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Higher Education
With 44% of 17-30 year olds now participating in higher education, Salisbury Diocesan Board of Education acknowledges that chaplains in higher education are key agents of God’s mission as they work with and within their institutions alongside people of all faiths and none. The Higher Education institutions in the Diocese are:
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Bournemouth University
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Bournemouth & Poole College
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Weymouth College
The Church of England must continue to provide a comprehensive system of chaplaincy if we are further to develop the relationships which exist, for the mutual benefit of the Church, between the higher education sector and the wider world.
In his Oxford University Commemoration Day Sermon at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford on 20th June 2004, the Archbishop of Canterbury called on universities to revert to their tradition of learning.
"The reasonable society is ... one in which we know how to talk with each other, how to negotiate, to challenge, to argue coherently about what is good for human beings as such. The challenge to any institution of higher learning these days is to draw out these public dimensions of the intellectual life... (the) Church might properly say: 'If there is any commitment in the university to the nourishing of public discourse and public service, it has to have a serious place for the discussion of the shape of a just common human life - which involves, unavoidably, the religious question of what it is that human beings are 'involved' with over and above their material or personal or professional or national identities."
The results of a series of nationwide consultations on chaplaincy in Higher Education and Further Education found that "chaplaincy is at the cutting edge of mission, discerning the presence of God in daily life and finding a new language in which to explore key issues with non-churchgoers of all ages"
Chaplaincy is a ministry that helps institutions; staff and students face life and all its difficult questions. It should seize the opportunity to reach out to 18-30 year olds at a very formative time in their lives, people whom the Church otherwise finds it very hard to reach.
Salisbury Diocese has many models of chaplaincy and all welcome diversity, supporting people of many faiths and none, they are committed to -
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Friendship and Support.
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Faith and Spirituality.
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Peace and Justice.
Onwards and Upwards
