For chaplains:
1. Chaplains should undertake training in chaplaincy where it is available, and ask their religion and belief organisations and universities to provide it where it is not.
The vast majority of university chaplains have not received specific training in chaplaincy and this should be remedied. The demands of university chaplaincy are, as this report has demonstrated, distinct, and likely to become more so as student numbers grow, the student population diversifies, and their pastoral support needs become more extensive and complex.
2. Complementing and building upon their commitments to their faith tradition, chaplains should strive to work in ways that are particularly fruitful within universities: via relationship-building, pastoral presence and inclusivity.
The findings illustrate that chaplaincy works best when chaplains: 1) build strong relationships across university departments; 2) build a ministry of presence by offering non-judgemental pastoral support among staff and students; and 3) work with their universities to further a culture of inclusivity and respect. This is a more realistic aspiration for full-time and coordinating/lead chaplains, so chaplains in these positions should consider how such practices can be better embedded in chaplaincy in their universities.
For universities:
3. Universities should appoint chaplains and faith advisors from the diverse religion and belief groups represented among their students and staff.
This may not always extend across the full range of world religions in the UK, but should reflect the spread of orientations to religion (including humanism) among the staff and student body. An annual anonymous survey of staff and student faith identities would ensure that this arrangement is accurately maintained. Universities should, whenever possible, ensure that those they appoint as chaplains are officially recognised by a specific religion or belief group. When this is not possible – e.g. among smaller, less well-resourced traditions – it is especially important that these chaplains are offered relevant support via the appointing university.
4. Universities should increase their funding of chaplaincy.
Chaplains provide a huge amount of voluntary labour to universities. Volunteer chaplains play a vital role, but full-time and paid chaplains are better equipped for chaplaincy work and more embedded within their university structures. Our findings illustrate the range of contributions chaplains make to university life, including supporting students to integrate, progress with their university studies, develop their identities and practice their religion. As student pastoral needs grow, universities increasingly depend on chaplains to supplement other student support services. As religion and belief groups are becoming unable to sustain their current levels of funding for chaplaincy, universities need to increase budgets for chaplaincy across the sector. Universities should, in particular, commit to providing funds for chaplains’ salaries.
5. Universities should provide all chaplains, paid and volunteers, with office and meeting space, IT and phone facilities, a line manager, an activities budget and staff development and training.
This space is vital for chaplains to do effective work with students and staff, for example hosting events for students and offering one-to-one pastoral support. Attention should be given to providing resources that meet the religious needs of the staff and student bodies (e.g. faith-sensitive prayer, kitchen and washing facilities).
6. Universities should recognise the unique, positive and broad-ranging contribution chaplains make to the lives of university students, staff and their wider communities.
They should strive to treat chaplains as integral to the university’s aims and mission, and to balance the need for chaplains to be accountable to the university with the need to exercise their religious role freely. Whichever model of managing chaplaincy universities use (e.g. locating chaplaincies within student services departments, or supporting their autonomy as a separate unit), universities should balance chaplains’ freedom and accountability. Finally, universities should recognise that chaplains’ contribution extends beyond serving the needs of people of faith; chaplains also serve the wider university and the non-religious.
7. Universities should reflect on how their history and institutional identities shape their approach to chaplaincy, and whether their approach needs to change.
Traditional elite universities and Cathedrals Group universities should ensure that chaplaincy provision meets the needs of a religiously-diverse and international student body and is not simply or overwhelmingly Christian. Red brick and post-1992 universities should consider increasing their funding of chaplaincy and its resources (e.g. space, budgets and facilities). 1960s campus universities should consider increasing their funding of salaries for chaplains. Those committed to the idea of universities being thoroughly secular spaces should reflect on whether this approach truly meets the support needs of their students.
For religion and belief organisations:
8. Religion and belief organisations should reflect on how they might recognise and value the major positive contribution chaplains make to the lives of university students, staff and their wider communities.
Chaplains contribute a great deal to university life and are also representatives and ambassadors for their traditions among a large and diverse population. Not all religion and belief organisations appear to have recognised this opportunity or invested in it. Our research suggests university chaplains achieve most when they are trusted and recognised as integral to their religious community’s aims and mission.
9. National religion and belief organisations should, when resources permit, provide management, training and support for their chaplains.
Not all chaplains are affiliated to or authorised by a religion or belief organisation, but there are obvious advantages to this being the case. National organisations should consider what they can do to reinforce systems of training, mentoring and accountability in order to support chaplains more effectively. Religion and belief organisations should, where possible, enable their chaplains to work with local communities and religious groups.
10. The Church of England should reflect on how it might enhance its capacity to support, nurture and develop university chaplaincy in a wider sense.
As this research has demonstrated, the Church of England occupies an influential place in university chaplaincy. Its established status and greater resources relative to other traditions mean it is in a stronger position to steer and support chaplaincy; it often does so via coordinating or lead chaplains. The Church of England should use its influence to uphold voices of religion and belief across the higher education sector, and its resources to build partnerships of trust and mutual respect. This will enable others to speak and be heard, enhancing university chaplaincy for the good of all.
For all parties:
11. Chaplains, universities and religious organisations should reflect on whether and how best to record their impact on universities.
The research in this report demonstrates that chaplains contribute to the life of their universities in a variety of important ways. It is hoped that those sceptical about the value of having chaplains in universities will read about these wide-ranging contributions and revise their view. The future of chaplaincy will be more firmly secured if universities have access to a record of how their chaplains are contributing to their work and life.
12. Staff working in student support and professional services and in chaplaincy should build collaborative working relationships.
Our research highlights how chaplains and university managers sometimes understand chaplaincy in different ways, but when the two groups work together, strong working relationships are built which benefit both students and staff. Induction programmes should provide a starting point for this. Integration of chaplains on university committees is also important. The fostering of religious literacy (for university staff) and university literacy (for chaplains) would both be wise aspirations for universities to embrace if these relationships are to flourish.
13. Universities, chaplains and religion and belief organisations should work together to support and develop religion-specific chaplaincy within a multi-faith context.
Multi-faith and inter-faith approaches within chaplaincy teams are vital, especially as this better reflects the religious diversity of the wider UK and is more likely to foster broader religious literacy. But this religious literacy also needs to acknowledge that chaplains who pursue an approach that is primarily shaped by their own faith tradition are not thereby less qualified or less likely to foster inclusivity and community in the broader university. Part of enhancing the work of chaplains involves respecting their prerogative to work from and for their own religious or belief tradition as part of a wider community of practice.