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UU Campus Ministry Group

The following is a list of the “types” of campus groups present in the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) and suggested first-step recommendations for making the group stronger, more visible, welcoming for newcomers and sustainable longterm. The first part is a general assessment of where the specific “type” of group tends to be. The second is a short list of recommendations meant to be a foundation for the group to ensure is in place before more organizing takes place.

Getting Started with your UU Campus Ministry

As you launch your group, the first few meetings will set the tone.
Many students come just to check it out…maybe only once.
How you and your team treat visitors will help bring them back.
Plan out your first few meetings ahead of time.
Map out your vision as a team, including a lot of interaction.
Your enthusiasm and a clear purpose will go a long way in the first few meetings!

Keep going:

Purpose + Variety + Involvement = Momentum

Purpose: A Passion and plan to reach students.

Variety: Meetings, which differ week to week.

Involvement: Every student has a role.

Consider a three week rotation of meetings to maximize your impact.

Short Worship Service
Group Building Activity
Social Justice Event or Service

Each week’s meeting has a carefully chosen purpose and a different format.

Campus Based (Student-Run) Campus Group

By Rev. Mary Ann Macklin

Overview: Student run groups are most common, catching on like wildfire and disappearing like a beautiful rainbow. Size fluctuates from three or four committed members to inspirational meetings of twenty, which shine bright but then fade quickly.

Leadership: Students, often freshman and sophomores trying to get something started, many after leadership experience in Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUU). Sometimes there will be juniors, seniors and graduate students involved, however they tend to be busy and cannot always dedicate necessary time to maintaining a consist campus group. Turnover is high with students generally staying active for one or two years.

Structure: Often meet weekly at smaller and generally private colleges, on campus at a central location such as the chapel or student center. Meetings tend to start late and end late and the activities tend to be social, such as a group check-in. Groups may meet for dinner from time to time or lunch after services at the local congregation. Group tends to be younger, freshman and sophomores.

Communication: The email communication may be held by an individual and thus at-risk of being lost or corrupted, yahoogroups.com or a campus listserv may be used. There are generally no regular consistent announcements nor general tradition of welcoming new comers and doing outreach for new members. There is a lot of re-creating the wheel as the organizational memory is lost to short-term and burned out student leaders.

Congregation Connection: Generally there is no direct congregation connection, the congregation board is not aware of the campus group, the minister or other church staff may have loose knowledge but if so it will only be of the leaders and not of the general members of the group. There is usually no money from the congregation and students who show up at church and don’t know about the campus group are not informed about the campus group because the church greeters/staff are not orientated to do so.

Recommendations:

Leadership:

Select positions each year in the Spring for the following year, unfilled positions may be selected in the Fall after school starts. Establish Co-Chairs, Church Liaison/Secretary and Communications Coordinator to start. Add on Webmaster, Outreach and Treasurer as needed. Set expectations of one-year terms ending in the Spring.
Schedule meetings every other month for the “leadership” to meet for one or two hours. Check in about the (a) vision for the group, (b) upcoming activities, (c) new leadership transition.

Structure:

Plan to meet on a regular schedule that is easy to remember and inform other students about, and if you plan to meet weekly figure out which weeks where you may want something special to happen (i.e. holidays) or cancel the meeting (i.e. finals/midterms). Generally meeting twice a month (i.e. 1st and 3rd [ same day] or 2nd and 4th) is a great foundation.
Work to organize events that touch on spirituality/worship, justice/social action and community building/fellowship at least once each term.
Keep a regular, public meeting space for your group so it is easy for newcomers and people who drop in from time to time to attend.
Subscribe your members to cm-l @ uua.org the UUA campus ministry announcement list.

Communication:

Set up free email list with the Unitarian Universalist (UU) Young Adult Network where you moderate and manage the list but it is easy for people to find you. The list will be easy to pass to the next moderator in your group as well, and remain centralized and supported by the UU Young Adult Network through any transitions. Email ya-cm @ uua.org to set this up with the preferred list name and the member’s email you wish to add.
Register your group at ConnectUU.com the online directory of UU Campus & Young Adult Groups.
Host an information table (i.e. tabling) at freshman orientation week, student group fairs or other events where you can have a free table. Ask the local church for their banner, have a clipboard for people to sign up, borrow some UU books from members or the church to have on display, and have a flyer about your group with upcoming meeting dates, time, location and contact information.

Congregation Connection:

Request a Board Liaison and budget. Three hundred dollars is a good start for things like monthly pizza meetings, copies, scholarship to district campus/young adult events.
Invite your Board Liaison or other designated church contact to meet with your group at least once each term.

Congregational Based Campus Group

Overview: Becoming more common as the UUA and Districts take an active interest in developing a “campus ministry movement”, these groups are more consistent than Student-Run groups and tend to be more welcoming of new comers. New UU’s also connect with these groups more regularly as there is a foundation with the congregation involvement for people who are exploring or seeking Unitarian Universalism (i.e. a connection with ministry, minister or other religious professional at the congregation). These groups sometimes experience tension between the adult congregation and student organizers of the group.

Leadership: Students and congregation member’s work together for a successful campus ministry and share leadership. Congregation takes on more administrative responsibilities such as maintaining the group database, serve as central contact point for newcomers, receive mail from District or UUA Campus Ministry Office, and helps with the transition in leadership by ensuring beginning of year/term events are organized. Leadership may be less centralized in a few people (like the Student Run model). Students still take primary responsibility for group leadership, facilitation and deciding the activities.

Structure: Group ideally meets weekly including a meeting or two during the summer. See Student Run Structure.

Communication: Maintains an email list and not emails in an individuals address book. Has a website and link from the UU Congregation and the District UUA Page. Registered on ConnectUU.com. May have an announcements list with limited posts and a leaders list for chat.

Congregation Connection: Has a designated church contact that reports to the congregation board of trustees. Requests an annual budget, generally $100-$1000. Students participate in church activities at least once a term and help with one Sunday Service each year.

Recommendations:

Leadership:

Have an annual meeting of the group to select the leadership positions (see Student Run groups for suggestions).
Host an annual “visioning” meeting usually the first meeting of the Fall to address and discuss the questions “Why are we here” and “What do we want to do” (good brainstorm). Identify volunteers at this meeting.

Structure:

See recommendations under “Student Run Groups”
Start and end meetings on a set time, generally ninety minutes.

Communication:

See recommendations under “Student Run Groups”
Publicize group in College Student Activities, Congregation Directory, Sunday Program, Bulletin Board and Monthly Newsletter.

Congregation Connection:

Maintain a file with group information, mailing list, and events in the office of the congregation.
Meet with the congregation minister or pastoral care committee each term to introduce group members and to highlight pastoral/spiritual concerns as necessary.

Congregational Commitment

Congregation-Campus Ministry Connection

It is great if you can find and develop a lay leader who will take on the important responsibility of liaison between the church and the campus group. With a clear vision and role you may find someone who was an alumni of the college or campus staff who will be genuinely excited to help coordinate campus ministry.

The stronger the support system your church is for students, the stronger the student involvement will be in your campus ministry. Students are ideal leaders for a campus group, and while they may lack pastoral abilities, they are organizers, facilitators, coordinators, speakers, and the people who can reach out and truly build a campus ministry. Student leadership of your campus ministry needs to be carefully developed; consider partnering students with lay leaders on longer term, institutional projects to ensure that responsibilities are fulfilled. Encourage student involvement to rotate. If you have an abundance of student interest in leadership, ask them to take turns each quarter or semester to help prevent burnout. With larger groups consider larger student involvement.

Cluster Campus Groups

Overview: Clusters have only worked where a congregation or number of congregations are involved. Generally clusters fall into two categories, one is an “area” or “metropolitan” strategy bringing together students from all the colleges to establish a group. These groups may meet at the local congregation and rotate among the college campuses each week or month. The other is an area (i.e. Portland) metropolitan campus ministry committee, which meets every other month to bring together the leaders of the local campus groups to check in, envision collaborate events and support each other.

Leadership: An every other month meeting of one or two members, generally the leaders of the campus groups with a designated chair of the group. May also be a small leadership team, which organizes a monthly or every other month gathering of students from the campuses in the cluster.

Structure: Meetings are set for the entire term, generally three months in advance. A chair or rotating chair is selected, with a designated note taker. If the group acts as a campus group versus a committee of campus leaders, see “Congregation-Based Groups” for more information. May see itself as helping to organize new campus groups.

Communication: An established email list set up on lists.uuyan.org and the group is registered in ConnectUU.com. There is annual communication with all the area congregations about the activities with an encouragement to participate and to refer students to the group (or committee). The Group or Committee organizes information tables at the area colleges during student fairs and orientation. Makes contact with local campus ministry centers on campus.

Congregation Connection: Ideally each congregation in the area will be sponsoring one or more campus groups and a congregation member participates in the group or committee. Each congregation (if there are more than one) contributes money to a pool for the work of campus ministry.

Recommendations:

Leadership:

Designate Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer to start.

Structure:

Meet on a regular schedule.
Rotate so you meet on each college and congregation.

Communication:

Connect with congregational ministers in the area (may be good guest speakers).
Talk with your District Lifespan Consultant or Young Adults in Christian Ministries (YACM) Regional Organizing Consultant.

Congregation Connection:

Have a designated congregation member from each area congregation involved in the group and to serve as liaison to the congregational board of trustees.
Request annual budget from the area congregations ($100-$1000 estimated).
Host a Campus/Young Adult fundraising event or Sunday Service at each area congregation.

Core Group >

Last updated on Friday, April 18, 2008.