The resource shelf at our Washington DC conference last month held a couple copies of a volume entitled Encouraging Authenticity and Spirituality in Higher Education. A collection of essays drawn from a number of student affairs specialists, it explores the history and practice of education institutions integrating moral and spiritual concerns into the university culture. One writer, Jon C. Dalton, presents ten principles that he sees as key to fostering spiritual and moral growth in students in his article “Principles and Practices for Strengthening Moral and Spiritual Growth in College.”
- Principle One: The institution makes a deliberate and comprehensive effort to communicate its core values, purposes, and moral commitments to students, faculty, staff, and other key constituents.
- Principle Two: The institution models its mission and core values through its leadership and administrative operations.
- Principle Three: The institution’s mission and core values are integrated with academic programs.
- Principle Four: The institution translates its vision and values into guidelines regarding conduct and the responsibilities of citizenship.
- Principle Five: The institution promotes public dialogue and debate about its mission and core values.
- Principle Six: The institution takes deliberate steps to help students critically examine and act on its mission and core values.
- Principle Seven: The institution promotes a purposeful, caring, and inclusive campus community.
- Principle Eight: The institution is committed to the holistic learning and development of students.
- Principle Nine: The institution assesses its efforts to strengthen authenticity, spiritual growth, meaning, and purpose.
- Principle Ten: The institution honors achievements of authenticity, spirituality, meaning and moral purpose.
As campus ministers, we know that our jobs have always been about helping students to discern and construct ways of being filled with meaning and purpose. However, we do so in conjunction with the university whether we realize that or not. The university culture in which we find ourselves influences our students in multiple ways and they are not always in alignment with our own. It is then our job to identify those narratives and help students look at them critically through a faith perspective. We do not want to degrade the university or preach against academic success, but we do need to be mindful of the stories that institutions tell.
So a survey for the comment section: Does your university enact any of the above principles? If so which ones? Are they congruent with university practice? How do the core values and mission of your ministry context influence your ministry? How might you work in tandem with that mission and those values?
