Campus Ministry Advocacy

Ways to be a College-Advocate

1. Join Virginia 21, a student organization working on issues of secondary education and Virginia's future.
2. Bring effective speakers and programs to campus and highlight your campus ministry's commitment to justice and compassion (Virginia Interfaith Center staff are excellent for this)
3. Provide concise, well-written and researched letters, op-eds and longer articles to the campus media
4. Have a supply of literature related to your issus with links to Web sites
5. Be in regular touch with interfaith organizations and the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy
6. Maintain routine contact with appropriate personnel in university administration, let them know your plans for marches, vigils, and public meetings - and invite them to join as appropriate
7. Respond to questions and requests with accurate information
8. Build coalitions among student groups, other campus ministries, and other universities
9. Be active in key areas of student life, don't close yourself off

Advocacy is a particularly challenging task in today's college and university campus environment. Shallow religious groups on campus are highly mobilized and quite vocal about personal salvation, buttressing their rhetoric with emotion and first-person, eyewitness transformations. In doing so, they are generally supported by other cult-like groups and congregations. Mainline Campus Ministries are often less experienced in making the case for social advocacy and may feel outnumbered and rhetorically outgunned by more dominant para-church groups. We are often handicapped by a lack of training, current information and legislative experience. The great majority of students (including many students of faith) are apathetic, feeling no personal connection to or stake in the outcome of Virginia's policies. To many of them, the concerns of homelessness or poverty seem far away.

When developing an effective strategy to host an educational campaign on campus, always consult and coordinate with on-campus interfaith groups.

Some Long-Term Considerations

Work to build personal relationships and ongoing, multi-issue coalitions, with other groups on campus who may be interested in legislation and politics. These include natural allies such as college young Democrats and Republicans and others such as Black, Asian, Hispanic, etc. student groups. Often, when faith groups publicly support issues of concern to them, they will support faith issues (or at least remain neutral) in turn.

Encourage engaged Campus Ministry students to be active in key areas of student life like student government, public affairs forums, campus newspapers, other media, etc. One can be influential in campus decision-making bodies, which are always seeking volunteers, by simply showing up and becoming involved in their work.

Your Campus Ministry's dedication toward compassion should not fall on too few shoulders. Overextended students tend to burn out after a while. Get many students involved and pay attention to the development of new leadership who can continue the effort when their older colleagues graduate.

Encourage students to be involved in trainings and Chapters to learn for themselves.

Consider inviting local legislators and candidates to your Campus Ministry as part of a forum to discuss issues important to you such as health care or funding for secondary education. If you are not sure how to do that, contact the office and we will help you to set that up. office@virginiainterfaithcenter.org

Coming soon, all new resources!

Coming soon, all new Policy Briefs

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