Helen S. Astin

Community Service in Higher Education: A Look at the Nation's Faculty

Motivated by increasing attention to citizenship development in American higher education, this exploratory study examines the level of involvement in and commitment to community service among higher education faculty. Although most report performing some form of community or volunteer service, women, non-White, and lower-ranking faculty tend to be the most involved. The personal values of altruism, service, and community orientation appear to be the primary determinants of commitment to this type of activity.

Understanding the “Interior” Life of Faculty: How Important is Spirituality?

Within American society, the spiritual dimension of our lives has traditionally been regarded as intensely personal, an innermost component of who we are that lies outside the realm of appropriate discussion or concern within business and academic contexts. However, in an era characterized by its spiritual “poverty,” we have seen a growing societal quest for “nonreligious, nondenominational” ways of fostering spirituality and an associated hunger for spiritual growth.1 In 1998, for example, 82 percent of Americans expressed a need to “experience spiritual growth,” up from 54 percent just four years earlier.2 Given the broad formative roles that colleges and universities play in our society, higher education represents a critical focal point for responding to the question of how we can balance the “exterior” and “interior” aspects of our lives more effectively. Existing research indicates that developing people’s abilities to access, nurture, and give expression to the spiritual dimension of their lives impacts how they engage with the world and fosters within them a heightened sense of connectedness that promotes empathy, ethical behavior, civic responsibility, passion, and action for social justice.3 Spirituality has also been positively linked with physical, mental, social, and emotional well-being.4 This article focuses on the role that spirituality plays in the lives of college and university faculty and examines the extent to which variations exist based on personal demographics, professional and institutional characteristics, and affective experiences.

The Changing Composition of the Faculty

Historical Perspective The years between 1972 and 1989 encompassed a number of major societal changes, and college campuses themselves were sites of not only intense discussion, but activities promoting many of these changes. At approximately the time that faculty were completing the 1972 survey, we were preparing for the end of the war in Vietnam. A little more than two years earlier, four students had been killed and several others injured by National Guard troops at Kent State University during demonstrations protesting our nations involvement in that same war; an event that struck a powerful and damaging blow to the nations psyche. With the 1970s, we also saw the peak expansion of the U.S. higher education system, an expansion accompanied by moral and legal pressure to make colleges and universities more inclusive. A number of important actions supporting diversity occurred in 1972; these were described by Helen S. Astin and Mary Beth Snyder in a Change article they co-authored in 1982:

Exploring and Nurturing the Spiritual Life of College Students

A new national study of college students’ spiritual development is described. Measures of five spiritual qualities–Spiritual Quest, Equanimity, Ethic of Caring, Charitable Involvement, and Ecumenical Worldview–were developed from pilot data collected from 3,700 juniors attending 46 diverse colleges and universities. These measures were subsequently administered longitudinally to 14,527 entering freshmen at 136 institutions and again to these same students at the end of their junior year. Students show significant spiritual growth during the first three years of college, and spiritual growth appears to enhance other college outcomes such as academic performance and satisfaction with college. A number of specific college experiences were found to enhance spiritual growth.

A National Profile of Academic Women in Research Universities

During the last three decades, the pool of female Ph.D. recipients potentially available for academic appointments has increased dramatically. In 1977, women earned 25 percent of awarded doctoral degrees. A decade later (1987), this percentage had risen to 35 percent. By 1996, women constituted 40 percent of the total number of doctorates and 47 percent of the pool of U.S. doctoral recipients (National Research Council 1996). The representation of women faculty within American higher education institutions, however, has not increased at the same rate. For example, in 1972–73 women represented 22 percent of all faculty across academic ranks. By 1982, they occupied 27 percent of faculty positions, and by 1995–96 women accounted for 35 percent of all faculty (Vetter and Babco 1986; Sax, Astin, Arredondo, and Korn 1996). In other words, there has been a relatively slow rate of gender integration in the academy (West 1995).

Achieving Equity in Higher Education: The Unfinished Agenda

Abstract In this retrospective account of their scholarly work over the past 45 years, Alexander and Helen Astin show how the struggle to achieve greater equity in American higher education is intimately connected to issues of character development, leadership, civic responsibility, and spirituality. While shedding some light on a variety of questions having to do with fairness and equity, this research has not succeeded in removing the structural barriers to progress among underrepresented groups. Accordingly, the authors advocate that colleges and universities focus greater attention on developing student values and other personal qualities that will produce a new generation of citizens who are committed to creating a more just and equitable society.

Book Reviews: Fair Science: Women in the Scientific CommunityFair Science: Women in the Scientific Community. ColeJonathan R.. Fair Science: Women in the Scientific Community. New York: Free Press, 1979. 336pp.,

A superficial reading of Jonathan R. Cole’s Fair Science, and an overhasty acceptance of its conclusions, could lead to some unwarranted self-back-patting by the gatekeepers of academic science. Cole’s major conclusion is that science is indeed “fair”, that its rewards system is based on rational and universalistic criteria, and that women in science do not, by and large, suffer from the effects of sex discrimination. Cole, a professor of sociology at Columbia University as well as director of its Center for the Social Sciences, has already done extensive work on social stratification in science, (Cole & Cole, 1973) and this experience leads him to assert that “science is a remarkably self-regulating social system, honoring great cognitive breakthroughs with extraordinary rewards and largely ignoring those scientists who make no mark with their research discoveries” (p. 4). In Fair science, he turns his attention to women in science-r rather, more narrowly, to female biologists, chemists, psychologists, and sociologists employed in academe. This book was of special interest to me because Cole used data that I collected in 1965 from women who had received their doctorates in 1957 and 1958 (Astin, 1969). A group of male doctorate-recipients from the same period, matched with women on doctoral institution and on field of specialization, were selected, to produce a sample numbering 565. Cole demonstrates great ingenuity in extracting additional information on this sample from the 1970 edition of American Men and Women of Sczence and in drawing on a variety of other sources such as Dissertatzon Abstracts, Biological Abstracts, Psychological Abstracts, the Sczence Cztation Index, and the Social Science Citatzon Index. Unfortunately, however, much of his information is not as current as it could be. For instance, he has the erroneous impression that the National Research Council discontinued publication of the Summary Report of Doctorate Recipients in 1973, when in fact that report continues to be published yearly. Cole is primarily interested in assessing the extent to which observed sex differentials (in, for instance, academic rank, salary, and “visibility”) can be ex-

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We appreciate the opportunity to reflect on and respond to the commentaries on our HERI-UCLA study of Spirituality in Higher Education. We are pleased that our research and writing inspired efforts to implement new pedagogical approaches for training prospective faculty to assist undergraduate students’ in dealing with the “big questions,” that is, questions relating to the meaning and purpose of one’s life. The Graduate Theological Union (GTU) embarked on such an effort and their goals, process, and reflections are reported in the first five articles. These articles are followed by three other articles that are primarily devoted to critical commentary on our study, and the final two articles focus on pedagogy inspired and supported by our work. First, just a few comments about our study that continues to be ongoing. We began this work in 2003 with a pilot study aimed primarily at developing a survey questionnaire that could be administered to undergraduate students in order to assess their religious and spiritual qualities. Details of how we went about devising questions that could capture students’ religiousness and spirituality can be found on our website (spirituality.ucla.edu).

Does Spirituality Have a Place in Higher Education? : A Response

For the past few years, I have been very interested and involved in the questions raised here thus far by my colleagues. That is: Changes in the population mix of college students today and in the near future Changes in the value orientations of young people attending college today Declining enrollments and the implications for higher education