Compromise

So here is the official announcement that chapel would become assembly (which was later to become forum). Clearly it is written with sensitivity towards the college faculty and staff as well as the UCC, but also as piece that makes it clear to any member of the community that Ursinus is in period of permanent change.

“ ‘For at least a decade there have been groups evaluating chapel at both a student and faculty level,’ explained Dr. Hinkle to a Weekly reporter. “At times the administration has appointed groups to evaluate it. The groups usually divided themselves into one part that felt chapel had a historic and contemporary value and that some form of worship went hand in hand with campus education. The other group felt that a student can be required to sit but not to worship.”

Not only Ursinus but sister United Church of Christ colleges have been contending with the same controversies and compromises have resulted. Ursinus has also made a compromise. A variety of ideas were considered but the result of the administrative compromise was to require the UC students to attend chapel once a week with one day set aside for voluntary worship. The required service which will be known as assembly one and two will hold a cultural and universal appeal. The voluntary service will be for those who want to reflect religious beliefs and spend fifteen minutes in devotion. No one will be required to be offended.

More Speakers Possible

The new system might also result in a greater number of different speakers since chapel will not be designated as strictly religious or cultural. Rev. Creager makes it an effort to get a broad representation of the faculty but perhaps the ordained minister feels most comfortable in chapel and this speaks more frequently.

The question of why Ursinus has chapel service has been asked. A belief held on the Ursinus campus is that the United Church of Christ grants funds on this stipulation. This is entirely untrue. Ursinus wants to express a church relatedness. This is something all colleges do for themselves. A chapel service is a very good way to do so. The decrease in required chapel services is not an indication that chapel is to be abolished but that a compromise for quite some time was being called for and an effective one was made.”
( Hinkle Calls Chapel Cutdown “Compromise”; Promises Cultural Emphasis in Future, by Loretta Wagner, page 4, Ursinus Weekly, Vol LXVI, No. 7, March 2, 1967)

Dr. Hinkle, a professor in the Philosophy department (and also a reverend!), raises a fascinating point about where Ursinians tended to fall on the topic of compulsory chapel. He does not, however, seem to consider those who believed that a regular gathering of the community would be beneficial to all involved even if it did not require any sort of religiousness (similar to the positions that Feierman and Frost took in their letter to the editor). This issue resolves itself as the piece acknowledges that compromises must be made.

Also worthy of note is the bit about how the assemblies will hold “cultural and universal appeal” and that “no one will be required to be offended.” Perhaps the changes to the program made the regular gatherings more culturally relevant and less offensive, but, as with any administrative change, there were certainly some unhappy students left over after the new program went into effect. I would find it hard to take seriously those students who dismissed the little (and in some cases big) changes that were made to the Ursinus program as too little too late. Although the nature of the College is to be ever-changing with every generation of students that comes through, it is hard to ignore that there are some things that must be worked into (or out of) any program slowly in order to avoid a mutiny from one campus group or another.

Now we come to the part about the rumors that surround chapel. At such a small institution there are always rumors about funding and where it comes from, but this is a particularly fascinating one. The question I initially had when I read it wasn’t whether or not it was true but who it came from and which side it was meant to work for. There are good arguments for its origin on all sides of the debate (I do believe that it would be wrong to assume that there were only two), but I don’t think it was the doing of a group that had any sort of strong belief in the issue one way or the other. I strongly suspect that it had more to do with students who were routinely kept in the dark as the administration and a very select number of students hashed out what was really going on…so really it was no different than the rumors we hear around campus today about various administrative things.

The last bit of the article – the very, very last sentence – appears to be put in place to appease those who feared the total secularization of the school and an eventual disaffiliation with the UCC. Although the changes to chapel were called a compromise, I wonder if any member of the community really thought that the gradual whittling away at the tradition would yield any sliver of hope for the survival of the program.