For Colleges
The time has come for yet another paradigm shift for college chaplains. You mean, again?
Yes, our 50-year slide from the center to the edge of campus possibly may end by our getting bumped entirely off the log! Since the founding of Harvard College in 1636, we have undergone consequential adjustments as chaplains in American higher education leading to the very uncertain pass at which chaplaincy in higher education now stands. I contend that our challenges today are due, specifically, to the fact that our public roles have diminished over time, and it happened in four stages.
From public to private roles.
In the beginning, as President of institutions for the training of Protestant ministers, we served as the de-facto chaplain. Then, a Dean was designated to teach on the faculty as well as lead worship. The first adjustment came when the academic study of religion emerging in the late nineteenth century drove a wedge between scholars and the practice of religion. The purview of the Dean of the Chapel then became limited to the personal lives of students. Public worship may have remained compulsory, but religious education was strictly voluntary.
A second adjustment was necessitated when the scientific study of religion arrived,. Faculties adopted the “objective” methods of the social sciences, in the 1940’s and ‘50’s, and relegated the practice of religion on campus to an entirely separate domain divorced from the main educational purposes of the institution.
Then, a third adjustment chaplaincy began when in 1968, after a brief resurgence of religion on campus during the 1950’s, religion became a hard sell anywhere. “Question authority” was the watchword of that day, and religion, the most traditional of authorities, further retreated from campus view. The new secular era questioned the integrity, the relevance and the very existence of religion. “Imagine there’s no religion” was more like a wish than just a fantasy. Only two paths flourished on campus then: chaplains who became active in the racial justice and anti-war movements; and, the Evangelical groups whose methods were well adapted to hostile environments.
Gradually, a fourth adjustment came when, following faculty attitudes, institutional support for the “college chaplain, or dean of the chapel” began to wane, and the reporting line shifted away from President or Provost to Dean of Student Affairs, to Associate Deans of Campus Life. Simultaneously, denominational chaplaincies (at that time, subdivisions of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews) lost funding and staffing, further diluting religious ministry. Not only did religious life become an exotic elective on campus, but Religion department courses themselves were going under-enrolled. Chaplains led worship for smaller and smaller communities and gave pastoral support mainly to students. The effect on campus was, “out of sight, out of mind.”
The current adjustment began in the 1990’s with the diversification of religious needs when students arrived on campus having backgrounds in non-dominant religions, e.g., international students and American ethnic students. In response, colleges then hired, or housed, a rainbow of new chaplaincies—Buddhist, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, humanist. Their funding from the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life has to be divided among many, thus reducing part-time to as little as 7 hours a week in some cases, or it required chaplains to bring outside funding with them.
De-prioritizing worship and points of belief and theology, chaplains now came to support initiatives of other divisions in student affairs and re-focused our ministries on civic engagement, service projects, cultural literacy, and social sensitivity. Many, in fact, are starting to find ourselves serving as adjuncts of student support services, mascots, if you will, of our patrons whose principal concern has lately become, and rather urgently at that, student well-being. This has only served to re-confirm our pastoral identity and functions.
With the diversification of religion on campus, Directors of Religious Life and denominational chaplains have come to see our work as mediating and advocating better relationships between the faiths. This essentially private role comes naturally to us as pastors, further emphasizing our function as pastoral. But the basis for this work resides principally in our democratic culture in the U.S. where dialogue and collaboration are prime virtues. Still, we are hampered by the lack of sufficient warrant within each religion for this kind of relationship to other faiths. Nowhere in any scripture is there the imperative or even permission to extend oneself religiously to people of other faiths. We are chaplains in search of an adequate theory of inter-religious work. The presence of American evangelical fundamentalist groups on campus reminds us of this. Ecumenism, hence, is a strictly pragmatic posture to assume.
Finally, come to find out, the non-dominant religious students prove to be as nominal in religious adherence as their mainline denominational counterparts, their religious needs being as ephemeral or inchoate as the rest of the student population. Often they don’t know what to make of a “chaplain.” Only a small minority of students actually self-identify in the 21st century as religious; the plurality mark “Other” or “None,” or are more interested in meditation and yoga. Although chaplains today fall naturally among the diversity concerns of Multicultural Affairs departments, we are not automatically seen as within their purview, nor as allies. And just try finding chaplains or religious life on college and university websites—we are certainly not located among the top headings of the homepage! Invisible.
From private to public roles.
The former hostility of the secular era toward religion has yielded now to a benign non-engagement on campuses where many are religiously tone-deaf.And the disregard is mutual, because by this point chaplains are in no position, being principally counselors now, to engage and confront our institutions on their betrayal of the values of a liberal education as rooted in a transcendent definition of humanity.
It sometimes feels to us like we are the last, faithful remnants who still embrace the idea of the university or college as an organic whole—an intellectual community centered singly on the moral development of the person. Of course, we are not alone, because there is a vigorous discussion going on amongst the faculty along these very lines, but we are not part of it. Why not? Because, we have relinquished our public roles as teachers and participants in the public arena.
As it is, many within higher education, including its chaplaincies, have little choice anyway but to go along with the inevitable administrative imperatives—facilities expansion, competition for the best students and faculty, the pursuit of “excellence,” and demands for stringent economies that have shrunk entire departments under the humanities. Without knowing why, many on campus have felt a low-grade grief for decades, its source being the loss of unifying notions that once made a college or university feel like a natural place for broad reflection and personal development.
Is there possibly a job here somewhere for chaplains to embrace? Yes, I believe, but not by continuing to limit ourselves to the private channel of pastoral care which has us busier than ever, but out of earshot. College and university chaplains were part of a community-wide dialogue once upon a time—what are we now?What’s a poor college to do with us? Where is this headed? Will it mean the complete relinquishment by the college or university of any stake whatever in student religious life? Or, by taking a strictly pragmatic approach, hiring on a year-by-year basis according to the student religious census? Or, by putting an “Activities Director” at the head of religious staff, however few may remain (e.g., Smith College)?
And what will our role be in the deliberations that are ongoing? Can chaplains think creatively about these questions without slipping into defending our own religious traditions or, worse, our jobs. Can we approach the dilemmas of the institution in a disinterested way, looking entirely to the good of the spiritual development of the student?But are we actually in any position, for that matter, to engage the issues publicly, because we not only do not have any leave to do so in the present structure of higher education, but we have no track record or aptitude for public engagement, having dedicated ourselves almost exclusively to the private and the pastoral facets of our vocation. We got backed into this fix through a gradual diminution of our public selves (and many among us are dying like the frog in Al Gore’s documentary).
A partial opportunity has opened in that many of us have sponsored or been involved lately in dialogues about identity, racial tension, and sexual assault, and that we have been actively engaged in the promotion of dialogueNevertheless, again, to come forward on campus as moderator or a sponsor of such dialogue conforms to our characteristic, pastoral approach to the stresses of the students. Is that enough? Are we really doing our job? Can we meet the current need through more and more counseling and mediation, or, rather, as I believe we must, by taking recourse to our lost roles?
A Modest Proposal.
The new adjustment called for now, I believe, is the re-appropriation by us of our lost teaching functions as chaplains, lost because our pastoral roles have increasingly taken over our identities and time. We operate for the most part (depending in degree on your particular institution) at a private level today and are lost to public sight. Only, this time, if we are to regain a public role on our campuses, the teaching method cannot be of the traditional academic or didactic or doctrinal sort. This time, it will require chaplains to offer a new, creative kind of teaching.
But what can I possibly mean by teaching when chaplains don’t have a classroom, when we don’t have academic status and standing, when we are not ratified by those who do have standing? What students would seek teachers who are not certified experts? What can I mean by teaching when students already spend their time listening to and reading only experts, especially in the field of religion who, as in all subjects, stand outside of their subject, whereas we stand on the inside?What can teaching mean when the incentive of academic credit is not operative? What is teaching, anyway, in the age of universally available knowledge?
The campus needs its representatives of the religious communities to teach our traditions and sacred texts, specifically against the backdrop of world issues. I see chaplains teaching in this way as fulfilling the role of “culture workers,” in Paolo Freire’s terminology. We are, after all, the custodians of great traditions, and where else is a society to turn?To be sure we have a great resource in our Religion departments, but their enrollments reach only a small, self-selected group of interested students, leaving a large gap in religious literacy abroad on campus.
But to me this means, following again Paolo Freire’s directives, giving the students themselves, in turn, the permission, the platform, and the funding to teach each other about the nature and history of religion and its possible meanings for our lives. I would set the stage by having students engage first-hand with the great texts, lifting them off the printed page into a multi-dimensional discussion, thus creating a public space that did not exist before, not around this subject anyway. Chaplains can serve here as coaches, cheerleaders, collaborators, and resources alongside our Religion Dept. colleagues. To avoid typical classroom pitfalls, let the method be one utilizing the arts—bring in the Fine Arts or Theater departments to help us perform the texts, dance them, paint or sculpt them, offering them up for public consumption and dialogue.
But, that is only how I would approach the challenge. Surely, all of our fellow chaplains have their own thoughts and visions and experiences about how to increase our public visibility in the increasingly pressurized environment that academia is. Let’s lift examples from among us who already have had success in the public arena, to show us the way. At Williams College, for instance, the chaplaincy sponsors the William Sloan Coffin Prize where students present short speeches on spiritual and social justice themes. At Colorado College, the Chapel sponsors a calligraphy workshop and public exhibit. At Tufts University, the Director of Religious Life and the Office of the President co-sponsor an annual lectureship on a religious issue. Let’s make an inventory of our public events (defined as directed beyond immediate parochial constituencies) and share them online!
Whatever the method, it must inspire students to interact in substantive ways with each other about religious experience across the religious boundaries, but not in the limited way they are presently used to doing (although lecture and personal narrative are good starts). By attempting to raise religious literacy and mutual understanding, such an adjustment by us chaplains might actually represent a contribution to world peace (!). At the very least, it could restore religion as a licit subject of public discourse on campus and raise the visibility and relevance of religious chaplaincies. It could go some way to healing wounds particularly felt on our campuses caused by the 2016 election.
It is what Hannah Arendt called for in celebrating the public arena (The Human Condition, 1958). It is what Parker Palmer called for when he wrote about encountering difference in others (The Company of Strangers, 1983). It is what Andrew Delbanco saw when he pointed out the link between religion, properly defined, and democracy (College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be, 2002). It is what Martha Nussbaum meant by calling higher education back to some acknowledgement of soul (Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, 2010). It is what campus administrators call for when they promote civic engagement. That’s what Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ meant (in his “The Dignity of Difference”) when he called for us to open ourselves to “the rich texture of our shared life.”
However, much as people have longed for the public experience, everyone nevertheless finds it elusive. Yet here is exactly the ministry that I see awaiting adoption by the religious chaplains and directors of religious life. So, rather than endure the possible obsolescence ahead, I propose we re-write our job descriptions. We need to overhaul ourselves before the changes in institutional leadership overtake us by surprise, but it is late
Let’s just remember that we got into our present fix—the private breadbox, as I think of it—when college chaplains withdrew from the public arena.Reclaiming a public place on campus fulfills the very purpose that chaplains are ordained for. College chaplains—go public!