Students in STEM Hunger for Spirituality
Roel Snieder sees a need for STEM educators at secular institutions to engage their students in conversations on science and spirituality.
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I teach a Science and Spirituality class at the Colorado School of Mines, an engineering college with a focus on earth resources and materials. Although it is not discussed explicitly, students are largely educated at Mines in an atmosphere of scientism, in the sense that the description of the world that we offer is based exclusively on science.
This is a natural approach for an engineering school, but many of our students are interested in a broader world-view and are hungry for more. They pose the existential questions of life and death (as many of us do), they want to know who they are, and they yearn for purpose and meaning. Some students wrestle with the confines of a normative religious upbringing, and many students face mental health challenges, in particular anxiety or depression. Because the topic of spirituality is largely ignored, many students compartmentalize their studies from their faith. This may set the pattern for their future professional life as well.
I have learned that it is possible at a secular institution to engage my students in thoughtful conversations around science and spirituality. Yes, this was initially challenging since it involved charting unfamiliar terrain for myself, but I’ve discovered that these types of conversations can be very rewarding both for myself and my students.
One student wrote: “This class was an experience I am truly grateful for. As a busy engineering student with a lot on her mind, this class was an opportunity to ground myself once a week and connect with my classmates on topics that usually are taboo. I appreciated the tools I received that allow me to bring spiritual practices to life outside of the classroom, as well.” Responses like this motivate me to keep conversations going on science and spirituality. I hope other educators, especially at secular institutions can see the value in this type of work, and join in this important work as well.
I have learned that it is possible at a secular institution to engage my students in thoughtful conversations around science and spirituality…[it is]…very rewarding both for myself and my students.
Science and Spirituality in Practice
In my class Science and Spirituality, I infuse a spiritual perspective into the engineering learning environment. This class is a liberal arts elective that I offer every semester to about 40 undergraduate students. This class does not appeal to every student, but it is so popular that it fills up within 20 minutes after registration opens. Class topics include the historical progression of our worldview from a description based on myths and the great religions, to the deterministic view of the enlightenment, to the random world of quantum physics. We explore what the implications of this progression are for free will and morality, and we discuss the sense of awe and wonder that can be either enhanced or diminished by our scientific understanding. We dive into the mysteries of consciousness and the mystical experience. We explore the mind-body connection, and the development of healthy mental habits. We meditate in every class session, walk the labyrinth, and students experiment with spiritual practices.
Students benefit in a variety of ways from this class. They appreciate the exposure to meditation. I offer the class in 3-hour sessions in the evening. Not surprisingly, we are all tired when class starts at the tail end of a busy workday. Students invariably express surprise that the 10-minute meditation we use as a class opening offers them a sense of grounding and relaxation. One of the student projects is to experiment with 3 different spiritual practices.
A significant number of students in class come from a traditional religious upbringing and have begun to question their faith. Some of these students experience friction with their families due to the discrepancy between Biblical accounts and the scientific worldview taught at my institution. We address this friction in class and discuss the richness of allegorical and symbolic interpretations of religious texts instead of literal interpretations. As a result, some of the students who have started to question their faith rekindle it at a deeper and more meaningful level than they did in their younger years.
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…some of the students who have started to question their faith while in college, rekindle their faith [as a result of our class discussions] at a deeper and more meaningful level than they did in their younger years.
My institution is very international, and the students in the class come from a variety of different faiths. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, and an occasional Hindu sit in a big semicircle and discuss topics that touch us deeply. We spend considerable time in the first classes discussing respect, the distinction between dialogue and debate, and the value of non-dualistic thinking. This gives students tools to have constructive conversations about topics that might easily be controversial, which is a useful skillset in and of itself.
We also address the management of emotions. This is especially important given the topics that we discuss in class—which include death and trauma. Strong emotions inevitably come up in class. For this reason, I make sure that we are always present with two teachers so that one teacher can support students in need. Given the increasingly poor state of student’s mental health, they appreciate the tools they acquire for managing emotions.
The Courage to Start
Getting the class on the roster was a long road because departments initially were reluctant to include this class in their course offering. Fortunately, the Honors Program was keen to host this class. When it became obvious that this class filled a need for many students, the class found a home in the department for Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.
A bigger hurdle to initiating the class was that it took much courage on my part to offer it. Students get out of their comfort zone as they take this class, but as a teacher I had to leave my comfort zone behind as well. Here are some doubts that assailed me before I started teaching the class: What will my colleagues think about this class? Will students be willing to go into meditation or other spiritual exercises? Will the class be bogged down in divisive conversations between fundamentalist points of view? I was surprised that none of these concerns became a reality. Most of my colleagues were indifferent to the class. Students jumped into the meditations, and we never really had polarizing conversations.
I have thought about the process of stepping out of my comfort zone and bringing spirituality to the science and engineering world in which I work. I have felt apprehensive on many occasions, but disaster has never struck. What I experienced instead is that when I am authentic and intentional to build a class atmosphere that is harmonious, students are willing to step out of their comfort zone as well and engage in topics beyond traditional science and engineering.
The popularity of the Science and Spirituality class shows that there is a hunger among many science and engineering students to step beyond scientism and dive into the less tangible world of spirituality. I encourage fellow teachers in science and engineering to bring elements of spirituality into their classes. This could be in the form of a separate class, as I developed, or as a brief conversation that takes students beyond the worldview based on scientism. By doing so, teachers may give students the gift of harmonizing science and faith, or at the very least help students more thoughtfully and graciously engage with others who think or believe differently than themselves.
…when I am authentic and intentional to build a class atmosphere that is harmonious, students are willing to step out of their comfort zone as well and engage in topics beyond traditional science and engineering.
About the author
Roel Snieder
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