c. 1999 Religion News Service

BOSTON _ Boston College was in a bind.

With inadequate slots for volunteer work and student spiritual retreats, the Jesuit college was forced last year to wait-list 150 students for a program that combines academics and community service and 400 students for a weekend retreat program.

Enter John McNeice.

The investment banker, BC alum and college trustee recently ensured that as students return to campus this fall, they will not face the same shortage they faced last year. McNeice donated $5 million to his alma mater, specifying the funds be used for spiritual retreats and volunteer programs.”As the kids participate in these activities, they’ll feel the happiness and joy that will help them develop their spiritual lives as well as their professional lives,”McNeice said, adding the donation stemmed from”my background, my Jesuit training.” McNeice, 66, a 1954 BC graduate, said his donation is in accordance with the emphasis the Roman Catholic Church is putting on”stewardship and sharing time and talent.” McNeice’s donation is”prototypical”of a growing trend among donors of dedicating large sums of money to causes with which they personally identify, said Paul Schervish, director of BC’s Social Welfare Research Institute and an expert on philanthropic habits.”At some point in his life, the very same things that he’s dedicating his wealth to encourage shaped him as well,”Schervish said.”He’s enabling them (students) to enjoy the benefits or transformative experiences that changed him.” The gift represents another growing trend in American philanthropy: religion and spirituality on college campuses.”Students are thirsty and hungry for a spiritual way,”Schervish said.”There’s a thirst by wealth-holders to fulfill this thirst of the kids.” He added:”You’re going to see a lot more of that. It’s a sleeping giant.” Signs abound of a growing sense of spirituality and volunteerism on college campuses. Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., for example, recently received $1 million for its volunteer programs, in which 40 percent of the school’s students participate.

The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., last year saw 290 of its 1,500 resident students participate in spiritual retreats, while the school opened a 24-hour chapel and a confessional in the dorms.”One of the appealing things about this generation is its wonderful openness to things spiritual,”said the Rev. William Willimon, dean of the chapel at Duke University in Durham, N.C.”I see them reaching out for a richer, thicker description of the world than what has been available to them.” He added that volunteerism is, for many college students, a way of involving themselves in politics, a strategy different from 1960s-style activism but with similar goals and motivations.”We’ve got a generation that’s lost faith in top-down legislative change,”Willimon said.”But we’ve got a generation that believes very much in one-to-one, face-to-face sacrificial service.” The Rev. Joseph Appleyard, the Boston College vice president for university mission and ministry, said when he was a BC student in the 1950s, religious practice was strong among his fellow students, but it was performed often only because of habits learned in childhood.”It was deeply ingrained, but the level of commitment wasn’t very deep,”he said.

By contrast, Appleyard said, today’s college students may not feel dedicated to the formal institutions of religion, but when spirituality or religion succeeds in capturing them, in whatever form, they are deeply committed to it.

At BC, volunteer programs that will benefit from McNeice’s donation include the Appalachia Volunteers Program, in which 450 students work in poor Appalachian communities during Spring Break, and the Ignacio Volunteers Program, in which students help poverty-stricken residents of rural villages in Central America and the Caribbean. More than 300 students participate in 4Boston, a program requiring four hours of weekly volunteer service in shelters and community centers in Boston.”In most of these programs, students had to raise money to go on those trips,”said BC senior Kim Aime.”It’s kind of hard for students to raise money, but they do it anyway, because it’s important to them. Coming to BC, it’s something that’s been instilled in us _ giving our service to others.” Schervish said the donation was significant in part because it was not”manipulative,”meaning the money is not intended to establish programs or institutions that do not yet exist _ and may or may not end up being popular.”He’s fulfilling a yearning that has gone begging,”Schervish said.”Students will make use of this immediately.” A total of 1,200 of Boston College’s 8,600 undergraduates volunteer each year, while 1,700 participate in spiritual retreats, according to school officials.”There’s a tremendous desire in the student body to be involved in these things,”Appleyard said.”They’re looking for deeper sources of experience and meaning in their lives.”

DEA END KRESS