. Yet as I began to ponder the implications of Mr. Baldwin's statement, there was so much more that could be said about it.

One of my goals for 2011 (besides this blog) is to run the Walt Disney World Marathon in January 2012. My partner suggested it in December as he is always looking for an excuse to visit Disney, but for me, I have always been looking for a good excuse to get active. For some reason, for me, it's difficult to simply be motivated to be active by the sheer enjoyment of activity; I do a much better job when I'm reaching a goal. And working with someone I care about keeps me that much more motivated. Plus, I know this is a goal that very few people reach--which makes it all the more enticing for me to be able to say, "I've done that." But, as I'm prone to do, I needed to read a up a little first to make sure this is a realistic goal and that I could actually accomplish it.

I purchased a copy of Marathoning for Mortals. I mainly needed to know what it took to be ready for a marathon--and if a year would be a reasonable amount of time to train. So far, I'm about four chapters into the book, and it looks like we've given ourselves more than enough time to build up our endurance and train for what seems to be a fairly "easy" marathon. (Not that 26.2 miles is ever easy, but running a course that is near sea level and is fairly flat is much easier than something high in the mountains that is uphill the whole way.) The book explains that if you can take account of your ability before training, commit to completing the training as prescribed, and make sure you arrive at the starting line prior to the start time prepared as best you can, you will complete your race. But you can't expect anyone else to do the work for you--you have to require that commitment and persistence from yourself. We all have the same physiology--but what are you demanding out of yourself to be competitive, determined, and confident?

That same "demand" that you need of yourself to sustain your commitment to finish a marathon is the same "demand" you should have of yourself on a daily basis. This is a crucial piece to goal-setting--that raw, uninhibited desire to do great things. I've seen it in many of my colleagues: classmates from graduate school, coworkers at the college, acquaintances I've met through #SAchat, out in the world doing amazing work with students from every walk of life. We strive to foster that "demand" within our students as well, particularly our student leaders whose eagerness to serve their peers so resembles our own which brought us into the field from the start. Why not celebrate the fact that we want so much more out of life on a daily basis?

There is a lot more that goes into training for a marathon besides wanting to finish the race. There's the schedule and regimen you put yourself on to enhance your abilities, and there's the rest and recovery your body needs in order to adjust to expanding its physical limitations. I'll probably come back to "discipline" and "self care" at some point in the future, especially if my training continues successfully. But in the meantime, ask yourself, "What do I demand of myself? How am I setting ambitious goals by demanding so much of myself? What am I demanding of myself that will also contribute to the overall common good around me?"

I think I may have my "one word" for 2011...

Bryce