NEWS STORY: Faith-based colleges failing to influence religious behavior of adult students

c. 2000 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Though increasingly successful in attracting adult students, faith-based colleges are less successful at influencing their religious behavior, according to a new national survey of graduates.”The good news is that the nontraditional students we talked to were very happy with their programs _ some said it helped them with their […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Though increasingly successful in attracting adult students, faith-based colleges are less successful at influencing their religious behavior, according to a new national survey of graduates.”The good news is that the nontraditional students we talked to were very happy with their programs _ some said it helped them with their spiritual development and ethics and values,”said John Green, who designed and conducted the survey. Green is director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at The University of Akron (Ohio).”But most said the schools were not particularly effective at influencing their behavior _ few reported any change at all in their religious behavior.” The report, conducted jointly by The University of Akron Survey Research Center and the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University, surveyed 1,600 college graduates between the fall of 1998 and winter of 1999. The students were graduates of adult bachelor’s degree programs at 16 colleges and universities (four Roman Catholic, four Protestant and eight secular).

Many respondents reported they were unaware they had attended a Christian school, and reported that religious ideas were not emphasized in their school’s curriculum.”These students come to school at night and mostly associate with other nontraditional students, and the programs don’t communicate very effectively the distinctive religious mission of these schools to them,”said Green.”Go on campus during the day and there’s a lot of effort to communicate the religious message of the school to the younger kids.” He said many nontraditional students have already formed religious and spiritual views by the time they enroll in a bachelor’s degree program, and that could partly explain the survey’s findings.”These are individuals whose faith is already well-informed because they’re adults,”said Green,”so while they enjoy the religious elements of the program, there may not be much room for the program in their lives.” Many nontraditional students are also busy juggling personal responsibilities, and have little time to heed a college’s religious mission, said Green.”Adult students are very busy people with jobs and families,”he said.”They may simply not have the time to pay attention to the religious teachings of the school.” And in some cases, said Green, the schools themselves may downplay their religious mission in an effort to attract a broader pool of students. “In many schools the programs for nontraditional students are moneymakers,”Green said.”They generate additional revenue which the schools need, so it may well be the schools are not stressing a distinctive religious mission because they’re interested in having a larger number of people sign up for their programs.” Green said he hoped the study’s results would spur faith-based colleges and universities to re-examine their programs for nontraditional students.”All the programs at the schools we looked at are relatively new _ most started in the last 10 to 15 years,”he said.”In most cases, programs for nontraditional students were simply added on to the existing undergraduate program, and there were no special provisions made for adult students. We hope that the schools that have these programs will take our findings seriously, and realize they may need to adjust their programs to be more effective with their religious mission in the future.” Diane Winston, who commissioned the study, said faith-based schools should make a priority of extending their religious mission into adult degree programs.”If schools don’t find a better way to integrate their core commitments into their adult programs, they will find that these valuable money-makers are contributing to secularization on campus,”said Winston, a fellow at the Princeton Center for the Study of Religion.”Most adult students do not want to be hit over the head with religion, but they are willing to consider a religious perspective on issues and events.”DEA END DANCY


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