College Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose: What Role Does Student and Institutional Religious Identity Play?

Former Harvard President Derek Bok recently wrote, 'one of the least examined and yet most fundamental questions about undergraduate education' concerns 'how students acquire the values and convictions that help to give meaning and purpose to their lives.' The goal of this mixed methods project is to expand our understanding of this question. To undertake this task, we are examining interview data collected from 110 students at 10 different campuses as well as national survey data from two different sources. Through our analysis, we are identifying ways in which students' quests for meaning and purpose are nurtured or inhibited by their own stories and identities as well as particular communities of discourse in the college or university environment (e.g., type of university or college, student group involvement, friends, faculty, majors, classes, religious affiliation, etc.). The findings from the study will be published in academic journal articles and a book. We envision our work setting the context for further interdisciplinary inquiry into the particular ideological and social contexts that nurture students' quests for meaning and helping guide institutional efforts to nurture this quest.