Inclusion in Higher Education: Supporting Religious, Secular, and Spiritual Identities

1. Encountering Higher Education’s Last Broad Stroke of Inclusion: Supporting Religious, Secular, and Spiritual Identities

2. J. Cody Nielsen Founder and Executive Director Convergence on Campus

3. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...” https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/free_exercise_clause https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/free_exercise_clause https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/free_exercise_clause https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/free_exercise_clause https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/free_exercise_clause https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/free_exercise_clause

4. Education as Transformation • 1998, Wellesley- 800+ participants • Jon Dalton • Astins • Parker Palmer • 18 college & university presidents • 1200 articles in a survey of six major journals since 1998.

5. Foundations of Research • UCLA Study of Spirituality and Higher Education • Retention • Graduation Rates • Civic Engagement • Student Satisfaction • IDEALS (Interfaith Diversity and Experiences & Attitudes Longitudinal Study)

6. The Primer • University of Minnesota- 2011 • Research • 150 Institutions

7. The 4 Pillar Approach

8. Enhancing Institutional Climates to support the religious, secular, and spiritual identities through policy and practice

9. Religious People whose understanding of reality is influenced by a particular religious tradition are considered to be religious. There are several religious traditions that are long-standing and have attracted large numbers of adherents, and there is also a wide variety of smaller, more recent religious affiliations that have just as significant an influence on those who identify with them.

10. Secular We use “secular” here in contrast with “sacred.” The secular viewpoint involves those people who feel that there is either no such thing as spiritual reality, or god(s), or who just don’t feel certain whether or not these things exist.

11. Spiritual This category includes people whose understanding of spiritual reality is not defined by a single or, in many cases, any religious tradition, but is rather generated by a sense of direct connection to something sacred or greater than oneself. That sense is often described as an inner experience rather than an outward observation.

12. Conclusions “The job of colleges and universities is to articulate, examine, and judge whether any particular idea is worthy of being called knowledge” Making space for religion-….signals that academic conversation is open to consideration of all the many other factors that influence the framing of knowledge. Conversely, if religion is avoided or ignored, it signals that limits are being places in advance on what will be deemed to be academically respectable. Small. J. (Eds.). (2015). Making Meaning: Embracing Spirituality, Faith, Religion, and Life Purpose in Student Affairs. Sterling, VA. Stylus.