I think religion should be taught in college. I’m not talking about “religious studies,” that is, the study of the phenomenon of religion. I’m talking about having imams, priests, pastors, rabbis, and other clerics teach the practice of their faiths. In college classrooms. To college students. For credit. I think religion should be taught in college because I believe it can help save floundering undergraduates. I’m not talking about “saving” them in Christian sense. I’m talking about teaching them how to live so they do not have to suffer an endless stream of miseries.

If you had asked me when I was a professor whether universities should teach religious practice in order to help undergraduates navigate life, I would have said you were crazy. First, I would have said my students were pretty well adjusted, so they didn’t needed to be saved. Second, I would have said that even if they were in trouble, religion couldn’t help them. Third, I would have said that even if they were in trouble and religion could help them, religion wasn’t real knowledge and couldn’t, therefore, be part of a university curriculum. And fourth, I would have said that even if undergraduates needed saving, religion could save them, and religion could be part of the curriculum, the separation of church and state made teaching religion in public universities impossible.

You may have all of these reservations as well. But I don’t think you should, and I’m going to tell you why.

Undergraduates Adrift

I used to teach at a big land-grant university in Midwest. In that capacity, I did what most professors do. A third of my job was research, a third was teaching, and a third was service (committee work and such). I was a very conscientious researcher, a somewhat conscientious teacher, and avoided service whenever I could. I do not think I was unusual in this regard. Most professors at big universities love research, are lukewarm about teaching, and loathe service. This is why they are always after sabbaticals. They want to write books, not teach undergraduates or serve on curriculum committees.

It should come as no surprise, then, when I tell you that I did not know my undergraduates very well. I taught a “two-two” load, meaning two courses a semester. One of those was a tiny graduate seminar, meaning no undergraduates. Each of my undergraduate courses met for about two hours a week, three at the outside. On average, then, I saw my undergraduates for four to six hours a week one semester and for two to four hours a week in the other. When I say “saw,” I mean exactly that. Typically, I stood at a lectern and lectured to them. I never really interacted with them. They were just faces. Of course, being a somewhat conscientious teacher, I invited them to my office hours. They almost never came, and I knew they wouldn’t. Again, I would say that my experience with undergraduates was fairly typical.

It so happened, however, that as part of my service commitment, I was selected to hold the office of the director of undergraduate studies. This was a position no one wanted because it meant spending hours advising undergraduates without any compensation. I didn’t really want the position either, but my chair told that I had to do something. He was right, and so I took the job.

I’m glad I did, because it gave me the opportunity to get to know the students that I taught. I had in-depth conversations with hundreds of them. I talked to them about their academic progress, of course, but I also talked to them about everything else: where they lived, who their friends were, how much they drank, how much they studied, whether they were depressed, what they ate, how they felt about the university, how they got on with their parents, how their parents got on with each other, where they worked, how much they worked, how much money they had, how much debt they carried, whether they went to church, whether they were involved in extra-curricular activities and, naturally, what they planned to do when they were done with their degrees.

I also learned that because they were adrift in so many ways, they suffered. It was not difficult to get them talking about their distress, probably because no one at the university had ever thought to inquire. There were those who drank too much and got into trouble. There were those who were full-blown alcoholics or drug addicts. There were those who were too depressed to go to classes. There were those who cut and starved themselves. There were those who thought of killing themselves and some who even tried. There were those who fought with their roommates. There were those who, having fought with their roommates, were in the hospital or homeless. And, more than anything else, there were those who said “Fuck it” and just dropped out.

Religion to the Rescue

I tried, of course, to get help for these students. But there was no help to be had at the university. I called their advisors—if I could discover their names—to see if they might render aid. In most cases these advisors did not even know the students’ names. I called the university’s counseling center to see if there was anyone on staff who might be able to help. “Have the student come in and make an appointment. We should be able to see her in a week.” I would have gladly called their parents, and I imagine their parents would have been more than willing to reach out. But, remarkably, the “Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act” forbids university officials from contacting parents in all but the most extreme cases. These lost students, then, had nowhere to turn.

My eyes now opened, I began to think hard about their situation. What could be done to help undergraduates at sea? Perhaps the mechanisms already in place—advisors and counseling services—could be beefed up? Having been an advisor myself, I knew that no tinkering with the advising system was going to help. Nobody likes academic advising.

I also knew that enhancing the universities counseling services wasn’t a likely fix. First of all, it would be expensive. Trained mental health workers do not come cheap, and if the university were to attempt any reasonable sort of coverage of the student body, dozens of them would have to be hired. And even if the university were to bring on bunches of psychologists, there’s good reason to believe that students in trouble would not visit them. Perhaps it has something to do with being in the Midwest, but I got the distinct impression from the students I talked to that they believed visiting a “shrink” was something to be ashamed of.

So what’s left? I thought about my own life and what had helped me weather particularly nasty storms. About ten years ago I experienced an acute psychological crisis. My spirit was broken and I did not think I could go on. Because of this crisis, my life was in shambles. I was lost. Being a well educated, middle-class type, I naturally sought the aid of psychiatrists. They were very helpful in treating the symptoms of my malady, but they could not identify, let alone fix, the core problem.

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