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PSU's center for religion

By Elaine Hughes

PSU College of Communications

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. (April 28, 2008) -- Beer, football and religion.

Most people would think these three things could not co-exist.
But Penn State University bucks this train of thought. This fall, Penn State packed Beaver Stadium for its victory over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, earned the No. 6 slot on the Princeton Review's ranking of party schools, and allowed Princeton and Georgetown to come observe their spiritual center.

"We've also taken calls from the Washington Post," said Bob Smith, executive director of the Frank and Sylvia Pasquerilla Spiritual Center. "We get a lot of media attention. Just the other day a television station from Altoona came to talk about religion and the upcoming presidential election."

Five years ago, Penn State decided that it needed more room for religious services and added more than 20,000-square feet onto the Eisenhower Chapel.

Now housing about 60 religious groups, the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center is the United States' largest multi-faith center on a public university campus.

In the most recent Penn State Pulse Survey, more than 80 percent of students said they considered themselves either spiritual or religious. About 3,000 students use the spiritual center every week, said Wolfgang Bruckner, the night and weekend manager.

No public funds were used to build the center because of the separation of church and state, and the center is still run on donations only from private individuals, said Smith.

Smith also said that many times, Penn State has been ahead of other universities in providing for the spiritual needs of its students. For example, two years ago, the University of Michigan-Dearborn announced they planned to spend $25,000 to install two footbaths for their 800 Muslim students, one of the largest Muslim populations in the country.

"But we already had these footbaths four years prior," he added.

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