Growing faith: How three campus chaplains are attending to the sacred work of meeting student needs  

When the Rev. Quinn Caldwell leads communion during a weekly worship service for students at Cornell University, he is intentional about connecting the sacrament to a broader sense of responsibility and inclusion.  

“Communion is a thing to fill you up, and therefore, when you step away from this table, it’s your job to go out with your hands full of nourishment for the world,” he shares with the students. This practice is one of the ways that he aims to create a space to both nurture students and invite them to consider how their faith can be active in the world.  

Caldwell is a UCC minister and a campus chaplain serving through the Protestant Cooperative Ministry – an organization with joint support from the UCC, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), and American Baptist Churches – as one of several affiliated religious groups that support spirituality and meaning-making at Cornell University. 

Cornell is one of the many universities who have recently come into the national spotlight due to the Trump Administration’s funding cuts on universities, national restrictions on “DEI” initiatives, and targeting of international students who have spoken out in support of Palestinian rights. 

Amid all of this, UCC chaplains are present at college campuses across the country, seeking to accompany and nurture the time in life when students are developing their spiritual beliefs alongside their studies.  

UCC News spoke with chaplains who work in three different university settings to explore the spiritual needs they are witnessing on their campuses and how they are approaching their sacred work to support student needs within the present challenges they face. 

Creating ‘holy urgency’ 

At Cornell, where Caldwell works largely with undergraduates, he described the ivy league setting as one with high academic pressures that often prevent students from paying attention to what’s happening in the political sphere and broader world.  

“My task for this moment is to try to balance supporting students in accessing the life of faith and meeting God in ways that help them get through their academic work and toward becoming adults,” Caldwell said. “And, right now, I try to give them a little holy urgency around this moment and a sense that there’s real trouble in the world that I hope they will be paying attention to – especially as they graduate with skills and knowledge and head out into the world with some power in their hands, even though they might not feel like it yet. Since they have that power, I hope they will find the ability to put it to God’s uses to address what’s going on in the world.” 

Caldwell fosters open and affirming campus space for Christian LGBTQ students on campus, and he has been intentional about increasing vocal solidarity for trans, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people in the wake of executive orders that have threatened their well-being.  

“I’m glad to be in role when I can speak the Gospel clearly and loudly in opposition to what’s going on in the political landscape,” he said, adding, “It’s a blessing amid my own anxiety.” 

Making meaningful ways to belong 

At Chapman University in Orange, California, students recently gathered for a night of sound healing. They rested on blankets and yoga mats while listening to singing bowls, gongs, and flutes. It’s one of many spiritual life events that take place in Chapman’s Fish Interfaith Center, where the Rev. Nancy Brink is executive director.  

Brink expressed the need for making many kinds of healing available to students, particularly when the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic remains noticeably present at the school of nearly 10,000 students. She witnesses students struggling with loneliness, anxiety, and – for those interested in the world and national politics – many kinds of questions around social justice. 

As one initiative to address this, Brink is working on a program to begin monthly conversation events around particular topics. The hope is to teach listening and conversation skills with students and develop the ability to speak across differences and disagreements. 

“I think our country needs that right now the more social media algorithms divide us into separate camps,” she said. “We need to hear different perspectives and learn from those interactions.” 

With over 15 years of experience in the Chapman Office of Church Relations, Brink has worked to maintain the university’s links to its founding denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and to the UCC, which Chapman has been affiliated with since 2010.  

“A personal commitment of mine is to help students stay connected to church, but to move beyond childhood connection toward understandings that can carry them into adulthood and deal more with complexity and moral decision-making,” she said.  

For Brink, it’s essential to create opportunities for students to deepen and connect with the spiritual questions that many ask. The heart of campus chaplaincy work, she says, is fostering community that can meet student needs for the personal and societal challenges they encounter.   

“There’s real importance in building community to support students, even if they don’t have spiritual or religious ties but need some way of belonging,” she said. “Everyone needs to find some meaningful way to belong.” 

Building vision for the future 

When a group of senior students at Elmhurst University recently interviewed University Chaplain Rev. H. Scott Matheny, he reflected on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in recent years and told them that he wondered what the 100th Earth Day would look like. 

“All three of the students put their heads down,” Matheny said. “They know we’re not moving in the right direction on ecological justice issues. They see what’s happening in the world in the movements away from ecological concerns and the disparity that’s growing in the world in terms of haves and have-nots.” 

Elmhurst University, located west of Chicago, is affiliated with the UCC and a member of the UCC Council for Higher Education.  

With Matheny’s 27 years of experience as chaplain on the campus, he is sensitive to a “huge anxiety in young people about the future.” And, he noted, there are many reasons for this – climate change, the lingering and disproportionate mental health impact on young people from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the uneasiness some students are feeling within the country’s current political climate. 

While he said the campus is generally quiet in terms of demonstrations or protests, “behind the scenes there are students walking around like there is someone over their shoulder watching.” Concerns have seemed particularly prominent for queer, Muslim, Jewish, Hispanic, and international students at Elmhurst, he said.  

Matheny highlighted a weekly interfaith student table at Elmhurst, led by the student president of the campus spiritual life council, where “all of these conversations are always swirling around.” He described spaces like this – where tension and exploratory discussion are welcome – as crucial for students developing identity related to their faith, intellectual life, and questions of justice. Matheny has worked to create such opportunities by hosting visiting speakers and holding events for student groups to discuss hard topics and share stories about their spiritual journeys.  

As Matheney prepares to retire this year, he stressed the immense role that local churches can play in being responsive to the needs of college students as they face the future with big questions about where to find truth and meaning.  

“I always believe the local church needs to wrestle with how it takes care of students who are going to higher education. How do they nurture or take care of them? How do they help them in the journey?” he posed. 

In his long career, he has found inspiration in the other college and seminary staff across the nation who are nurturing UCC and progressive values in college students during this time of significant identity formation and development.  

It’s this presence, he believes, that can help to open doors for visions of a better future. 

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