Teagle-Wabash Projects Host Helen and Alexander Astin

First Row (l to r): Michael Sepidoza Campos, Melissa James, Helen "Lena" Astin, Elizabeth Drescher, Erin Brigham.

Second Row: (l to r): Sanna Reinholtzen, Maureen Maloney, Steven Bauman, Alexander "Sandy" Astin, Brian Green

____________________________________________________

February 20 was a full day for the GTU's Teagle-Wabash Fellows as well as for many of their mentors when reknown UCLA educational psychology scholars Alexander and Helen Astin visited the GTU to discuss their research on the relationship between education and spirituality. For more than 30 years, the Astins have conducted extensive research on the attitudes, beliefs, expectations, and educational experiences of undergraduates at colleges and universities throughout the United States. More recently, they have explored how both students and faculty engage questions of meaning and value in educational contexts. In 2003, they launched a project with funding from the John Templeton Foundation called “Spirituality in Higher Education: A National Study of College Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose" which surveryed more than 112,000 undergraduates at 236 colleges and universities nationwide and more than 65,000 faculty members at 511 colleges and universities nationwide. In 2006, with colleage Jennifer A. Lindholm, the Astins published Spirituality and the Professoriate (Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA)


In two thought-provoking sessions, the Astins shared findings from their research and took advantage of the opportunity to engage scholars in religion and theology disciplines--people generally assumed to be in the "big questions" business.


In a morning session, the Astins met with a large group of GTU doctoral students from across academic areas. Conversation here tended to focus on the ways in which student-centered pedagogies help to develop students' experience of spiritual and ethical growth during the course of their college education.


In an occasionally intense evening session with the GTU Core Doctoral Faculty and the Teagle-Wabash Fellows, the Astins again presented findings from their research on spirituality and higher education. In this session, Teagle-Wabash Fellows Jenny Patten Gargiulo and Michael Sepidoza Campos offered responses on the basis of their reading of the Astins' research and their own teaching experience. We'll share Jenny and Mike's responses as well as data and commentary from the Astins in a future issue of GTU Currents, which we'll link to the project blog.


In general, the focus of faculty interest in the CFD meeting was the Astins' definition of the term "spirituality" and how that traditionally Christian terminology might skew survey participation in a religiously pluralistic world. Other faculty were interested in how the survey results differed in denominational colleges and universities from those seen in public, secular schools.

Information on the Astins and the Spirituality in Higher Education project, including an extensive menu of downloadable research reports and other publications, is available on the web at http://www.spirituality.ucla.edu/index.html.

[Posted by Elizabeth Drescher, February 21, 2008]