Spirituality in Higher Education,
S. L. Hoppe and B. W Speck, eds., New Directions for Teaching and Learning: Jossey-Bass, 2005.
Reviewed by Melanie Brown, Director of Writing across the Curriculum St. Norbert College

Its historical place in higher education eclipsed in the twentieth century by materialism and shifts from liberal arts to vocational training, spirituality has enjoyed a recent revival on secular and sectarian campuses.  The Association of American Colleges and Universities hosted "Spirituality and Learning," a conference organized six months after September 11, 2001, in response to often challenging and increasingly common discussions of religious diversity and spiritual concerns initiated by the events of that day.  Even earlier, beginning in the late 1990s—perhaps in anticipation of the looming millennium—scholarship examining some ways to teach the whole student by attending to mind, body, and spirit appeared regularly in journals, publishers' catalogs, and Jossey-Bass's New Directions imprints.

Hoppe and Speck's Spirituality in Higher Education, the most recent of the New Directions series to take up this issue, presents ways that faculty and administrators at a range of institutions (from technical, private, and sectarian colleges to state and research universities) envision the significance of spirituality to transformative learning in higher education.  Nearly all of the authors included here distinguish spirituality from religion as a human rather than a dogmatic approach to meaning making.  They also delineate contexts, from faculty reading groups and classroom practices to student service learning opportunities, in which academic professionals can form holistic bonds with students to help them negotiate their own paths through school and work to meaningful lives.

The editors elected not to divide the volume into sections, but its twelve articles fall into three categories by addressing spirituality in the academy at large (chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 11, and 12), in curricula and in student affairs (chapters 4, 6, 7), and in community settings beyond the classroom (chapters 9 and 10).   This non-linear organization may appear cumbersome for a resource manual; to the contrary, however, it encouraged my active engagement as a reader and offered useful literature reviews, materials, and fodder for reflection from a refreshing range of professional perspectives on a topic that I have only recently considered in relation to my teaching.

The seven articles exploring spirituality in the academy at large give form to abstractions by defining terms (such as spirituality and truth), exploring epistemologies of higher education in history, and reviewing court cases regarding the separation of church and state on college campuses.  Speck's article, "What Is Spirituality?" (chapter 1), offers an extensive literature review to identify points of tension that can emerge from frank classroom discussions of spirituality's connection to students' everyday lives.  Thomas J. Buttery and Philip S. Roberson's essay, "Spirituality: The Physiological-Biological Foundation" (chapter 5), confronts controversy as well by drawing connections between science and students' spiritual pursuit of meaning and self-transformation.

The remaining articles—regarding spirituality in curricula and student affairs as well as in community settings beyond the classroom—comprise fewer than half the volume's chapters but offer practical tips for classroom and professional development and, in some cases, teaching materials.  In "Spirituality in Student Life Outside the Classroom" (chapter 4), Jennifer Capeheart-Meningall urges student affairs professionals to remember that "[b]ecause students spend most of their time out of class, it is crucial for institutions to deliberately design programs for transformative learning," and this learning must include community building and spiritual development (35).  Allen L. Pelletier and John W. McCall offer curricular materials, including session plans and a survey, in "A Modular Curriculum for Integrating Spirituality and Health Care" (chapter 7), and John Sikula and Andrew Sikula Sr. present examples of helping students seek meaning by way of community interaction in "Spirituality and Service Learning" (chapter 10).

As is typical in the New Directions series, most of these essays impart valuable reviews of the rich field of literature addressing spirituality in higher education.  I approached this volume, however, seeking "take-aways," usable advice such as discussion prompts and course materials, to help me initiate classroom discussion and respond to questions about this controversial topic.  Although programs seeking to integrate spirituality with education must be tailored to college populations and missions, there is room in this resource for more applicable or adaptable classroom documents such as those Pelletier and McCall provide for health care studies.  This collection also suffers from a dearth of multicultural perspectives of spirituality.  Most authors here distinguish between spirituality and religion, but those who mention specific deities invoke Christianity.  Only Daryl V. Gilley's article, "Whose Spirituality? Cautionary Notes about the Role of Spirituality in Higher Education" (chapter 12), gives voice to spirituality as emerging from other religions and worldviews.

Gilley cites a 2003 study conducted by UCLA that found 75% of third-year college undergraduates self-identified as "searching for meaning or purpose in life" (94).  Although, as Gilley writes, "the issues of meaning-making in our lives and the lives of our students are an extremely personal and potentially explosive topic," we teachers, advisors, and mentors must learn how to accommodate and nurture students' spiritual explorations (95).  With essays by both faculty and administrators (professors of business, economics, English, faith and culture, and medicine; deans of liberal arts and graduate schools; directors of teaching centers and student affairs; and university presidents), this volume promises to appeal to professionals across both curriculum and campus and offers valuable entry points into thoughtful discussions and pursuits of spirituality in higher education.

References

Transformative Learning in Action, P. Cranton, New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 1997, 74: Jossey-Bass.

The Implications of Student Spirituality for Student Affairs Practice, Jablonski, M. A. ed., New Directions for Student Services, 2001, 95: Jossey-Bass.