Heidi Solomon cant help but give a hearty laugh when she thinks back to her freshman year at West Virginia University.
Thats because the 25-year-old speech pathology graduate said she encountered a population here that she thought might not have a prayer of ever existing in Appalachia.
Even in a college town.
I remember thinking, �€~Wow, there are Jewish students here,Solomon recalled.I was surprised that there were so many, and I was impressed that they were so active in the faith.
That wasnt the case in her hometown of Claysburg, Pa., where Solomons was the only Jewish family in the tiny central Pennsylvania farming community of 2,000 near Altoona.
There were the occasional feelings of isolation in high school during Christmas, not to mention always having to pack in the car to drive to the closest synagogue on the other side of Altoona, she said.
At WVU , she was no longer alone. Of its total student body of some 28,000 students, 700 of them are Jewishand most of them gravitate toward Hillel House on University Avenue.
Hillel is a gathering point for the students, who hold Shabbat dinners and bagel brunches while observing Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah and other important holidays of their faith.
This fall, Solomon is entering graduate school, even as she embarks on her first professional job as a speech teacher at North Marion High School, some 30 miles from Morgantown in rural Marion County.
Her husband, Deva, is a second-year law student at WVU s College of Law, but even with their busy schedules, the couple last year signed on as co-directors of Hillel, organizing those dinners and gatherings so students have a chance to congregate.
Thats how Deva and I metat Hillel,she said.I wanted to experience everything about college life. I wanted to make new friends. But it was nice at Hillel. It kept me connected with Judaism. It still does.
And staying connected with the faith, the Rev. Shelley Barrick Parsons says, is the whole idea, especially for students away from home for the first time.
Parsons is an ordained Presbyterian minister at Morgantowns Campus Ministry Center, an ecumenical campus ministry that serves WVU s Presbyterian, Baptist and United Methodist populations.
Like Solomon, the Raleigh, N.C., native said she couldnt help but be impressed when she first set foot on campus in the fall of 2003. While major colleges and universities during the fall tend to be ruled by football religion of the pigskin, Parsons saw something different.
She saw students in the pews on Sunday morningwithout Mom and Dad nagging them to be there. She saw those same students out in the community other days, volunteering at soup kitchens, homeless shelters and for other causes greater than themselves.
We always have a talented, caring group of students come through here,she said of her center on Willey Street.Theyre talented and theyre creative and theyre using those talents and abilities for outreach. Thats their ministry, and its really great to see.
Outreachis the word, she said. For the past several years, the Campus Ministry Center has helped organizealternative spring breakministry trips to Chicagos inner city, the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast and other places where there are people in need.
A WVU student looking for faith-based activities on campus need not look far. Along with Hillel and the Campus Ministry Center, more than 20 other groups and organizations represent faiths from Bahai to Baptists, Muslims and Methodists, and all spiritual points in between. (A complete list follows at the end of this release).
There are fun gatherings and nonalcoholic tailgate parties among those groups, and students who wish to combine scholarship with the faith-based social atmosphere may do so in WVU s innovative Program for Religious Studies in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.
The program offers courses on the history and practice of the worlds major religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Near Eastern religious traditions. There are study abroad opportunities, too, and the programs popular Faiths of Abraham course was developed in the days following Sept. 11.
For Marjorie Stromberg, a journalism senior from Reston, Va., it all comes down to faith, family and foundation. The student is active in Hillel House, and she also spent the summer teaching youngsters in Hebrew school at Morgantowns Tree of Life Synagogue.
Ive really gotten to know families in Morgantown from being at Tree of Life,she said,and I know it might sound a little cheesy, but Hillel really has become a second family to me.
For her, she said, it doesnt come down to aJewishthing or aChristianthing. Its more about what feels right in her head and heart, she said.
My faith is just part of who I am,she said,and Ive been able to practice it in this wonderful, open place that is WVU .
*Faith-based student groups at WVU *
Heres a complete list of faith-based student organizations at WVU . For links to the Web pages of each, visithttp://www.wvu.edu/~sos/, the student organizations site, and click on theCampus Orgslink at the left:
- Bahai Campus Association
- Baptist Campus Ministry
- Bible Studies at WVU
- Campus Crusade for Christ
- Campus Light Ministries
- Canterbury Christian Fellowship
- Common Ground
- Christian Student Fellowship
- College Church
- Intervarsity Christian Fellowship
- Latter Day Saints Student Association
- Lutheran Student MovementMen In Action
- Mountaineer Campus Ministry
- Mountaineers for Christ
- Muslim Student Association
- Newman Club
- Presbyterian Student Fellowship
- Sigma Theta Epsilon
- The Rock
- United Methodist Student Movement at WVU
- West Virginia University Hillel
- Young Life