By Marnie McAllister, Record Editor
If you make it to age 24 as an active Catholic, you’re likely to remain Catholic the rest of your life, according to a Pew Research Center study from 2009 called “Faith in Flux.”
This finding tells Barbara McCrabb that campus ministry at colleges and universities is critical to the future of the church.
“For many, college is a time of awakening in the faith, for others, it’s a deepening,” said McCrabb, the assistant director for higher education at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “As adults, they are laying habits for the rest of their lives” during the college years.
McCrabb was in Louisville last week with more than 90 college students and campus ministers for the annual Campus Ministry Leadership Institute.
Sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the June 6 to 11 program had two focuses — a study of the bishops’ 1985 pastoral letter on campus ministry and the cultivation of collaborative leadership skills among students.
The program is also designed to have immediate, practical results. Using the tools and resources provided by the program, each school group is expected by the end of the week to have planned a project they will implement during the approaching school year. And all of the projects aim, in one way or another, to keep Catholic students engaged in their faith.
“One team will look at how they evangelize incoming students. Another is planning a retreat with music ministers on campus. There are all kinds of different projects, said McCrabb.”
One alliterative plan is called “Fishing for Freshmen.” The University of Louisville’s Catholic Campus Ministry, which sent five students to the institute, is developing a project that will pair the works of mercy with service opportunities for students throughout the coming school year.
Participants in the institute attended a series of seminars throughout the week that highlighted the “bishops’ vision for campus ministry,” said McCrabb, who has directed the institute for the last eight years.
That vision, detailed in the pastoral letter called “Empowered By The Spirit: Campus Ministry Faces The Future” addresses six topics, including conscience formation. On June 9, students listened to a presentation on this subject that included a how-to guide to discernment.
The institute also helped students examine their own personality types and identify the roles they tend to play in group dynamics. When they began to plan their schools’ projects, the students said they were better equipped to work collaboratively.
Phillip Baker, a student from Syracuse University in New York, told participants at the institute that he was learning to “swallow your pride and do what your team needs you to do.”
Junior Mary Jane Shafer, one of the University of Louisville (UofL) students who attended the institute, said “I think we’re learning to better work with one another through the grace of the Holy Spirit.”
McCrabb hopes that the students apply the skills they gained last week to their current projects and in future campus ministry work.
The University of Louisville team hopes their project draws more students to faith formation and service work, and ultimately toward the faith community they have formed.
Campus ministry “gives you a community,” said junior Tori Bunton, a UofL student from Northern Kentucky who attended the institute.
“I come (to UofL) from an hour-and-a-half away,” she noted. “Knowing there’s a group who believes the same things gave me some security.”
Emilie Cornett, a classmate of Bunton’s and a member of St. James Church in Elizabethtown, Ky., agreed. “It’s the one consistent thing in college. I know the Interfaith Center (at UofL) is there; I know my friends are there.”
Half joking, half thoroughly serious, Cornett added, “There will be food and a bathroom. It’s there when everything else isn’t going quite as I like it to.”
