The staff and student leaders of the Sheil Catholic Center want more students to walk through their doors.
“We have a really great core of students. But let me say emphatically, I think we can draw in more,” said Chaplain and Director John Kartje. “That’s really been at the top of my agenda since I’ve gotten here.” Kartje started at Sheil in July.
The Steering Council of Sheil held a student forum March 2 in Norris University Center to generate input from students.
“Some of the other faith-based groups on campus frankly do a better job at some of their outreach,” he said. “The dorm presence is something I’d like to see grow, as well as in the Greek system, to make students who are there and are Catholic comfortable to talk about their faith in a very casual but committed way.”
Steering Council President Christine Ritchey said she and other members developed the idea for the forum throughout the year.
“It really stems out of always having the same conversation at our board meetings about how we can get more students at our events, and why aren’t more students coming to different things, and what can we do to get more people in the building,” said Ritchey, a first year graduate student in the School of Communication.
Ritchey and Francisca Rebelo, Steering Council vice president, said there were about 15 students at the forum, and they discussed a variety of topics.
“This was the first (forum), but there will be more,” Ritchey said. “We wanted to make it really general and let people bring up whatever they wanted to bring up.”
Rebelo, a Weinberg junior, said students expressed a variety of ideas for the future, including issues in liturgy and programming.
“People talked a lot about wanting to have more discussion about ‘hot button topics’ that I think people are sometimes afraid to talk about and the Catholic Church often gets people very riled up about,” she said. “Things like abortion, gay marriage, but also more generally, the complication of being Catholic in the world that we live in and how you navigate through what sometimes are contradictory messages.”
Ritchey and Rebelo said there were no staff members present at the forum, though Kartje said this was an effective way to understand what changes to make. He said the Council has not yet made an official report of specific changes, but they are working diligently based on student feedback.
Students involved with Sheil “were happy with what’s here,” Kartje said, but before the forum most ideas came from staff members rather than students.
The Steering Council has an election this spring and will hold several more forums with specific focuses, such as liturgy, music and undergraduate programs.
“We really are interested in hearing what people have to say, and we really are taking it to heart,” Ritchey said. “It’s not like we’re going to listen to you and not do anything about it. We’re interested in making Sheil the place students want it to be, because it really is for them.”[email protected]
