I agree with...? A survey of religion at Yale

BY ANNA ARKIN-GALLAGHER 

COURTESY BATTEL CHAPEL AND SLIFKA CENTER Views of Battel Chapel (left) and the Slifka Center. The buildings serve as centers of religious life on campus.

As one might well imagine, Yale's community of over 5,000 undergraduates encompasses students of nearly every belief. For many students, attending college is their first time away from home, an experience that may challenge their relationships with their own religions.

Nevertheless, the overwhelming sentiment from students interviewed is that practicing religion at Yale is far easier than practicing religion at home. "It's much easier and more fun to be observant here than at home," Shari Gottlieb, PC '03, co-president of Yale Hillel, emphasized. "Just as Yale brings together a great group of people, Yale's Jewish community does as well."

Students of different religions echoed Gottlieb's sentiment. "Practicing religion at Yale is really quite easy," said Taimur Khan, SY '03, a Muslim student.

Many students cited the existence of undergraduate religious organizations as contributing to the ease of religious observance at Yale. Matt Vogel, MC '02, co-chair of the undergraduate council at Saint Thomas More, Yale's Catholic center on Park Street, described a system facilitated by the Yale Chaplain's office that allows the Catholic community to reach out to incoming freshmen even before they get to Yale.

"All freshmen who register with the University Chaplain have `big sibs' who contact them over the summer and try to make them feel comfortable at the chapel during their transition to school," Vogel said.

Diana Cieslak, MC '04, a freshman member of the Saint Thomas More Catholic community, described the church as "really supportive of undergraduate needs. They have a 5 p.m. Mass on Sundays, for instance, because they know that no student is going to want to get up early on the weekends."

Cieslak stressed that throughout Easter week, Saint Thomas More makes an especially large effort to help students celebrate the holidays at school. "There are dinners, Easter brunches—all sorts of events are organized that make it easy to celebrate the holidays away from home, and to foster the sense of community that you might be missing without having your family around."

Gottlieb cited a similar sense of community at the Slifka Center for Jewish life during Passover, when many students returned home to spend the weekend with their families.

"There were several seders on each of the two seder nights, including student-led seders, a freedom seder, a community seder, a family seder, and seders in the residential colleges." She added that students who did not wish to remain at Yale, but were unable to go home for the holiday could "be matched with families in the New Haven area for the seders."

The Catholic and Jewish communities at Yale, are, of course, some of the largest and most visible religious groups on campus. Nevertheless, members of smaller religious communities are also able find other people with whom they can share their religious beliefs.

Ravenna Michalson, TC '01, president and founder of the Yale Buddhist Society, says that putting up signs for the Buddhist Society and word-of-mouth information about the group has contributed to a tight-knit, albeit small, community of students who meet for weekly meditations and Buddhist readings.

"It was a somewhat disorganized group when I got it started a few years ago," Michalsen said. "But I've put up signs, and interested people have come to our meetings."

Wayne Chang, BK '04, is a freshman who joined the Buddhist Society in September. According to Chang, it was easy to find out about the organization. "[Michalsen] set up a little booth at the Freshman Bazaar so I just went up to her and signed up. It's not hard at all, and I've also seen plenty of posters around campus that have reminded me about our weekly meetings."

Nevertheless, some students mentioned the lack of visibility of certain religious groups on campus. Venkat Lakshminarayanan, TC '04, a Hindu student, remarked that "Hindu religious groups don't seem as visible on campus as others—say, Christian singing groups or prayer meetings." Nevertheless, he added that this may be simply because "there's no real prostelytizing in Hinduism, so you don't get groups putting on faith-based concerts." He added, "Also, most Indian music doesn't sound good when arranged for a capella."

Many students also described a general attitude of tolerance from Yale students toward those of different religions as contributing to the ease of being religious at Yale.

Khan, who must pray five times a day under Muslim custom, says that he has been able to accommodate this schedule at Yale. "I have been given a lot of respect by my roommates for practicing my religion, and they are careful about loud noises when I am praying." He added that he generally finds religion at Yale to be "appreciated and respected by all."

Michalsen also reports a generally positive attitude towards the Buddhist Society at Yale. "I occasionally get an intellectual, snide comment from someone who's trying to trip me up about the tenets of Buddhism or something," she said. "But in general, there's a lot of tolerance; I think most Yale students feel, `If you want to agree with Dave, agree with Dave. If you want to practice Buddhism, practice Buddhism.'"

The Reverend Frederick Streets, the University chaplain and a senior pastor of the Church of Christ in Yale, noted that he has seen "Yale students [to be] generally accepting of those with different religious backgrounds,"

Streets added, however, that students do not always agree about how to practice religion. "Some students feel that although they are a member of the same faith community, when other students of that same community demonstratively share their faith on campus, they do not necessarily agree with their interpretation."

Chang mentioned that although he sees Yale students as being tolerant of many different religions, this may come more from apathy than true understanding. "The main reason for [the demonstrated tolerance of the Yale student body] may be because of most people's lack of interest or commitment to any religion rather than because of people's intrinsic respect toward other religions."

Furthermore, while the vast majority of students confirmed religious tolerance among their peers, others were not so positive. "[The] campus is filled with students who do not care about religion and others who are hostile to it, and the actions of many students reflect that fact," Vogel said.

Some students also noted some lack of tolerance towards religion on the part of Yale faculty. "I have had professors openly attack the Church during lectures," Vogel said. Another student recalled an experience when a teaching assistant openly criticized religion in one of her classes.

Despite feeling that Yale students are generally tolerant towards students of other religions, Michalsen said that Yale's religious studies department lacks enough classes on religions outside the Judeo-Christian tradition.

"The interest in learning about religions beyond Judaism and Christianity is simply not reflected in the courses offered by the religion department," she said. "I think that this exoticizes religions like Buddhism and Hinduism."

The religion department currently offers approximately 17 undergraduate classes with a Judeo-Christian focus, in comparison to nine classes devoted to other religions.

The department currently has 17 faculty members. However, according to Carlos Eire, chairman of the department, "Only five cover religions other than Judaism or Christianity" with "two professors teaching Islam, two professors teaching Buddhism and one professor teaching Native American religions, and although one Buddhologist teaches a course on Hinduism, [there is no] specialist in that religion."

Eire recognizes the lack of breadth in the department as a problem and points out that although the religious studies department is "at the very top of any ranked list of religious studies departments," it is "unusual in this respect." He also confirms a demonstrated interest on the part of the student body in seeing courses on other religions offered at Yale. "There is a constant plea from students for courses in religions other than Judaism and Christianity," Eire said.

Nevertheless, while Eire wishes the department did offer a wider range of courses, he says that the department simply does not have the faculty members needed to teach these courses. "In order to do a credible job, we would need to hire more faculty," Eire said, "and right now there is a freeze of sorts on new faculty positions." Furthermore, Eire points out that "creating a new course takes an incredible amount of time and effort. If it's done right, it should take about as much time as writing a book."

Eire added, "But look for changes over the next few years. We are committed to broadening our offerings, within the areas that our faculty can cover."

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