Religion at
URI: encouraged or discouraged?
By
Heather Zwain
Is religion
encouraged or discouraged at the University of Rhode Island?
On the Thursday
afternoon before spring break, I chose to survey students at random
in the URI library. After all, most students do the majority of
their thinking in the library, don't they?
I selected
73 students of different cultural backgrounds, ethnicities and race.
I asked each of them the following question: At URI, is religion
encouraged, discouraged or neither?
Thirty-nine
of the 73 students (53 percent) said they thought religion was neither
encouraged or discouraged on campus. Twenty students (27 percent
) said religion is discouraged and 14 (19 percent) said it is encouraged.
Unfortunately, not everyone who answered the question had something
to say by way of explanation.
Neither
"No one tries to get me to join a religion, but at the same time,
no one has a problem with my religion," said Matt
Amoscato, 20, a sophomore. "Religion is sometimes discussed
in my anthropology class and my professor encourages everyone's
religions and different cultures."
Peter
Mancini,
33, a fifth-year pharmacy student, said, "I've been a student here
for four years and I have never seen any announcements for religious
meetings or anything to do with religion."
Junior Rachel
Wing, 20, said, "I think religion is available at anyone's
access if they seek it out."
"Religion isn't
talked about in class," said Tom
Turcotte, 21, a senior.
"I never see
anything promoting or against religion," said Jessie
Mauro, 22, a senior.
Twenty-one-year-old
junior Simon
King-Trudeau said, "Religion at URI falls in between
the categories of encouraged and discouraged, because there are
places you can go but they aren't publicly announced. It would be
a good idea for URI to promote all religions on campus."
Religious
beliefs
Every individual has his or her own set of beliefs, values and morals.
These ideas may be based on religious teachings or beliefs from
another source, such as a parent, friend or mentor. At a public
university, where courses on religion are not required, is religion
mentioned?
According to
FIRE, the Foundation for
Individual Rights in Education, colleges and universities in America
are supposed to be "indispensable institutions in the sustenance
and enhancement of critical mind, individual rights, honest inquiry
and the core values of liberty, legal equality and dignity." As
an alternative, FIRE states, colleges and universities in America
"have become the enemies of those qualities and pursuits."
Discouraged
The majority of the 20 students who chose this category said religion
is not talked about or taken into consideration on campus. These
students expressed the strongest opinions.
Two students
were concerned about religious holidays. One said he thinks it is
unfair that we don't have an Easter break.
And senior
Tracy Leiken,
21, said, "I think it is unfair that we have school on Yom
Kippur, the Jewish new year, but we get off from school on Christmas,
the holiest day for [Christians]."
Leiken added
that she thought it is unfair that even though she is excused from
classes on Yom Kippur, she has to make up the work she missed, whereas,
no work is given out on Christmas.
Shane Wakeen,
a 21-year-old junior, said that "if religion comes up in class discussions,
I'm told to disregard it" by professors. He also said that students
sometimes discourage discussing religion. For example, when it comes
up in his Arguments and Debates class, where students might give
examples drawn from their religion, other students sometimes become
combative.
"Religion isn't
seen or heard about on campus because URI isn't a religious-affiliated
school, it's a public university, unlike Providence College, that
is a Catholic college," said Jimmy
Vilayvann, 18, a freshman.
Encouraged
Crystal Walsh,
22 and a senior, was among the 14 students who said religion is
encouraged on campus. "I think it's encouraged because there are
churches and a big bell."
What
can students do to make sure their rights are protected?
FIRE is an organization
dedicated to protecting "the unprotected and to educat[ing]
the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats"
to rights on campuses, including: freedom of speech, legal equality,
due process, religious liberty and sanctity of conscience.
For more information,
visit FIRE and click on The
FIRE's Guides link; then choose Religious
Liberty on Campus by David French. According to FIRE, the
book provides a history of the struggle for religious liberty and
explains how the legal and moral arguments for religious liberty
apply on public and private campuses.
Heather
Zwain of the Township of Washington, N.J., is a senior
at the University of Rhode Island, where she is majoring in journalism
and minoring in Human Development and Family Studies.
