Content provided in partnership with
ProQuest

FIND IN Advanced
Search

Invoking the spiritual in campus life and leadership

Journal of College Student Development,  Nov/Dec 2001  by Rogers, Judy L,  Dantley, Michael E

The quest for spiritual fulfillment is manifesting itself in every sector of US society and, in particular, has begun to reshape organizational life (Briskin, 1998; Zohar, 1997). What are the implications of the spirituality in the workplace movement for leadership and campus life in colleges and universities? The authors describe how student affairs leadership, informed by spiritual intelligence, can create campus environments that support and enhance the sense of wholeness, connection, and community for students, faculty, and staff.

The need for greater meaning is the central crisis of our times (Abdulah, 1995; Zohar & Marshall, 2000). In US society, questions of spirituality are no longer primarily confined to private conversations among personal confidants. These conversations are spilling over into our public lives (Secretan, 1997). The authors' personal experiences underscore this search for meaning. As we have raised issues of spirituality and leadership in presentations and papers delivered at professional conferences, we have been deeply moved by the testimony of educators who, in attending our sessions, openly state their hunger to explore their spiritual selves and to incorporate spirituality into their work lives. This hunger is evidenced in the burgeoning literature on spirituality, and it has extended beyond the writings of theologians, Eastern philosophers, and New Age adherents. As a society, we are now recognizing the need for spiritual fulfillment in our work lives, and as a result, the business literature is replete with thoughtful works on how we might bring our whole selves into the organization (Bolman & Deal, 1995; Braham, 1999; Briskin, 1998; Secretan).

Advertisement

Why has the search for spiritual fulfillment reached a crescendo at this time in U.S. culture? Alan Briskin (1998) observed that the more compulsively materialistic our society becomes, the more desperate people are to find spiritual fulfillment. The acquisition of more possessions has not provided the happiness it promised. People in the United States are experiencing a hunger that cannot be sated with material goods and status. In addition, work life has become so demanding, stressful, fast-paced, chaotic, and uncertain that people are forced to seek values-based answers and ways of achieving personal stability from within. In the US, many people have come to realize that their inner wisdom, their internal foundation is the only source that will sustain their ability to adapt and to ride the waves of change (Baxter Magolda, 2001; Guillory, 1998). The themes that emerge from the spirituality literature today are that many of us, from every sector of society, are searching for something more in our lives-new relationships, connected communities, meaningful work.

Another factor that is prompting the focus on spirituality in US society is the influence of the new science and the ways in which it describes our universe. Researchers in the sciences of quantum physics, chaos theory, and complexity picture a universe where everything is connected to everything else in a pattern of unbroken wholeness. In essence, relationship is the organizing principle of the universe (Bohm, 1980; Wheatley, 1992,1999). This is in contrast to Newtonian beliefs in a universe that is marked by separateness and individualism. In a Newtonian worldview, the universe is akin to a giant clockwork mechanism, in which elements are separate from each other (fragmentation) and thus the universe can be broken down into its smallest parts (atomism). Quantum theory adds a new, heretofore indiscernible, dimension to the Newtonian story with an image of the universe that is based in holism and integration. As people in Western culture have begun to recast their understanding of how the world works, as people are coming to see a universe of connection and "separation without separateness," U.S. society is pushing to question the deeply embedded belief in competitive individualism (Capra, 1996; Kohn, 1992). The spirituality literature captures this questioning in its exploration of people yearning for connection, community, meaning, values, and wholeness (Briskin, 1998; Grace, 1996; Hawley, 1993; Moore, 1992; Peck, 1987).

What has been higher education's response to the emerging focus on spirituality in US culture? With a few notable exceptions, namely Fowler's (1981) and Parks's (1986, 2000) work on students' faith development, higher education has shied away from using the vernacular of spirituality. Instead higher education and student affairs, in particular, have addressed students' search for meaning, values and connection through a focus on building communities (Piper, 1997; Shapiro & Levine, 1999), civic and moral learning (Ehrlich, 1999), values education (Kirby, 1998), educating for character (Berkowitz & Fekula, 1999), and service learning (Engstrom & Tinto, 1997) among others. Foundational works in the student affairs field such as Student Personnel Work as Deeper Teaching (Lloyd-Jones & Smith, 1954) and The Student Personnel Point of View, 1937/1949 (National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, 1989) also contain strong themes of wholeness and connection. These philosophies, programs, and policies, although not always containing explicit statements, address the spiritual dimension (i.e., questions of meaning), in students' learning and development. This literature reveals recognition of the significance of the spiritual dimension in students' lives. In contrast, what is largely missing in the higher education and student affairs literature to this point is an examination of the role of the spiritual dimension in leading institutions of higher education. As Parker Palmer (1998) noted, we in higher education have embraced the Western notions of thinking in polarities, of disconnection, of valuing the intellect over the emotions and the spiritual in the way we structure and lead institutions of higher education. Paradoxically, higher education professionals are coming to recognize the significance of the spiritual dimension for students' lives, but have been hesitant to address the same issue in the work lives of faculty, administrators, support staff, and student affairs professionals. The purpose of this essay is to extend the dialogue on this issue. Specifically, the authors would like to examine here the dominant themes that are present in the spirituality in the workplace literature and draw implications and connections to student affairs leadership and to the shaping of campus life in institutions of higher education.


1 -  2 -  3 -  4 -  5 -  6 -  7 -  8 -  9 -  10 -  11 -  12 -  13 -  14 -  15 -  Next