Cult activity on college campuses will involve more students in the next five years so residence hall leaders need to be prepared.
So says Russell K. Elleven, associate director of residence life at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. He co-authored a study, "Residence Halls and Cults: Fact or Fiction?" which examines the issue. That study appears in the Fall 1998 issue of The Cultic Studies Journal.
"It's known that first-year students are targets for cults since they face the challenges of adapting to their new surrounding, taking on new academic responsibilities and developing new relationships," says Elleven. "In addition, national research has shown that residence halls are a prime cult recruiting ground and that cult members have been known to walk through the hallways of some colleges' residence halls on the weekends to find lonely students. Recruiters for cults are very cognizant of students' vulnerabilities."
Elleven points out that these issues reach across the nation. His study sought to assess 414 chief housing officers' perceptions of the prevalence of cult activity in residence halls, both with students and staff, by using a questionnaire. A secondary issue was to discover if any training concerning cults was being conducted for staff in residence halls.
"These individuals are in a unique position to see first-year students struggle with the need to belong. Sometimes this need leads to the college student joining a cult," says Elleven.
The respondents were nearly evenly divided represented from both public and private institutions and were situated in varied regions of the United States. Cults were defined as groups having a close allegiance to a charismatic leader, an inordinate preoccupation on the part of the group with the attainment of money, and the use of behavior modification practices and brainwashing techniques to convert and retain members.
The types of cults that chief housing officers reported on campuses included the following: religiously affiliated (74 percent), satanic (12 percent), witches and magic (7 percent), political (3 percent), gangs (3 percent), and military (1 percent). Some of the cults specifically identified by chief housing officers were: The Boston Movement (International Churches of Christ), the Unification Church, The Way International, Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hare Krishna, Maranatha, Mormonism, Church of God, Universal Church, and Branch Davidian (2 percent).
Elleven points out that studies by other researchers shows that cults are potentially dangerous to all students regardless of upbringing. A 1992 study on cults by another researcher reported that 27 percent of the cult members interviewed were undergraduates when they joined their groups.
"Many religious ideals and attitudes change for individuals during the college years. Cult ideologies are often at least partially based on the beliefs of mainstream religions so students may then fell they are becoming more religious when, in fact, they are joining a cult," says Elleven.
Developmentally, students in the late teens and early twenties are resolving developmental issues as they move toward adulthood and may be more susceptible to cult influence as a means of resolving these issues. For these reasons, Elleven says, college students are particularly vulnerable to the cult recruiter.
A majority, 62 percent, of the chief housing officers believed that a student in their residence hall system would be involved with a cult within the next five years. Only 50. 3 percent of the respondents stated that their institution spends enough time on staff training related to cults.
"Residence life staff, and particularly resident assistants, can be effective in combating cult issues on campuses through the use of educational programs," says Elleven. "The results indicate a possible need across the nation to include cult awareness training to better prepare housing staff when they are confronted with students or cult members on campuses."
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Editors: If you would like to speak with Elleven about these issues, he's at 817-257-7865 or [email protected]. Please call Steve Infanti ([email protected]) of Dick Jones Communications at 814-867-1963 if you would like a copy of the article.
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