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[Daphne Mack <dmack@dfms.org>]

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99-101

Students' loneliness tops list of issues aired by
college campus ministers

by Ann Ball

(ENS) Feeling old?

Today's entering college freshmen were born in 1981.
Their parents' music was New Wave-their grandparents'
music was The Beatles. The only war they know first-hand
is the Persian Gulf War-the others happened before they
were born. They are not only computer literate, they've
never known a time without computers. Many have been
raised in single-parent households.

These observations and others, unfolded during a panel
discussion at the annual meeting of the Episcopal Society
for Ministry in Higher Education (ESMHE) June 16 through
19 on the Tulane University campus in New Orleans. The panel
included three university administrators who addressed the
need for, and ways that, campus ministers could make
connections with students and faculty members at the
country's institutions of higher learning.

Loneliness is a major underlying issue for students today,
according to panelist Pamela Bowen, M.D., a campus doctor at
Princeton University. Today's students are "the latchkey kids,"
she noted. They watch more TV and use the internet  more than
previous generations. "And they leave e-mail all over," she
added. "They are seeking intimacy because they're not getting
it elsewhere."

This lack of intimacy leads to problems with drugs and alcohol,
Bowen continued. The students must also contend with the threats
of AIDS, campus violence and hate.

"I see these as health issues," she said. "We've got to do more
with issues of social justice. And for too long we've ignored
the spiritual dimensions of health."

Echoing Bowen's comments, Kenn Douglass of Boston University said,
"It's really hard for students not to feel like a number on large
campuses." We are "role-modeling" for the students, he added.
"I think it's a big responsibility."
'Go where the students are'

Patricia Patrick, a minister to the 45,000-member student body at
Michigan State University, urged the ESMHE participants to "go
where the students are."

"Show up at their programs," she said. "Go to sports events,
the cafeteria, all over campus. Word spreads real quick." She
also encouraged the chaplains to get to know faculty members
and other campus workers who are Episcopalians to build a sense
of Christian community.

A similar three-member panel focused on "Why Campus Ministry
Matters." Leaders David Krause of Texas Tech, Martha Sullivan
of Tulane, and Jonathan Hayden of Howard University cited
fellowship as the key element drawing young people to spiritual
centers on campus. Sullivan stressed the fact that students are
lonely. Campus chaplains can channel young people into supportive
settings where their needs for companionship and security can be
met.

At a morning address in Tulane's Episcopal Chapel of the Holy
Spirit, Bishop Charles Jenkins of Louisiana welcomed the ESMHE
meeting to New Orleans and startled some longtime attendees by
saying that the Diocese of Louisiana had made college ministry
the priority in Louisiana. "College ministry has made this
diocese what it is," Jenkins said. "Twenty-one priests have
come forward from this chapel and I don't know how many from
our St. Alban's Chapel at LSU. Young people who could have
chosen anything have chosen God as their ministry."

"We want to deepen the commitment of our disciples of Christ. We
want to capture and inspire the minds of young people," Jenkins
said. The bishop spoke of opening an Episcopal presence at
Southern University in New Orleans whose student body is
predominantly African-American. "We want to inform the culture
of Louisiana that we can form the future leaders of Louisiana,"
he said.

During the questions-answer period that followed the bishop's
address, one ESMHE participant from Province VIII praised the
diocese's multicultural initiative. "I find your comments very
hopeful that you're including all people in your vision,"
she said.
Growing membership

Forty-one of the 116 participants at the ESMHE meeting were
new campus ministers, reported ESMHE President JoAnn Leach of
Princeton. "Campus ministry is a vocation of calling-not a
steppingstone to another job," she said. "The key thing ESMHE
has to do is be an advocate for campus ministry. It is always
our primary theme."

She observed that ESMHE has become a society in the truest sense
of the word. "In the past, it was made up of full-time campus
ministers," she explained. But since the church is unable to
support as many full-time chaplaincies, ESMHE has changed, too.

"Now it is an organization of students, faculty, staff, lay,
ordained, half-time, full-time-all are here," she said.

Commenting on his first meeting, newcomer Samson Gitau of Memphis
State said, "It is a very hopeful sign to see 41 new chaplains
serving in the Episcopal Church."

New chaplain Jeff Millican of Tulane added, "Hearing from others
and making contacts has been valuable. It's good to be with people
doing similar work. And for support too."

--Ann Ball is editor of Churchwork, the newspaper of the Diocese
of Louisiana.