Rose Bialk/The Mossy Log
Lewis & Clark is a school quite often associated with being a majority secular. In fact, the Princeton Review rates it No. 2 of U.S. schools with the least religious students. Despite this, students on campus participate in a diverse range of religious and spiritual practices that often go underrepresented. According to The Oregonian, students identifying as religious are a minority on campus. Yet, they strive to create a community to practice and observe their faith.
EJ Bock ’29, the social media manager for InterVarsity, a Christian student organization on campus, shared their initial struggles balancing their Christian faith with their life as an LC student during their first semester last fall.
“I think at first, I was kind of daunted by it. I wasn’t really sure what the spiritual life scene on campus was, so I was just trying to navigate that,” they said. “I was doing things for myself, like my own Bible study and meditating, and it was really hard to balance with my classes at first.”
Bock explained how after they joined InterVarsity they began to feel a stronger sense of community.
“I joined InterVarsity and that has been a really good way for me to practice my faith here on campus and have that designated time every week to do Bible study with my peers,” Bock said.
InterVarsity was established on campus this year as students struggled to find a Christian community following the closure of the former Christian club Pio Christian Fellowship. The group was ended in Spring 2025 due to leadership issues. The club’s presence on campus is a chapter of a national Evangelical ministry, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. The organization has affiliate groups across college campuses in the United States.
“We started a Tuesday evening Bible study, and now we branched out,” Bock said. “But it’s really about the students and their perspectives. It’s also been really great because so many of us have different faith backgrounds within Christianity and even Catholicism. Some people have no experience at all.”
The club has expanded their Bible studies to Mondays and Thursdays as well. They also have focused on increasing their social media presence to attract more students and have hosted events such as movie nights and outings in Portland.
Bock emphasized the importance of making Bible studies accessible to students of various experiences and perspectives within Christianity.
“I feel like we make it very approachable,” Bock said. “We make Bible study accessible for people, and I think that’s what really matters.”
Various other faith and spiritually based student organizations face the reality of accommodating a group of students of diverse backgrounds, cultures and perspectives.
Sammi Weiss ’27, a student leader of Hillel at LC, which is an organization dedicated to Jewish communities on college campuses and embracing Jewish traditions, expressed a similar sentiment.
“I came to the school knowing that I wanted to seek out my Jewish community and be a part of whatever that looked like at Lewis & Clark,” Weiss said. “Everyone comes with a different Jewish background. So I’ve loved being able to experience the diversity of that.”
Weiss described the function and work of Hillel in encouraging and fostering this diverse Jewish culture on campus.
“We host events for different Jewish holidays, different Jewish cultural events, ways to connect in different ways to spirituality or ethnicity or culture. Judaism is such a unique religion in that sense. So there’s really a community behind all of that,” Weiss said.
Weiss described Hillel’s most recent event, Klezmer Shabbat, which took place on Feb. 6. Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, begins before sunset each Friday and ends after nightfall on Saturday. It is customary to usher in the Shabbat with a dinner on Friday night.
“That was a Shabbat that was focused specifically on Jewish Ashkenazi heritage and music. So we brought in a band of local Portland artists, Jewish artists and musicians, to play some awesome Klezmer music, which is (a) type of Ashkenazi music. It was really fun. I had never heard the word ‘Klezmer’ before, so it was fun to experience that in a very specific way,” Weiss said.
Through incorporating various traditions within the diverse scope of Judaism and working with other Jewish student organizations on campus, Weiss expressed how Hillel is seeking to branch out into the expansive LC and broader Portland community.
“Sometimes it can be hard to be Jewish on campus,” Weiss noted. “We are a minority religion, and it’s hard to find our people sometimes, but I think we’ve done a really successful job of connecting with the Jewish student life here and making efforts to work closely with other Jewish student orgs on campus. So we’re not just isolating ourselves within Hillel, but building this broader community, so that we can feel a sense of empowerment, a sense of belonging.”
Nargis Mayel ’28, a Muslim international student, and a member of the Muslim Student Association (MSA), spoke of her own experience as a member of a minority religious group on campus.
“I don’t have a lot of connections with the community outside Lewis & Clark, which can feel a lot more like a little bubble. And again, in terms of numbers, the Lewis & Clark one is not really big,” Mayel said. “I feel like it’s a beautiful circle, but it’s a small circle, really close knit.”
Mayel noted that because of the limited size of the Muslim community in Portland, she and her peers often feel isolated on the school campus. Moreover, because of the small number of attendees at MSA events, she adds that they often feel lacking.
“Sometimes (MSA) does Friday prayers; they arrange it, but the gist of the variety of prayers is to be done in a very large circle with a lot of people, and that’s not happening here. So we are really kind of disconnected from outside Portland,” Mayel said.
On top of being a busy college student, Mayel explained that being a minority also makes the celebration of Muslim holidays, such as Ramadan, often logistically difficult.
“I have so many exams in the first week of Ramadan that I’m kind of hesitant to say I’m excited … The Muslim students that I am with are stressed. I don’t see excitement around me. And that sense of being home and feeling home and making meals and stuff isn’t out there,” Mayel said. “So a lot of people that I heard that are excited about (Ramadan), they definitely have affiliations with religious communities outside of LC.”
Although the school, through the Center for Spiritual Life, has been a place of support for Muslim students, Mayel wishes to see more of a conscious effort on campus.
“In my opinion, I am grateful for whatever they are providing as of now, but I think there’s always room for improvement,” Mayel said. “The thing is, it would be a lot more amazing if it was communal. So like a lot of people would do it, that you would feel encouraged to do it.”
Despite campus secularity, Weiss highlighted how accepted she feels by peers and administration as a religious student.
“There’s a very inclusive, warm and welcoming environment to Lewis & Clark for people of different religions and faiths and there’s a really embracing culture. That makes the college experience all the better,” Weiss said.
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