For Sydney Reck, one of the strongest relationships she’s made in college is with God.
Reck didn’t grow up practicing the Christian faith, rarely attending church with her aunt. But after coming to college and finding the party scene at Ohio University, she said her life began to get crazy at the end of her junior year.
“I was starting to question stuff again,” Reck said, now a fifth-year student studying special education.
Reck is one of the OU students who bucks national trends by reaffirming or discovering new faiths. A 2008 study by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute found the percentage of students who said they regularly attended religious services dropped between their freshman and junior years. However, it also found an increase in the percentage of students who said integrating spirituality into their lives was “very important” or “essential.”
For Reck, incorporating religion into her life began after meeting two Christian students while working as a resident assistant at the beginning of her senior year. Now Reck identifies as Christian, attends church weekly and is one of the leaders of Young Life on campus.
“I saw the satisfaction and joy that (my friends) had in a relationship with God,” Reck said. “People who were raised in a strict Christian or Catholic household sometimes turn away from faith … I think reading the Bible helped me learn so much about God’s character. It’s one thing to hear it from other people but another thing to read it for yourself.”
Steve Hays, an associate professor in the department of classics and world religions, teaches one of two Difficult Dialogues courses on campus. The courses, available to students of all levels but targeted toward freshmen, challenge participants to converse about aspects of faith and religion.
“The very spirit and atmosphere of the university is that we try to think clearly and nothing is above question,” Hays said. “What we can do is give students experience in interrogating their own belief in the way that a scientist interrogates questions of natural reality.”
Hays described the class as an “acid bath” for belief sets, allowing students to reinforce or manipulate their faith through constant challenging. He added that students often come in very established in their viewpoint but end up moving toward or understanding other perspectives.
“Life is long and a lot longer than two or three years,” Hays said. “All of us change over decades and decades.”
Grace Schoenberger, a junior studying integrated social studies education, began participating in Hillel services and activities because many of her friends and sorority sisters were Jewish.
“Religion was not part of my life growing up,” she said. “I was drawn to the culture of Judaism, like the traditions of it.”
Schoenberger said many of her thoughts about religion line up with Judaism and that she found the environment welcoming.
Although she’s involved in Hillel, Schoenberger said she has qualms about converting.
“The reason I’m not going to officially convert is that it’s so much of a commitment to make when I still have so many questions about my beliefs,” she said.
eb104010@ohiou.edu
@EmilyMBamforth
