Spiritual needs unmet in classrooms, students say

LOS ANGELES TIMES
LOS ANGELES -- Most college students value spirituality or religion in their personal lives, but many find that their professors and schools do little, if anything, to encourage their interest, a new study from the University of California, Los Angeles, says.
The national study, based on a survey of 3,680 students at 46 colleges and universities, found that 73 percent of those polled say their religious or spiritual beliefs helped develop their identity. In addition, 77 percent say that they pray, and 71 percent indicated that they find religion to be helpful.
At the same time, 62 percent report that their professors never encourage discussion of religious or spiritual issues, and 53 percent say the classroom has had no impact on their religious or spiritual beliefs.
"The survey shows that students have deeply felt values and interests in spirituality and religion, but their academic work and campus programs seem to be divorced from it," said Alexander W. Astin, director of UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute and one of the co-authors of the study.
"It's completely understandable ... to keep religion and academic study separate," Astin added. "But spirituality is a much more generic concept that for many students doesn't necessarily mean religion, and all students are on some kind of a spiritual developmental path. We can do a lot more to assist them."
Attending services
The study also compared changes in the outlooks of the polled students from their freshman year to their junior year. One of the most dramatic changes was the drop-off in attendance of religious services: 52 percent reported attending religious services frequently the year before they entered college, but only 29 percent said they did the same by their junior year.
Still, the percentage of students who say it is "very important" or "essential" to integrate spirituality into their lives climbed from 51 percent in the 2000 poll to 58 percent this year. Over the same period, the percentages of students who consider it very important or essential to develop a meaningful philosophy of life climbed from 43 percent to 52 percent, while those believing it is very important or essential to help others who are in difficulty rose from 60 percent to 74 percent.
Reasons for avoidance
Larry A. Braskamp, an education professor at Loyola University Chicago familiar with the UCLA research, agreed that students are interested in exploring spiritual issues but get little support from professors. "Faculty are comfortable dealing with the head, as opposed to the heart. They don't want to be indoctrinating students. So when they get into the area of faith, religion and spirituality, they view them as the personal domains of students."
What's more, some students say discussing spiritual or, in particular, explicitly religious topics in the classroom could create friction.
On the California State University Northridge campus Thursday, Tikia Roach, a freshman planning to major in psychology, said in an interview, "There are too many people to offend. Why even go there?"
Daria Akhten, a CSUN freshman from West Hollywood majoring in marketing, agreed that "for some reason, people can't discuss religion in classrooms, discussion-style. It has to be really argumentative."
But Akhten said she wishes that professors would discuss "meaning of life" issues in class. For freshmen in particular, it could be an important source of support, she said.
The new report is the first product of a long-term research project called "Spirituality in Higher Education: A National Study of College Students' Search for Meaning and Purpose" being conducted by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute. The aim is to track the spiritual growth of students during their college years and to use the findings to encourage schools to foster students' spiritual interests and personal development.
"The longer-term interest here is in helping people become more engaged citizens, more responsible parents, better neighbors. All of these are legitimate goals for an educational institution, but if you ignore a major part of a student's inner development, then you're going to have a hard time doing this," Astin said.