Newswise — As college students return to campus this fall, many will search for ways to explore their spiritual side.
Spirituality, if not attendance at religious services, is spreading across the nation's campuses:
"¢ Harvard is wrestling with the question of including religion in its curriculum.
"¢ A survey on the spiritual lives of college students in 2004 showed that more than two-thirds of freshmen pray, and that nearly 80 percent believed in God.
"¢ Nearly half of the freshmen surveyed said they were seeking opportunities to grow spiritually.
Whether it stems from the attacks of Sept. 11, the religious right raising the issue or a combination of factors, college campuses are moving to fill a void that existed a few decades ago when religion was not a subject commonly discussed.
Rhodes College in Memphis has never missed a beat. For 60 years, it has offered its undergraduates a series of courses that help them think about the meaning and purpose of life while they fulfill their humanities requirements. The college values the series so highly that it sought and received Mellon Foundation funding to send the entire faculty to Italy on a pedagogical pilgrimage to the settings portrayed in Virgil's Aenead and Dante's Divina Commedia, both core texts in the series.
The Search for Values in the Light of Western History and Religion ("Search" ) embodies Rhodes' concern for helping students to become men and women of purpose, says provost Charlotte Borst. She says the courses teach students to think critically and intelligently about their own moral views, and to approach the challenges of social and moral life sensitively and deliberately.
"We know that even as we embrace seemingly objective developments in technology and science, their reception is shaped by moral, historical, political, and religious principles. The Search Program provides first-hand, intimate encounters with the voices of culture and the pinnacles of thought," says Borst. "Our students develop a respect and understanding for the great issues and quandaries that have shaped human history, and they are better prepared to understand and respond to the diversity of human values in a complex world."
In the first year, the syllabus is centered on biblical and classical traditions, with intensive study of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament and the epic tradition of the Ancient Near East and the rich and varied wellsprings of ancient Greek and Roman Civilizations.
The second-year syllabus covers the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the Modern Era. The course concludes with study of a number of revolutionary thinkers and movements of the 19th and 20th centuries that challenge the basic principles of Western thought, culture and religion.
Throughout the course, students read original source texts, in English translation, that encourage them to grapple first-hand with ideas as presented by the author, rather than relying on interpretation by secondary sources. Continuous effort is made to bring to light the influence and impact of ancient values on the contemporary world, as well as the cross-fertilization of ideas between Western culture and world civilization as a whole.
Special emphasis is given to the development and cultivation of critical thinking and writing skills under the tutelage of a faculty drawn from diverse academic disciplines across the humanities, fine arts and social sciences.
"Most of today's wars, community- and business-related conflicts arise from religious differences," says Borst. "To resolve these conflicts large and small, effective leaders in the 21st century will need to appreciate the role religion plays in various cultures."
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