“Students ignore God on a regular basis,” the Princeton Review writes of Wesleyan.
Despite this and other anti-spiritual labels given to Wesleyan, there are many thriving faith-based student groups on campus. And, just like activism or any other passionate endeavor, religious convictions can drive students to take an active role on and off campus.
According to some students, these religious convictions are often subjected to the trials and tribulations of being a college student.
“You suddenly find yourself alone here without your parents, practicing your faith, and you start questioning whether you are doing it out of rote or if you really believe in it,” said Anand Venkatachalam ’08 of his freshman year.
Looking back on his first two years at the University, Venkatachalam vividly remembers that he was afraid others might view his weekly temple visits and ritualistic practices as “old-fashioned.”
“That’s a connection many people draw easily,” he said. “They presume that if you are spiritual, you are a religious person and, hence, a conservative.”
The relative lack of knowledge and misconceptions of Hinduism in particular further contributed to Venkatachalam’s wariness to share his beliefs. His previous performances of Bharatanatyam, a South Indian classical dance, for example, made him feel like a gimmick.
“There were high undertones of mysticism or exoticism in people’s perceptions when they viewed the dance,” Venkatachalam said.
Not surprisingly, these occurrences sparked serious soul-searching during his sophomore year. This eventually culminated in Venkatachalam’s founding Athma, Wesleyan’s first Hindu awareness community, earlier this semester.
“[Wesleyan is] perfect as it gives one enough space to question why and what you believe in,” he said. “There is no predominance of one group over the other.”
Emily Sheehan ’10 has also embraced this spirit of openness, which was nurtured by her open-minded parents and cultivated at Wesleyan. At the beginning of her freshman year, Sheehan was eager to join the Catholic community.
“I made sure I went to the first mass on campus in freshman year,” she said.
However, when she was invited to attend frosh bible study, which is organized by the Wesleyan Christian Fellowship (WesCF), Sheehan was initially hesitant.
“I was not sure if I would be accepted in WesCF because I was Catholic,” she said.
Nonetheless, Sheehan began attending WesCF gatherings, as well as Vespers and Shabbat services.
“It’s really important to let that dialogue happen between people of different beliefs and to gain new perspectives,” she said.
Sometimes when Sheehan mentions that she attends WesCF, however, people whom she doesn’t know very well hesitate in their reactions.
“I think that there is more of a stigma against the WesCF Christian community compared to the Catholics just because the Catholics are more of a minority,” she said.
Maggie Mitchell ’08, who converted to Islam her freshman year, echoed this sentiment.
“People at Wesleyan are more respectful of Islam than Christianity because it’s a minority religion, which is the opposite treatment that one sees in the media or the rest of United States,” she said. “When I was a Christian, I felt people were less tolerant.”
When Mitchell adopted the new faith, she grappled to fully understand it. Her conversion had brought about many changes, such as wearing the headscarf at times and praying five times daily. The various Muslim chaplains (also known as imams) who have served the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) proved instrumental to her spiritual growth.
“At first, I was very critical about the Koran and had a notebook full of arguments and contradictions,” she said.
Mitchell ended up meeting with Abdullah, the imam at that time, on a regular basis. Later, after her official conversion, she began using the prayer room at 169 High Street because it was more convenient than her own room during the day.
“Wesleyan has been pretty good at supplying resources,” Mitchell said. “There’s definitely very little emphasis put on faith on campus, but at the same time there are so many things, for example Vespers, where people who seek spirituality but don’t have any religion in particular, would come.”
The spiritual support that Mitchell received has also led her to push for the equivalent in other communities—“for example, supporting the Catholic community’s search for its own chaplain on campus.
This underlying ethos of cooperation is in the mission statement of a student-run group, the Interfaith Justice League, which aims to “provide opportunities for people of all religious/spiritual backgrounds to come together to promote mutual respect, and to advance shared values such as social justice, hospitality, and community service.” The league also organize the annual Interfaith Banquet and the recent Fast-a-Thon, which raised awareness and money for the hungry.
According to Mary-Jane Rubenstein, assistant professor of Religion, singer-songwriter Dar Williams ’89 often said in concert that she adopted a different religion every semester when she was at Wesleyan.
“As long as there are a number of different kinds of religious communities on campus, and as long as each of them respects the work that the others are trying to do, then students should have more than enough room to express themselves spiritually,” Rubenstein said.
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