Encouraging Authenticity and Spirituality in Higher Education

Journal of College Student Development, Nov/Dec 2006 by Rogers, Judy L

Encouraging Authenticity and Spirituality in Higher Education Arthur W. Chickering, Jon C. Dalton, and liesa Stamm San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006, 358 pages, $40 (hardcover)

Recent critiques of US society question the ability of today's youth to make the personal commitment necessary to create socially responsible communities (Rifkin, 2004). The argument is that young adults' desire for instant gratification (as displayed in popular culture) and their sense of entitlement do not bode well for the future of our democracy or our world. It is in the context of our narcissistic culture that Chickering, Dalton, and Stamm propose that we return to a role once seminal in American higher education, that is, encouraging the spiritual growth and authenticity of college students, faculty, and staff. Their book manifests the emerging emphasis on spirituality in institutions of higher education that began to gain wide credibility when Parker Palmer (1998) eloquently entreated faculty to live "divided no more" but instead bring emotions and spirit to their teaching along with intellect. Robert Nash followed (1999) passionately urging us to open the dialogue on spirituality and religion in the academy. What emanated from these seminal works was a myriad of professional conferences on spirituality in higher education, more books and articles exploring the topic including the series on Studies in Education and Spirituality edited by Kazan) ian & Laurence (2000) and most recently a national study of college students' search for meaning and purpose (Higher Education Research Institute, 2005). Encouraging Authenticity and Spirituality in Higher Education builds on this foundation and entreats us to reclaim the place of spiritual growth in higher education to accompany the focus on knowledge creation and dissemination.

Chickering, Dalton and Stamm state the aims of the book are "to help two and four year colleges and universities amplify existing programs in ways that encourage increased authenticity and spiritual growth among our students and among us as professionals" (p. xiii). They are careful to point out that they advocate "institutional amplification" vs. transformation, as amplification does not imply a change in structure but rather making greater and more important the place of authenticity, meaning and purpose in higher education goals and outcomes. The authors' approach is to interweave conceptual and theoretical frameworks with practical applications for each area of institutions of higher education they seek to amplify. Their comprehensive treatment of the current move to incorporate spirituality into university work and the rich examples they provide for doing so create a unique niche for this book.

The book is divided into three parts. Part One provides the theoretical and conceptual frames which serve as the grounding for the perspectives presented. In Part Two, the authors suggest specific changes that will encourage spiritual growth and authenticity among university students and professionals. Part Three offers insights into how to successfully make these deep changes in institutions of higher education.

Chapter one lays out the fundamental argument of the book. Higher education in the US needs to balance the emphasis on empiricism and professional and vocational preparation with increased attention to helping students address issues of meaning, purpose, spirituality and authenticity. The authors then discuss their own individual orientations on this issue and detail how the book will address their conclusions in four contexts: our global and national condition, our institutions, our students and we as professionals. This chapter also attends to the very important task of defining terms, which is critical in any discussion of this topic. For these authors spirituality and religion are distinct. They define religion as encompassing "an affiliation with and practice of an established denominational tradition" and spirituality: as marked by "a highly personal search for ultimate meaning, purpose and values wherever they can be found" (p. 38).

Chapters two and three offer historical, theoretical and social views on religion and spirituality in higher education and our current debates about this issue. In chapter two Stamm argues that if colleges and universities focus on moral as well as cognitive development for students then understanding the process of spiritual development is critical. She reviews the major theories of religious and spiritual development underscoring the complexity of understanding the individual experiences of spirituality and religion. Stamm reiterates Nash's (2001) call for religious and spiritual literacy as an aspect of embracing multiculturalism. In chapter three Stamm chronicles the shift in our society over the last 50 years away from organized religion to a "personal spirituality of seeking" which is manifested in the current beliefs and practices of today's students. She observes that the "multiplicity of new religious and spiritual approaches is transformative and pluralistic" and then provides examples and cases from four diverse campuses to explicate her observation.