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All Faiths find common ground at Center for Ethics & Religious Affairs

"We have a wall of light and there is a painting on the wall in front of the worship hall based on a cave painting discovered in a cave in Africa. The painting depicts people coming out of a cave into light." -Sharon Mortensen, Director

By Andy Elder, Student Affairs Writer

Walk around Penn State’s University Park campus even for a little while and you’re sure to encounter any number of ethnicities and races. After all, with a student population of more than 40,000, University Park is truly a melting pot.

And while those 40,000-plus students enjoy a diverse list of studies and hobbies, a large portion share a common trait -- a professed and practiced faith.

Every religion possesses its own unique customs and habits, but they all need a place to congregate and worship. Even on a campus as large as University Park, accomodating every religion can be a challenge.

That’s where Center for Ethics and Religious Affairs in the Division of Student Affairs steps in to instill some order.

“We have 60 religious and spiritual organizations. We don’t work with all 60, but all 60 groups can use our space for free,” said Sharon Mortensen, the director of CERA, which is based in the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center.

“It’s a huge challenge. Not all of them want to use our space. Some of them meet in the HUB. Probably 30-35 of them use our space on a regular basis.”

The Pasquerilla Spiritual Center, which was dedicated in May of 2003, is the hub of most of the religious and spiritual activity on campus. But with so many different religious symbols and customs involved, how can one building serve every group?

“When the original design committee met, they decided to keep it symbol free. There is an element of light common to all of our groups, so that was central to the design. We have a wall of light and there is a painting on the wall in front of the worship hall based on a cave painting discovered in a cave in Africa. The painting depicts people coming out of a cave into light. And one discovery we made is that the all-faith chapel that we had before had a weaving in front based on light,” Mortensen said.

So, with a building designed to be accepting to all religions, the next hurdle was how to schedule worship services, meetings, and events.

“So much more space can be used for programming we could use double the space we have and still not meet the needs of everyone. We have a really difficult time fitting in groups that have 250 members. It’s a wonderful problem to have. We’re still able to help them out,” Mortensen said.

“We always schedule worship services first. We think we’ve got that down. We keep the same worship schedule year in and year out. That way, if alumni come back to town and remember the time of a certain service, it remains the same.”

Those services can occur on any day of the week at any time of the year. Scroll down the Holy Days calendar and you’ll find that virtually every week contains a holy day of some kind.

“It appears there could be a religious holiday every day of the year. Some are celebrated in the center, some aren’t,” Mortensen said.

Two of the busiest times come in the fall and spring of every year.

“The Jewish high holy days and Ramadan are in the fall and are practiced here. In the spring, Easter and Passover is a very busy time. And, to complicate everything, there’s a wonderful Penn State tradition of hosting a lot of weddings for Penn State alumni, family members and affiliates,” Mortensen said.

“Just last weekend, we hosted two weddings, two concerts and our usual worship services. And we can accomodate weddings with groups of up to 750 people.”

Accentuating any worship service or wedding is a brand new pipe organ that was dedicated Nov. 12, which is “a wonderful addition to the center,” Mortensen said. The center will host an organ recital series in the spring.

As is often the case, Penn State leads the way in its approach to accomodating the full range of students’ religious needs.

“Penn State was the first public institution to build a spiritual center to meet the growing needs of students and provide for holistic development. The university is not just interested in mental or emotional or physical development, but also religious and spiritual development. And it did it on a voluntary basis. We want people to feel welcome to come in and relax,” Mortensen said.

“Our goal is to make people feel comfortable about different faiths and religions than the one they practice. When students get that first big job we want to help them understand that people may have different holidays or different times of worship or wear different types of clothing. And we want the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center to be a safe and relaxing space for them to spend a couple minutes meditating or a couple of hours worshipping."

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