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Campus Religious Life in America: Revitalization and Renewal

Society volume 50, pages 115–131 (2013)Cite this article

Abstract

What role does organized religion play in the life of the American campus? Among both scholarly and popular observers, the university has long been regarded as secular territory. Contrary to the .cphsecularization thesis, the history of campus religion is not a declension narrative. This essay provides an overview of the student religious landscape in America, focusing most of its attention on schools that are not affiliated with a religious tradition. It identifies six signs of religious vitality on campus: 1) the expansion of evangelicalism; 2) the revitalization of Catholic student organizations; 3) the reinvention of campus Judaism; 4) the growth of new immigrant and alternative religions; 5) the beginnings of renewal in mainline Protestant campus ministries; 6) the embrace of spirituality by student affairs professionals. Noting several recent studies on education and religiosity, it concludes that college is not especially damaging to religious commitment.

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Notes

  1. A much shorter version of this article appeared on the website of the Social Science Research Council. See John Schmalzbauer, “Campus Ministry: A Statistical Portrait,” SSRC Web Forum on the Religious Engagements of American Undergraduates, 6 February 2007, available at http://religion.ssrc.org/reforum/Schmalzbauer.pdf. Many of the statistics have been updated.

  2. For historical treatments of religion on campus see Marsden, (1994); Sloan, (1994). See also Bass, (1989); Wentworth, (1932); Budziszewski, (2004).

  3. Portaro and Peluso, (1993).

  4. On the religious vacuum left by mainline Protestants see Hageman, (1995). The term “spiritual marketplace” comes from Roof, (2001).

  5. Finke and Stark, (2005); Finke, (2004).

  6. Throughout this paper I rely on the official statistics of campus ministries. No systematic study of their accuracy has ever been conducted. Like the self-reported statistics of some congregations, they may be inflated. At the same time, many campus ministry organizations make an effort to encourage accurate reporting through special forms and surveys. A more comprehensive study would include ethnographic observations from campus religious groups. Because terms like “involved” and “participated” are ambiguous, it would be good to know what they signify on the ground. Absent such qualitative research, organizational statistics are the best we have to work with.

  7. Figures for evangelical parachurch groups are taken from the Campus Crusade for Christ webpage at http://www.cru.org/ministries-and-locations/ministries/campus-ministry/index.htm, the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship webpage at http://www.intervarsity.org/about/our/vital-statistics, the Chi Alpha webpage at http://www.chialpha.com/About-XA/how-we-got-here.html, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes 2009 Ministry Report at http://fca.org/assets/2012/06/2009-Annual-Report-Final.pdf, and the 2001 Ivy Jungle report on “The State of College and University Ministry,” retrieved at http://www.ivyjungle.org. Figures on conservative Protestant denominational ministries are taken from Southern Baptist, Assemblies of God, Missouri Synod Lutheran, and Ivy Jungle statistics. On Baptist college groups, see John Hall, “Student Ministries Survive by Coping with Cultural, Denominational Changes,” Associated Baptist Press News 9 October 2003, available at http://www.thealabamabaptist.org/print-edition-article-detail.php?id_art=748&pricat_art=5. On Assemblies of God campus ministries see http://www.chialpha.com/About-XA/how-we-got-here.html. Data on Missouri Synod Lutherans can be found at http://www.in.lcms.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=34&Itemid=41.

  8. Hunt and Hunt, (1991); Quebedeaux, (1979). The figure of 1,300 campus ministers comes Hammond, (1966); Cox, (1965).

  9. On InterVarsity’s lineage, see Hunt and Hunt, For Christ and the University, 79–80; Parker, (1998). Figures from Hunt and Hunt, (1991). For current ministry statistics, see the IVCF webpage at http://www.intervarsity.org/about/our/vital-statistics. Despite a slight decline in student participation during a time of organizational restructuring in the late 1980s, InterVarsity has enjoyed steady growth since 1990.

  10. For current Campus Crusade ministry statistics, see http://campuscrusadeforchrist.com/about-us/facts-and-statistics.

  11. On Bright’s pietism and pragmatism, see Quebedeaux, I Found It!, 79–108. Grant Wacker uses the dialectic of pragmatism and primitivism to frame his account of Pentecostalism in Heaven Below: (2001). J.I. Packer compares Bright to Ford in Wendy Zoba, “Bill Bright’s Wonderful Plan for the World,” Christianity Today 14 July 1997. The “well-run company” quotation appears in McMurtrie, (2001a).

  12. On the Student Volunteer Movement’s “business-like” approach, see Parker, Kingdom of Character, 33. On the YMCA’s ministry statistics, see Morgan, (1935). On Campus Crusade’s statistics see http://web.archive.org/web/20110520111450/http://campuscrusadeforchrist.com/about-us/facts-and-statistics.

  13. On Asian-American evangelicals, see Kim, (2004). Data on InterVarsity’s racial/ethnic composition is taken from http://www.intervarsity.org/about/our/vital-statistics.

  14. Data on InterVarsity’s Greek ministries is taken from http://www.intervarsity.org/about/our/vital-statistics. Data on FCA can be found at http://fca.org/assets/2012/06/FCA-Ministry-Report-Lg-2011-Final.pdf. For more on Athletes in Action, see http://www.athletesinaction.org/about/. See also DeBerg, (2002) The phrase “influence the influencers” comes from a profile of Christian Union by MacDonald, (2009). The Princeton statistic is from Lindsay, (2007). For more information on Christian Union, see http://involve.christian-union.org/site/PageServer?pagename=homepage. See also Scott, (2011).

  15. The Ivy Jungle report on “The State of College and University Ministry” was retrieved from http://www.ivyjungle.org/GenericPage/DisplayPage.aspx?guid=6E181B64-8F79-4CD0-A8E9-AA71B441605C. Ivy Jungle reported that between 10,000 and 12,000 students participating in Reformed University Fellowship (2001 data). According to the 2011 RUF webpage, the group is active on over 100 campuses, up from 65 in 2001. That information is available at http://www.ruf.org/learn-about-ruf/who-we-are/. Chi Alpha data can be found at http://www.chialpha.com/About-XA/how-we-got-here.html. The 2003 Chi Alpha figure is from the 2003–2004 Chi Alpha Census Summary, Assemblies of God. Data on student participation in Missouri Synod campus centers is available at http://www.in.lcms.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=34&Itemid=41. Southern Baptist Convention data and quotation from official can be found in John Hall, “Student Ministries Survive by Coping with Cultural, Denominational Changes,”Associated Baptist Press News 9 October 2003, at http://www.thealabamabaptist.org/print-edition-article-detail.php?id_art=748&pricat_art=5.

  16. The Spiritual Life of College Students: A National Study of College Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose (Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA, 2004), 17. A report on this survey is available at http://www.spirituality.ucla.edu/docs/reports/Spiritual_Life_College_Students_Full_Report.pdf.

  17. Philip Schwadel, (2011). See also Briggs, (2011). See also Uecker et al., (2007). The statistic on conservative Protestant campus ministry participation can be found in Smith, (2009).

  18. The first number is from the Catholic Campus Ministry Association webpage. See http://www.ccmanet.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63&Itemid=75. The second is from Gray and Bendyna, (2003). The church attendance statistics were gathered by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute and reported in Reilly, (2003).

  19. The ping-pong quote appears in Evans, 1980.

  20. Dolan, (1981).

  21. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Empowered by the Spirit: Campus Ministry Faces the Future, 15 November 1985, available at http://old.usccb.org/education/highered/empowered.shtml.

  22. Rice, (1994).

  23. Jones, (1996).

  24. Jones, “Campus Ministry Fills Need as Funds Shrink,” 10. The 15 % figure comes from Donovan, (2003). The $70 million figure comes from “New Church Management Group Called Testament to Lay Generosity,” Catholic News Service, 12 July 2005, available at http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20050712.htm. For more on the St. Thomas More Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale see http://www.yale.edu/stm/development/. For more on the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas, see http://www.st-lawrence.org/. Information on Duke, Ohio State, and the Petrus Development firm is available at http://www.petrusdevelopment.com/.

  25. Gray and Bendyna, (2003).

  26. Berggren, (1998); Malcolm, (1996).

  27. FOCUS has referred to Pope John Paul II and the “new evangelization” on its web page. The figure of 24 students is from Jansen, (2002). Current FOCUS figures are available at http://www.focus.org/on-campus/focus-campuses.html. Projected numbers for the period 2011–2014 were retrieved from an earlier version of the site.

  28. Martin, (1995); Eshel, (2005); Reidy, (2006); Weigel, (2005).

  29. Carroll, (2002).

  30. Hoge et al., (2001); Christian Smith, Souls in Transition. On the impact of college education on religiosity, see Uecker, Regnerus, and Vaaler, “The Social Sources of Religious Decline in Early Adulthood,” 1667–1692; McFarland et al., (2010).

  31. Perl and Froehle, (2002).

  32. The figure of 77 Hillel Foundations is taken from Jospe, (1963). The figure of 110 Hillel Foundations is taken from Jacobson, (2001). Hillel numbers from 2010 are available at http://web.archive.org/web/20100213162105/http://www.hillel.org/about/facts/who_what/default.

  33. The figure of 119 Chabad Houses was reported in Nathan-Kazis, (2010). Other statistics taken from Chabad’s 2010 annual report, available at http://chabad.edu/media/pdf/492/SBVf4921608.pdf.

  34. On Hillel’s struggles in the 1960’s, see Rosen, (2006). Quotation and other information from Jay L. Rubin, “Re-Engineering the Jewish Organization,” available on Hillel’s webpage at http://www.hillel.org/NR/rdonlyres/2D8B7513-18F6-45FF-8CB0-8B3DC53B4CF0/0/HillelReengineering.pdf. It originally appeared in the Summer 2000 issue of the Journal of Jewish Communal Service. This paragraph is also based on Wertheimer, (1999).

  35. This paragraph draws heavily on Rosen, “The Remaking of Hillel”; Rubin, “Reengineering the Jewish Organization” and Wertheimer, “Jewish Education in the United States.” The $200 million figure comes from “Hillel Board Elects Columbus’ Neil Moss Chairman,” Hillel Press Release, (2001). See also Jack Wertheimer, “Jewish Education in the United States: Recent Trends and Issues.”

  36. This motto can be found in Rubin, “Reengineering the Jewish Organization.”

  37. Statistics on Hillel’s Campus Entrepreneurs Initiative and Peer Network Engagement Internship can be found in the organization’s 2010 annual report, available at http://www.hillel.org/NR/rdonlyres/4C1AC55D-0D4B-4D5D-BB95-A8F4BD206F1E/0/AR2010weblowres.pdf.

  38. Jacobson, “The New Hillel,” A49. The figure of 37 new buildings is from “Hillel Building Boom Enhances Jewish Life on College Campuses,” Hillel, 3 October 2005, available at http://www.hillel.org/about/news/2005/oct/20051003_building.htm; “Hillel Buildings Sprout All Over,” Hillel, 7 April 2011, available at http://www.hillel.org/about/news/2011/apr/7apr11_Buildings.htm. Fellman, (1995).

  39. See Birkner, (2006). Figures from Alpha Epsilon Phi are available on the sorority’s webpage at http://www.aephi.org/aephi_story/aephi_today/ . Information and quotations from Alpha Epsilon Pi can be found at http://www.aepi.org/?page=History.

  40. Jewish leader quoted in Rachel Pomerance, “Chabad Expands on Campus,” Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, 3 January 2003, available at http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/030103/chabad.shtml.

  41. See Katz, (2010). For Chabad’s use of the Nike swoosh, see http://www.ulivchabad.org/shabat.html#.

  42. Sue Fishkoff. 2009. The Rebbe’s Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch. (New York: Random House), 95, 96

  43. Figures on Chabad houses are taken from Josh Nathan-Kazis, “Chabad Houses Proliferating on Campus,” The Forward, 9 April 2010.

  44. Columnist David Brooks discusses Chabad in “The Haimish Line,” New York Times, 29 August 2011. On Chabad’s “home-like atmosphere,” see Rosenfeld, (2010). The gefilte fish statistic was reported in Chabad’s 2008 annual report, available at http://chabad.edu/media/pdf/245/swbo2459780.pdf .The last quotation is from Chazan and Bryfman, (2006).

  45. Quotation from Wertheimer, “Jewish Education in the United States: Recent Trends and Issues.” On Chabad’s access to two-thirds of Jewish college students, see the organization’s 2008 annual report, available at http://www.chabad.edu/media/pdf/245/swbo2459780.pdf. Because Hillel is present on more campuses than Chabad, more students have access to its programs.

  46. On participation in Hillel and Chabad, see Amy L. Sales and Leonard Saxe, “Particularism in the University: Realities and Opportunities for Jewish Life on Campus,” Cohen and Cohen (2006). See also Keysar and Kosmin, (2004).

  47. Data on the non-observant tendencies of Jewish emerging adults can be found in Smith, Souls in Transition. On the growth of secular Jews, see Kosmin, (2009); Davidman, (2007).

  48. Eck, (2001). The Eck quote is from the September-October 1996 issue of Harvard Magazine. The article is quoted at http://www.wellesley.edu/RelLife/transformation/kit/concept.htm.

  49. Information on the Education as Transformation Project can be found at http://web.archive.org/web/20080610090529/http://www.wellesley.edu/RelLife/transformation/edu-ngoverview.html.

  50. McMurtrie, (1999). The Education as Transformation project handbook, Beyond Tolerance: A Campus Religious Diversity Kit is described at http://www.naspa.org/kc/srhe/selectedreadings.cfm.

  51. Wilgoren, (2001). Data on Muslim students taken from “A Profile of Freshmen at 4-Year Colleges, Fall 2010,” Chronicle of Higher Education. This data is from UCLA’s American Freshman survey.

  52. On the formation and current reach of the Muslim Students Association, see Husain, (2008); Mendez, (2005).

  53. Wilgoren, “Muslims Make Gains at U.S. Universities”; Eckstrom, (2000). See webpage of the MSA at http://www.msanational.org/about. On Ramadan celebrations see Dancy, (2000). On management coursework for Muslim Student Associations, see Omaira Alam, “The Evolution of COMPASS: MSA’s National Training Program,” COMPASS, March 2007, 3–4. For a list of course topics, see http://www.msanational.org/compass/index.php?page=campus. See also Mendez, “The New Role of Muslim Chaplains.”

  54. Pease-Kerr, (2008); Wilgoren, “Muslims Make Gains at U.S. Universities.”

  55. See “Some Students Groups Under Scrutiny,” Associated Press, 27 December 2001. Retrieved from http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/2001/fyi/teachers.ednews/12/27/attacks.universities.ap/; Barrett, (2003); Bell, (2001); Council on American-Islamic Relations, “Islamic Prayer Area Vandalized at AU in D.C.,” 13 September 2004, retrieved from CAIR’s webpage at http://www.cair-net.org/default.asp?Page=articleView&id=1211&theType=NR. See also McMurtrie, (2001b); Bahrampour, (2010); MacFarquhar, (2008).

  56. On awards for Muslim-friendly colleges, see “HFCC a ‘Muslim Friendly’ Campus,” Arab American News, November 20-November 26, 2004.

  57. The figure of 55 HSC groups is from Aditya Kashyap, “Hindu Students Council Celebrates 20th Anniversary at Annual Camp,” Hindu Students Council, 31 May 2010, available at http://hindustudentscouncil.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=271:hindu-students-council-celebrates-20th-anniversary-at-annual-camp&catid=37:press-release&Itemid=98.

  58. Pease-Kerr, “U to Hire First Full-Time Hindu, Muslim Chaplains”; Green, (2011). Data on Hindu students taken from “A Profile of Freshmen at 4-Year Colleges, Fall 2010,” Chronicle of Higher Education. This data is from UCLA’s American Freshman survey.

  59. See the list of Sikh student organizations at the webpage of the Sikh Coalition, available at http://www.sikhcoalition.org/stay-informed/sikh-coalition-advisories/478. See Pais, (1999).

  60. On the nineteenth-century re-discovery of Asian religions see Fuller, (2001). On post-1965 religious pluralism see Diana Eck, A New Religious America.

  61. Data on Buddhist students taken from “A Profile of Freshmen at 4-Year Colleges, Fall 2010,” Chronicle of Higher Education. This data is from UCLA’s American Freshman survey. On the interest of white students in Buddhism, see Cho, (2003).

  62. Oldenburg, (2004).

  63. Greeley, (1969).

  64. The Pagans on Campus site can be found at http://www.sunspotdesigns.com/c/collpgn.html. Related webpages include a site on College Pagan Groups, which lists groups on 99 campuses. See http://www.angelfire.com/ia/Geoff/cgroups.html.

  65. Figures on Institute of Religion participation calculated by Marguerite Langille-Hoppe using numbers from the “Institute of Religion Locator” available at http://www.lds.org/institutes. On the Moscow, Idaho Institute, see Arrington, (1967). The quote appears on page 140. Figures for 1967 are found on page 144. The number of Institutes of Religion in 2007 is reported in David E. Edwards, (2007). The Institutes of Religion website reports a worldwide enrollment of 350,000 students at 2,500 locations. See http://institute.lds.org/faq/.

  66. Current statistics, the quotation about growth, and a brief history of the OCF are available at http://www.ocf.net/pages/about1.aspx. This paragraph draws heavily on an earlier version of the site, available at http://web.archive.org/web/20101003214800/http://www.ocf.net/pages/about1.aspx.

  67. Shister, (2002).

  68. Statistics on young adults groups are taken from Skinner, (2006). A list of campus groups is available at http://connectuu.com/groups.php?action=search&group_name=&group_city=&group_stateprov=&dist_code=&group_type[]=Campus. Information on UU campus ministry programs can be found at www.uua.org/religiouseducation/campusministry/index.shtml.

  69. Niebuhr, (1996). Information on the number of current campus groups can be found at http://centerforinquiry.net/oncampus/groups. Posters are available at http://centerforinquiry.net/oncampus/posters.

  70. The 1996 Declaration of Necessity is available on the webpage of Utah Humanist at http://www.humanistsofutah.org/1996/artdec96.html.

  71. Kolowich, (2009).

  72. Zara, (2012).

  73. Presbyterian Church (USA) Collegiate Ministries webpage, available at http://gamc.pcusa.org/ministries/collegiate/about-pcusa-collegiateyoung-adult-ministries/; “By the Numbers,” NMD Committee Report, 24 April 2006, retrieved from http://www.pachem.org/Portals/1292/Resources/collegiate%20statistics%202006%20NMD.pdf; “Renewing the Commitment: A Church-Wide Mission Strategy for Ministry in Higher Education by the Presbyterian Church (USA),” Submitted to the 213th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) 2001, available at http://www.ukirk.org/files/Renewing_the_Commitment.pdf; United Methodist Church, Greater Board of Higher Education and Ministry webpage, available at http://public.gbhem.org/findyourplace; Episcopal Church USA campus ministry webpage, available at http://web.archive.org/web/20110107151432/http://www.episcopalchurch.org/109466_118178_ENG_HTM.htm; Evangelical Lutheran Church in America campus ministry webpage, available at http://www.elca.org/Growing-In-Faith/Ministry/Campus-Ministry.aspx; Disciples of Christ campus ministry webpage, available at http://www.helmdisciples.org/student/DOCcampusministries.htm; American Baptist Churches (USA) campus ministry webpage, available at http://www.nationalministries.org/education/campus_ministers.cfm; United Church of Christ campus ministry webpage, available at http://www.ucc.org/higher-education/campus-ministry.html.Some of these campus ministries are at church-related colleges and universities. Others are housed in congregations or Ecumenical Campus Ministry Team sites.

  74. In 2011 the Ecumenical Campus Ministry Team (ECMT) of the National Council of Churches listed 800 campus ministries affiliated with seven mainline denominations. See the ECMT web page at http://www.higheredmin.org/. The 2005 list of United-Methodist-Related Chaplains and Campus Ministers can be found at http://web.archive.org/web/20050217045707/http://www.gbhem.org/asp/campusMin.asp. The 2012 list is available at http://public.gbhem.org/findyourplace/. The quotation is from Green, (2007).

  75. On Episcopal development efforts, see Gurdon Brewster, “Ministry on the Frontier: The Contribution of Episcopal Campus Ministry to the Present and Future Church,” July 2000, available at http://web.archive.org/web/20030305031227/http://www.esmhe.org/ministryonthefrontier.htm.

  76. “Receiving Gifts Online,” Ask & Receive, March 2011, 2, available at http://www.elca.org/~/media/Files/Growing%20in%20Faith/Ministry/Campus%20Ministry/FundraiseBoardDev/Ask11%2003.pdf; Koerner, (2010); Higher Education & Leadership Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), September 2010, available at http://www.helmdisciples.org/helm/10/CampMinFundRaising.htm.

  77. On the role of evangelicals in renewing the mainline, see Finke, (2004); Hamilton and McKinney, (2003); “A Model for Church-Based Campus Ministry: Real Life in Jesus Christ,” University Presbyterian Church, Seattle, Washington, available at www.upc.org/Portals/0/UMin%20Images/Model%20for%20Campus%20Ministry.pdf. For more information on the Ascent Network, see http://www.upc.org/umin/Ascent.aspx. The Presbyterian statistic comes from “By the Numbers,” National Ministries Division Committee Report, 24 April 2006, retrieved from http://www.pachem.org/Portals/1292/Resources/collegiate%20statistics%202006%20NMD.pdf

  78. The Lutheran statistic comes from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America campus ministry webpage at http://www.elca.org/Growing-In-Faith/Ministry/Campus-Ministry.aspx.

  79. “A New Theme for Dorms: God,” New York Times, 30 July 2006, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/education/edlife/dorms_spiritual.html?ref=edlife; “Ohio Church Builds College Dorm,” Presbyterian Outlook, 21 March 2010. See also Trotti, (2007); Schevitz, (2006). For more information on Presby Hall at the University of Illinois, see http://www.presbyhall.com/. See Kansas State’s Wesley Foundation for information on its residential Christian community, available at http://kstatewesley.com/the-dorm/.

  80. “Renewing the Commitment,” 1, available at http://www.ukirk.org/files/Renewing_the_Commitment.pdf.

  81. Van Marter, (2001). On the elimination of the Collegiate Ministries office, see Luhr, (2009).

  82. Hargrove, (2010). The 2010 Presbyterian Church-USA General Assembly’s overture on collegiate ministries is available at http://www.pc-biz.org/IOBView.aspx?m=ro&id=3203. See also “Collegiate Ministries Task Force Named, Will Meet this Fall,” (2011).

  83. On the task of rebuilding and the 2005 campus ministry summit, see “Interview with Bishop Scott Jones,” College Union, 29 November 2005, available at http://collegeunion.org/2005/11/interview-with-bishop-scott-jones/. For more on Refresh, see http://collegeunion.org/refresh/. For a discussion of the networks behind evangelical and liberal approaches to Methodist campus ministry, see Russell Richey, “‘For the Good of the World,’ Methodism’s Ministry to the Campus,” Occasional Papers, General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, April 2010, available at http://www.gbhem.org/atf/cf/%7B0bcef929-bdba-4aa0-968f-d1986a8eef80%7D/occ_RicheyForGood2010.pdf.

  84. The campus ministry portion of the “General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, Strategic Plan for 2009-2012” is available at http://www.gbhem.org/site/c.lsKSL3POLvF/b.3554127/k.35FD/Strategic_Priority_3.htm. The proceedings of the 2009 conference are published in Young and Pieterse, (2010). The quotation is from Richey, “‘For the Good of the World,’” 14. This paragraph draws heavily on the Richey paper.

  85. ELCA Division for Higher Education and Schools director Robert Sorensen quoted in Greene, (1997); “A Social Statement on: Our Calling in Education,” Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 10 August 2007, 51, available at http://www.elca.org/What-We-Believe/Social-Issues/Social-Statements/Education.aspx.

  86. “ELCA Council Recommends Budget Proposals Through 2013,” ELCA News Service, 10 April 2011, available at http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Communication-Services/News/Releases.aspx?a=4739.

  87. American Council for Education, The Student Personnel Point of View (Washington, D.C.: American Council for Education, 1949), 1 as cited in Leah Temkin and Nancy J. Evans, “Religion on Campus: Suggestions for Cooperation between Student Affairs and Campus-Based Religious Organizations,” NASPA Journal 36 (1): 61 (1998). See also David A. Hoffman, “Reflections on the 2000 ACPA Spiritual Maturation Institute,” Character Clearinghouse, 11 February 2001, available at http://web.archive.org/web/20080530155332/http://www.collegevalues.org/Spirit.cfm?id=435&a=1.

  88. Collins et al. (1987); Love and Talbot, (1999).

  89. Jones, (1973); Smith, (1957).

  90. Collins, Hurst, and Jacobson, “The Blind Spot Extended: Spirituality,” 274–276.

  91. Greer and Lot, (1990); Cureton et al. (1991); Spees, (1992); Hoffman and DeNicola, (1993); Kopchick and Kirkpatrick, (1994).

  92. Temkin and Evans, “Religion on Campus,” 61.

  93. Love, (2001).

  94. For more on NASPA’s spirituality and religion network, see http://www.naspa.org/kc/srhe/default.cfm.

  95. Astin et al. (2011); Lindholm et al. (2011). For more on the “Spirituality in Higher Education” study at the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California-Los Angeles, see http://www.spirituality.ucla.edu/. The site notes a study establishing Alexander Astin’s status as the most cited researcher in the field. On the National Institute on Spirituality in Higher Education see http://spirituality.ucla.edu/background/national-institute/.

  96. On the collegiate Y’s many functions, see Setran, (2007); Reuben, (1996); Butler, (1989). For more information on Penn State University’s Pasquerilla Spiritual Center and the Center for Ethics and Religious Affairs, see http://www.studentaffairs.psu.edu/spiritual/. Sadly, the Pasquerilla Center was also the site of Joe Paterno’s funeral, as well as discussions of the sexual abuse that took place under his watch. See Jacobsen and Jacobsen, (2012).

  97. Love, (2000); Strange, (2005).

  98. General Social Survey data reported in Chaves, (2011). On the propensity of emerging adults to embrace the “spiritual, but not religious” designation, see Penny Edgell, “Faith and Spirituality Among Emerging Adults,” Essay Forum on Emerging Adults, Institute for Policy Research and Catholics Studies, Catholic University of America, available at http://www.changingsea.net/papersyn.htm. A survey of elite scientists found that over 20 % identified as spiritual but not religious. See Ecklund, (2010).

  99. This tri-partite division of American religion can be found in Albanese, (2007).

  100. The webpage of the California Institute of Integral Studies is available at http://www.ciis.edu/. For more on the conference, see http://www.conferencerecording.com/aaaListTapes.asp?CID=HHE27.

  101. “Biography: Sir John Templeton,” originally retrieved from the webpage of the Templeton Press at http://www.templetonpress.org/SirJohn/biography.asp. This paragraph’s discussion of Templeton is taken from Schmalzbauer and Mahoney, (2012).

  102. Schaper, (2000).

  103. Kiessling, (2010); Rogers and Love, (2007). For a discussion of the progress and the limits of the return of religion in higher education, see Schmalzbauer and Mahoney, (2012).

  104. Setran, The College “Y”; Cherry et al. (2001).

  105. Results from the 2001 Your First College Year survey are reported in Alyssa Bryant, “Campus Religious Communities and the College Student Experience,” Doctoral Dissertation, Higher Education and Organizational Change Program, University of California-Los Angeles, 2004, 92. Results from the 2003 pilot survey of the Spirituality and Higher Education Project are reported in Emily Winslett, “‘Twentysomethings’ and the Episcopal Church,” 20 April 2004. Winslett’s story is available at Covering Religion: The Soul of the South at http://web.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/religion/2004/archives/000529.asp. The National Study of Youth and Religion data are reported in Smith, Souls in Transition, 131.

  106. Figures from the 1921 YMCA/YWCA are from Marsden, The Soul of the American University, 343, but were originally reported in Hopkins, (1951). According to Marsden, 90,000 out of the 600,000 college students in 1921 were enrolled in the YMCA/YWCA. There were about 300 Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish denominational groups on campus in the 1920’s. Assuming each of these attracted an average of 100 students, that would mean an additional 30,000 students involved in campus religious groups. For figures for Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, see Shedd, (1938); John Whitney Evans, The Newman Movement, 55. Jospe, (1976). Shedd states that were 128 Protestant University Pastors in 1920. Evans lists 134 Newman Clubs in 1926. Jospe writes that there were 50 chapters of the Menorah Society in 1930. Shedd notes the existence of at least eight Hillel Foundations prior to 1929. By arguing that involvement in campus religious groups has not dramatically declined, I do not mean to suggest that student religiosity has always remained the same. In Commitment on Campus: Changes in Religion and Values Over Five Decades (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974), Dean Hoge found a decrease in student religiosity in the wake of the 1960’s. In a later study, Hoge and his colleagues found that students in the 1980’s were more sympathetic to traditional religion and more religiously involved. See Hoge et al. (1987).

  107. Astin, Astin, and Lindholm, Cultivating the Spirit, 31; Lee, (2002).

  108. Schwadel, (2011).

  109. Definitions vary, but most do not equate secularization with theological liberalism. An exception is Chaves (1994).

  110. Uecker, Regnerus, and Vaaler, “The Social Sources of Religious Decline in Early Adulthood,” 1667–1692.

  111. Schwadel, (2011). Study reported in Kavanagh, (2011); Briggs, (2011).

  112. See Wilcox et al. (2012).

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Schmalzbauer, J. Campus Religious Life in America: Revitalization and Renewal. Soc 50, 115–131 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-013-9640-6

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Keywords

  • Religion
  • Secularization
  • Higher education
  • Campus ministry
  • Student spirituality
  • Colleges and universities