on the shelf
Souls in Transition: The Spiritual and Religious Lives of Emerging Adults By Christian Smith with Patricia Snell (Oxford University Press, 2009)
important to a majority of young Americans, and that pursuing religious faithfulness within a particular tradition is important to a considerable minority of emerging adults. For denominational colleges there is bad news and good news. The good news is that most young people are generally religious, more than we tend to think. The bad news is that for many of them
Review by Nathan Alleman,
the sources of authority and organizational particularities that
Assistant Professor of Education Administration in
make denominational colleges unique have been de-legitimized
the Higher Education and Student Affairs Program, Baylor University
by the effect of a pluralistic culture in which respect for “the other” means the denial of specific truth claims combined, ironically, with the success of the liberal, Protestant values of individualism,
In recent years the spiritual and religious life of college-aged
autonomy, and self-direction. Ironically, I repeat, because the
students has gained new legitimacy and interest within the secular
success of these values has effectively nullified the structures
academy, and in particular within the profession of student affairs.
from which these values emanated.
Research by Alexander Astin published in 2003, 2004, and
Consequently, the default arbiter of all things spiritual and
2010, and by others, such as Alyssa Bryant, Jeung Yun Choi, and Maiko Yasuno’s 2003 report in The Journal of College Student Development, has highlighted the necessary and formative place of faith and life-purpose questions in the student experience. These works have been legitimated in part due to the reputations of the researchers and in part due to a gradually changing campus climate in which the tenets of modernity that denied the worth or place of spiritual and existential questions and their implications for human growth and development have abated, at least by degree. Within the student affairs profession, one testament to
moral is the self, or every self, and even Christian belief is often characterized as a function of “my faith” and not as participation in a confessional community. Smith and Snell implicitly call into question the very notion of spiritual “questing” as an individualized activity, hinting strongly that without an external referent, emerging adults develop a largely impotent religion that transforms neither person nor society. These findings should provide a new or renewed challenge for those who already struggle with such questions as members of religious or educational communities.
this change is the proliferation of spirituality- and religion-themed sessions at major conferences over the past half-decade. In Souls in Transition: The Spiritual and Religious Lives of Emerging Adults, Christian Smith and Patricia Snell have joined this growing conversation, though their contribution is, importantly, of a very different sort. Reporting on the third wave of the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), this longitudinal mixed-methods study (230 interview participants and over 2,400 survey participants) of young people now aged 18-23 is far more about the sort of religion that pertains to denominational colleges than it is about the kind of vague spirituality that has drawn the interest of secular institutions. In particular, Smith and Snell are curious about individual religious commitment and religious institutional commitments, as well as the broad range of forces—historical, sociological, parental,
Non-Tenure-Track Faculty in Higher Education: ASHE Higher Education Report, Volume 36, Number 5 By Adrianna Kezar and Cecile Sam (Jossey-Bass, 2011) Review by Drew Moser Student Development Faculty/Residence Hall Director, Taylor University Doctoral Student in Higher Education Leadership, Indiana State University
cultural, etc.—that shapes them. Their findings that “emerging adults,” even in their faith and moralism, are self-focused, are
38
unabashed materialists, and have almost no belief in their ability
This ASHE Higher Education report is devoted to the rise of non-
to effect real change in civil society are important, but may
tenure-track faculty (NTTF) in higher education. This new majority,
be more confirmation than revelation. Many of these findings
comprising 65 percent of new faculty hires, poses significant
reflect the psycho-social and cognitive developmental stages
challenges to the professoriate. Exploring the issue through
long proposed by William Perry, Arthur Chickering, and others.
four disciplinary lenses (economic, sociological, psychological,
On the other hand, Smith finds that college does not contribute
and organizational), the authors synthesize what is a complex,
significantly to a decline in religiosity, that belief in God is very
heterogeneous, often misunderstood group.
CCCU Advance | Spring 2012