“We offer information for students who express interest, but I wouldn’t say that religion on campus is one of our selling points,” said Admission Officer Alana Kaholokula.
Although students may be active in their faith, some find it hard to keep up religious practices once they are at Whitman.
“I don’t hide that I’m a Christian,” said senior Maryn Juergens. “It’s just not as obvious here at Whitman because I’m not plugged into a network. It just takes a lot more work to be involved in religion here.”
Efforts to foster a religious community on campus, such as an Interfaith section in Douglas, have fallen through in the past, largely due to a lack of interest. Students that were interested were predominately Christian, thus defeating the concept of Interfaith.
For some students coming into Whitman, religion and spirituality are an integral part of who they are. Groups such as Hillel-Shalom meet weekly to observe religious traditions and celebrations while others are more casual. Whitman Christian Fellowship is a chapter of Intervarsity, a program developed in the United Kingdom that has spread to the Unites States. Two campus ministers work with students to help plan weekly services, small Bible study groups and other events.
Being in college often poses its own challenge to the religious lifestyle. Without the support systems with which some students grow up, getting to church on Sunday morning or fasting for Ramadan is difficult.
“If my church back home were here, I’d go. But it isn’t, and I don’t feel connected to the Walla Walla Catholic community,” said senior Matthew Beckett.
According to a 2008 UCLA study, students’ attendance at regular religious services tends to dramatically decrease while in college, but students’ spirituality, defined in the study as the search for meaning and development of personal values, increases during this time.
In a 2004-2005 study of Whitman’s religious community, about half of the entering class indicated that they were religious or had a religious heritage.
“That’s remarkably low from a national perspective, but not surprising of the Pacific Northwest,” said Adam Kirtley, Stuart Coordinator of Religious and Spiritual Life, who works to help religious students celebrate their traditions by planning one organized event around each group’s religious holidays.
However, in the same study, 70 percent of students listed spirituality as “important” or “very important.”
“Students often become less involved in organized religious heritage but increasingly involved in spiritual questions,” Kirtley said.
For religious life intern sophomore Dujie Tahat, facilitating that process is one of his major goals.
“I want to take strides to making Whitman more aware of spirituality,” he said. Tahat is the second-ever religious life intern, and is working on a variety of projects with Kirtley and the student body.
Groups like the Namasté Meditation Club work with students who are less focused on organized religion and more on spirituality. Meeting weekly in the spirituality room, Sonya Aikens describes it as serving a range of purposes from “spirituality to stress relief to just some peace and quiet.” Last year they even held a one-day retreat with a Zen monk to learn new techniques.
That sort of exchange of religions and spirituality is exactly what Tahat is looking to do. He hopes to create an Interfaith Council that will increase the dialogue between different faiths. This will no doubt be easier with the addition of the Muslim Students Association, which was recently made an official ASWC club.
For many, the quest for religion or spirituality on campus is a difficult one. Groups help foster awareness, but it is up to each individual student to find what works for her or him.
“I hope in time that there’s a presence on campus, and that people know it’s there,” said Tahat.
