Danny Shain holds a sprig of parsley and waits for the crowd to quiet down so he can continue leading the Passover seder.
It's Wednesday night at Union College, and 50 students surround tables set with blue-and-white paper dinnerware, talking between most parts of the Jewish ritual that retells the story of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt.
Young men wear yarmulkes. Young women in skirts chatter with each other.
Shain's never noticed such a large turnout for the on-campus seder sponsored by Union's Hillel group. And that's even with a lot of kids going home to celebrate Passover with their families.
A close community, they socialize every opportunity they get. But when the time comes to sing songs or offer blessings together in Hebrew, a union of voices fills the room.
Earlier this week, as Jewish students prepared to celebrate Passover and Christian students began to mark Holy Week, the Harvard University Institute of Politics reported that seven in 10 college students say faith is either “fairly important” or “very important” to their lives. More than a third of the 1,200 U.S. college students surveyed by telephone said religion was “very important.” And 54 percent said they were concerned about the moral direction of the country.
College chaplains say they've noticed an upswing in interest. Perhaps, they say, it's because these students are part of a generation that tends to seek out community and spiritual experiences.
At the risk of oversimplifying, says Tom Boland, the Catholic chaplain at Union College, today's college students are Millennials, the “we generation,” rather than the “me generation” before them known as Generation X.
“They want to hit the ground running,” he says. “They're more hungry for experiences of faith.”
For some, everything from studying the martial arts to getting a tattoo can fit into the definition of spirituality, Boland says. And instead of fighting it, the challenge to college chaplains is to use that interest as a gateway to religion.
“The search for the transcendent is what defines us as humans, and I think young folks today are willing to seek for transcendent and spiritual experiences in new places and in new ways,” Boland says. “The church offers some healthy ways of making that quest, but I also think that we have to be willing to meet folks where they're at.”
At the seder, the crowd finally quiets.
Shain, who's been part of Hillel “since the day I got here,” says it's time to dip parsley in salt water.
“Basically, the dipping of the parsley in the salt water symbolizes our tears for what we went through in Egypt,” Shain explains. The 21-year-old from Canton, Mass., leads the student services each week and special events like this seder. His family practices conservative Judaism, and though his parents gave him the space to choose his own path, he says he became “really religious” in high school when he and his brother were part of an inspiring youth group.
Judaism, he says, is knitted into his identity.
He doesn't doubt the poll results and figures at least half of all students would say they are fairly religious, even if it's just attending services on major holidays.
Margo Strosberg, Jewish chaplain for Union College, says she's noticed an increase in the number of students involved with Hillel, an international organization for Jewish campus life. About 100 Union students are involved with Hillel events. New religious groups have formed on campus. Many students take part in weekly interfaith religious discussions.
It could just be generational, and interest in religion tends to be kind of cyclical, she says. Or it could be part of the journey toward independence that is college.
“For our students in particular, religious and Sabbath observances connect them with a feeling of home,” Strosberg says. “The issues do come up in classes. There are many classes that deal with religion and philosophy and start students thinking.”
A table of mostly freshmen waits for the Passover meal — served at the midpoint in the seder — to be served. They talk about heritage and how they wanted to find a familiar community when they arrived in the unfamiliar world of campus life.
Jessie Cardinale says she's skeptical of the Harvard study, and seven in 10 students claiming religion is important seems a bit high.
“I don't think people act on it as much as they say they do,” says the 19-year-old from Long Island. The activities often associated with college social life — heavy drinking, partying, sex — could hardly be considered religious, she says.
But what does “fairly important” or even “very important” mean anyway, she asks. Her Jewish identity is key to her life, but she's not sure what category she falls into.
“I believe in God,” she says. “I don't go to (routine) services, and I don't feel that you have to in order to have faith.”
The Rev. Sandy Damhof, director of the Protestant Campus Ministry at the University at Albany, and eight students there are in New Orleans this week, cleaning out moldy houses ruined by Hurricane Katrina. After spending spring break serving others, they'll be home in time for Easter.
“Faith and spirituality are very important to students,” Damhof says. “Organized religion is not.”
It's their second trip to repair the damage from Hurricane Katrina. About half of the students with her attend formal church, she says. The others don't, but will come to student-run services.
“My sense is students feel like churches are pretty judgmental, not only of them, but of other groups,” she says, adding that today's students are really open to discussions about faith and controversial topics like abortion and homosexuality.
Boland says he's also seen a rising devotion to community service among college students. And that, he says, just further shows that students want an active faith.
The most recent survey by Harvard echoes a larger study released last year by the University of California, Los Angeles. In that survey, of more than 112,000 college students at 236 colleges and universities, three-quarters of students said they were “searching for meaning/purpose in life,” eight in 10 said they attended religious services during the past year and two-thirds reported that they pray.
A strand of white rosary beads bridges Leidy Colon's hands. It's Holy Thursday, and while services are held next door at St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church, the Union College junior sits with Boland in the parish office's tiny chapel saying the rosary. It's just across the street from campus.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus,” Colon says in rapid fire. These words are so familiar to her.
“Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death. Amen,” follows Boland.
“Hail Mary, full of grace …”
A pink candle burns softly next to an open paperback Bible on the small table in front of them.
Their eyes are closed. Colon kneads the beads in her hands. She's a member of the Catholic Student Association, but the 21-year-old doesn't go to Mass every week because it's just not the same as her Spanish/English Mass back home in the Bronx. Her friends say you don't have to go to church to be religious. But she feels it's important to go to learn and to strengthen her faith.
She comes to the association's activities and manages to get to Mass a couple times a month. And she attends the Thursday night sessions to pray the rosary with Boland, something the students asked if they could start doing with him on a weekly basis last fall.
“My faith means a safe haven, somewhere I can just go and be myself,” Colon says. “It gives me strength to take my tests and deal with everyday problems on campus, and when I miss home and stuff. I do pray often. That is the one thing that I can turn to that's always going to be there for me.”