On the cusp of becoming adults, college students often find themselves in existential tumult as they ponder what will give meaning and purpose to their lives. Such spiritual concerns can be difficult to articulate, as they involve questions of who we are and where we came from, as well as our connectedness to each other and to the world around us.

Is the intensity of spiritual searching and behavior changing on today’s campuses, and how are administrations and faculties responding?

These are a few of the questions currently being explored by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) in a new project entitled Spirituality in Higher Education: A National Study of College Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose, which is sponsored by a $1.9 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

The Higher Education Research Institute is based in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since its founding in 1973, it has conducted ground-breaking research, policy studies and surveys related to postsecondary education. Alexander W. Astin and his wife, Helen S. Astin, are director and associate director of HERI, respectively, and co-principal investigators of the Templeton-sponsored study.

“College is a time for self-exploration,” said Alexander Astin. “Traditionally, the consideration of spiritual issues for people this age is a communal experience, with students talking to each other until the wee hours of the morning. From a research point of view, however, this phenomenon is largely an unknown area.”

In spring of 2003, HERI administered a pilot survey to 3,680 juniors at 46 colleges and universities throughout North America, with a goal of learning how the college experience had affected their spiritual life and development. It covered 11 broad areas, including attitudes toward religion/spirituality, compassionate behavior, and what facilitates or inhibits spiritual development. The survey was designed to ensure that all students – regardless of their particular theological/metaphysical beliefs – were able to respond in a meaningful way.

When its results were released last November, 73% of those polled said their religious or spiritual beliefs help to develop their identity, 77% said they pray, and 70% believe people can grow spiritually without being religious. Yet, at the same time, 62% report that their professors never encourage discussions of religious or spiritual issues, and 53% said what they learned in the classroom had no effect on their overall beliefs.

“Clearly, there is a misfit here,” said Astin. “The survey shows that students have deeply
felt values and great interest in spirituality and religion, but their academic work and campus programs seem divorced from it.”

Jennifer Lindholm, the project’s director, found the high level of student participation
to be significant, as well as the fact that questionnaires were completed with great care. “We didn’t know what the students’ reaction would be, if they’d take the survey seriously, or
if it would elicit a lot of smart-alecky responses,” she said. “Yet, students gave us answers that were obviously sincere, and quite thoughtful. We were very encouraged.”

Catching the national media’s attention, stories about the Spirituality in Higher Education study appeared in dozens of magazines and major newspapers across the country, such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Dallas Morning News. The hope is that this media interest will bring about some change in academic attitudes so professors seek a greater balance of the student’s “outer” accomplishments in fields of science, technology and commerce, with an “inner” formation of values and emotional maturity.

“This study reflects a growing national interest in fostering more ‘connected’ forms of college learning for our students,” said Carol Geary Schneider, President of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. “The long-term educational challenge is helping students connect their formal studies with the most important quests and questions in their daily lives.”

Such a turn of affairs would please Daria Ahkten, a freshman at Cal State in Northridge, California, who believes such dialogue could give students some much-needed direction. “A lot of people are living on campus and they do stupid things, but professors don’t talk about that,” she said.

“My teachers are so careful not to step on anyone’s toes, that they don’t make any distinction between religion and philosophy,” said Jason Todd, a junior at Temple University in Philadelphia. “Sacred texts are viewed as just great works of literature, so it becomes a completely intellectual thing.”

Larry A. Braskamp, an education professor at Loyola University Chicago who is familiar with the HERI research, agreed with its findings that while more students say they are now interested in spiritual issues, they are getting less guidance in these realms from their instructors. “Faculties are comfortable dealing with the head as opposed to the heart,” he said. Fearful, too, that they will be accused of indoctrinating students if they even raise such issues in the classroom, Braskamp explained, “most educators have come to view areas of faith, religion and spirituality as the personal domains of students.”

Indoctrination, however, is not at all what Alexander Astin is advocating. On the contrary,
he deliberately defines spirituality quite broadly, including such concerns as students making sense of their education, developing a sense of purpose, and learning how to understand intuition, inspiration, and creativity. “Most of the great books that make up what we call the liberal education have a common message, which is, ‘know thyself,’” said Astin. “It is the necessary prerequisite to our ability to understand others, and to resolve conflicts.”

The need for these issues to be raised in the classroom may be more crucial these days than ever, Astin elaborated, as the contemporary university is becoming increasingly impersonal. “There is more part-time attendance, and less living together in residential halls. The opportunities for communal soul-searching have been drastically reduced, and it’s been exacerbated by the electronic age,” he said. “Students spend more time with machines such as televisions, DVDs, cell phones, video games, and boom boxes, than they do with each other. Rather than chewing the fat, they are downloading.”

Expanding in scope on the small pilot study just completed, a next stage of Spirituality in Higher Education research will begin in Fall 2004. At that time, approximately 90,000 entering freshmen at a representative sample of 150 baccalaureate-granting colleges and universities will complete a questionnaire. The long-range goal is to re-survey these students in their junior year, to monitor spiritual development over the course of their undergraduate experience, and assess all relevant changes and trends.

“We are intrigued to study additional aspects of students’ lives, too, such as what they think of science and religion, or how they define the meaning of life,” said Jennifer Lindholm. “As such, what drives this research meshes extremely well with the primary goals of the John Templeton Foundation. We are extremely grateful for the Foundation’s support, as being able to engage in this pioneering research is very valuable.”

Wellesley College President Diana Chapman Walsh is a member of the National Advisory Board that is overseeing the Spirituality in Higher Education project. As Walsh put it recently, “the freedom we scholars treasure need not be threatened by opening ourselves to the spiritual dimensions of teaching. The kind of knowing that comes from the heart and soul,” she concluded, “should be sought not instead of the intellect, but in partnership with the intellect – in all its beauty and power.”

Links of Interest
Spirituality in Higher Education project
Higher Education Research Institute HERI

Stephen Henderson, a writer based in New York City, contributes frequently to the New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, Town & Country, and Religion News Service, as well as other publications.

Milestones is a publication of the John Templeton Foundation.