Using spiritual intelligence to lead the way on campus.

Spirituality is a growing topic on conference programs as higher education professionals realize that our senses of meaning, value and connection vitally affect our work. The National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) conference in St. Louis MO in March 2003 offered more than a dozen sessions on spirituality.

Schools that once treated students as disembodied brains are catching on that students bring their whole selves to college: physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. The same is true of faculty and staff.

"It's the whole student who comes to our care on campus, but we tell workers to leave the emotional and spiritual self out of their work. That's crazy!" said Dr. Judy Rogers, associate professor in the department of educational leadership at Miami University in Oxford OH.

"Who we are is just as important as what we do," she said. Spiritual intelligence can enrich our interactions with students and colleagues, our attitudes toward "other" and our decision-making and problem-solving abilities. An article in WIHE (July 2002) described her graduate seminar on spirituality and leadership at Miami University. At this year's NASPA meeting she focused on how to assess, develop and apply one's own spiritual intelligence in the higher education workplace.

What is spiritual intelligence?

Spirituality involves ultimate concerns. Who am I? Why am I here? What really matters? Private and internal, it is distinct from organized religion, which is outward and public. Aware of how our inner and outer worlds interact, we experience spirituality as a sense of connection to the self, others, the universe and a higher power. Spirituality underlies and integrates our physical, intellectual and emotional selves.

Robert Emmons (The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns, 1999), said spiritual intelligence helps one to: