Five Things I Wish I Knew Before Becoming a Director of Spiritual Life
Hard-won lessons from being on "the other side" of academia
Good grief!
I made it through my first semester as a director of spiritual life. Kudos to everyone else who also made it through this particular season of August-December 2024. Though I'm not a teacher, the oft-shared shared chart of the emotional rollercoaster journey of a first-year teacher feels pretty accurate. (Thanks to my brother, a former schoolteacher, for sharing this with me.) Here are five things I wish I knew before I started this role, and what I'd like to share with current MDiv students and folks training to enter the field of university chaplaincy:
It is lonely being the only religious/spiritual professional at an institution.
You will need to shift your perception of yourself and how to express your values if you occupy a university administrator role.
Far less of your time is spent with students offering them one-on-one spiritual care than you might think or wish.
You will be asked to lead beyond the bounds of your preparation and expertise.
Success for your role/program/office/dept will look different than similar roles/programs/offices/depts.
1. This is not me snubbing my colleagues at my new institution; they are kind, supportive and wonderful in all the ways they can be. But I came from radically different environments where I was surrounded by spirited discussions on Spirit, a plethora of embodied healing frameworks, and open reverence for the divine mysteries of life and beyond. Not only am I an office of one, but I am operating in a non-religious workplace. I found that reaching out to as many colleagues as I could, such as deans and directors of religious life and university chaplains at other institutions, offered me sips of the language and inspiration to more accurately describe the world in which I choose to operate: a world that is not disenchanted and apocalyptic, but re-enchanted and always being reborn anew. I was never attracted to being a part of professional networks and gatherings. However, now I get it, I need these good and well-traveled people. So I actively look forward to joining my professional peers at the ACSLHE conference (Association for Chaplaincy and Spiritual Life in Higher Education) next February in DC.
2. The biggest fear I carried in becoming a director at a college was that I was going to be automatically seen as "The Man," in the classic struggle of principled university student activists vs. the blurry blob of bureaucratic university administrators. I do see myself as a good person, including in my professional life. However, I couldn't assume that it would be easy to build trust with every student that I came across, even due to shared past experiences wrestling with the powers-that-be. I had to and have to work extra hard to show myself as trustworthy and here to support all students, no exceptions. And not just show, but be. I am coming to terms with the fact that there are certain histories, stereotypes and assumptions that come with a university administrator role (and with good cause some of the time). It is not something I need to work against, but to work with, and to actively watch out for. How I am perceived in my role matters to a certain extent, but I don’t have very much control over that, and at the end of the day, I know who I am–I’m not my role. Ultimately, how effective I am in providing care for others matters more, so that is where I will continue to direct my energies.
3. Before coming into this role, I had originally planned on becoming a board-certified hospital chaplain. In my one unit of CPE (clinical pastoral education), I spent the majority of my training doing one-on-visits with patients and also their families to provide spiritual support and compassionate accompaniment. After getting over my initial anxiety of not knowing what to do in each situation, I grew to love offering this kind of spiritual care and being laid bare to the “ground of being” (as my former CPE supervisor would say). Before starting in this role, I imagined that my schedule would be full of similar meetings with students and being able to support them through the various transitions in early adulthood. In actuality, the majority of my work time, after getting onboarded, is spent attending meetings, answering emails, doing programming and working on internal documents. That is, my work is quite administrative. I was feeling a bit down about this, comparing it to the relational highs of CPE, but a mentor (thanks Julie!) recently helped me reframe this balance by reminding me that my spiritually and religiously-informed perspective is so needed in building out new policies, considerations for new student programs, and shaping the culture of campus. Ultimately, I need to work at both ends of the spectrum, and I will eventually reach a proper balance.
4. My lived experience and educational background is primarily in Christianity and Buddhism. In the religious life aspects of my role, very little of it has had to do with Christianity and Buddhism so far, and a lot of it has to do with Judaism and Islam. All the religious student organizations I advise are either Jewish or Muslim, and I was tasked with the staggering task of operationalizing a kosher/halal kitchen on campus (so cool too!). At first, I let myself lean into some good old fashioned imposter syndrome: “Why didn’t they hire someone with expertise in xyz?” But even if my interviews, I remembering telling them that I don’t know everything about every religious tradition (nobody does), and what I offer is genuine curiosity, willingness to seek help, and humility. Since then, I’ve connected with Jewish, Muslim and other faith leaders locally and regionally to build up Spiritual Life resources outside of myself. Because this role isn’t about me, what I know and can do. It’s about the religious, spiritual and moral well-being of all students, and doing what it takes to strengthen this.
5. Like many other institutions of learning, my institution is heavily invested in programming as a way to improve student quality of life. Often times, quantity is what is visible and assumed to be an indicator of how well an office or department is working. In Spiritual Life, it is not and cannot only be about programming, and if we’re talking about programming, it can’t be all about number of participants and programs in a given period of time. Religious and spiritual well-being, depth of a relationship, healing, belonging–these things can’t be easily mapped onto existing metrics. While I do keep these sorts of metrics, I am also moving towards requesting feedback and testimonials from students and other participants of particularly responsive programs I lead. I hope to be able to continue identifying more holistic measures of success and trust, as cheesy as this sounds in writing, that the benefits of investing in Spiritual Life and student spiritual well-being can be viscerally felt across campus over time.
Thanks for reading my reflections! I know these understandings will inevitably change over time, as it’s only been one semester and not even an entire academic year. If you are interested in this kind of job or career, feel free to reach out, I’d love to share all that I’ve gleaned in this topsy-turvy path that feels so worth it.