Science East was a little more crowded than usual this week when students found that their names had been taped to the walls of the building’s main hallway.
The Christian registered student organization His House Christian Fellowship was behind the prayer wall, which was unveiled on the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 2. Each student’s name was written on a card, along with a brief prayer and an invitation to join the organization for its weekly meetings.
The cards read, “Jesus, we pray your blessings on [insert student name]. Bless their studies, health, and relationships. Let them see your love and truth, and the plan you have for their life. Amen.”
Students were allowed to take down their card if they chose to. But because names were posted in no particular order, taking down one’s card proved difficult, causing traffic and even anger.
This was not the organization’s intent.
“The goal of the project was to simply show God’s love to the people on campus,” said Chad Koch of His House. “God knows everyone by name, so we wanted to provide the SVSU community the scope of what that means.”
Many students were delighted to see that they were being prayed for.
“I think that it’s really fantastic that each student was thought of and prayed over,” said Sonia Roe, a third-year education student and professing Christian. “It is a good example of Christians showing that they care for their fellow students. While it is important for Christians to build relationships with others, we believe this prayer is the most powerful thing we can do.”
It wasn’t just Christian students who appreciated His House’s prayer wall.
“In my opinion, it is a very nice gesture,” said Shawn Schutt, five-year health science student. “While not being religious myself, I appreciate the time they took to remind the students of our University that there are people who care about them.”
The display was not received with unanimous approval. Students took to social media to call out the posting as an invasion of privacy and a publicity stunt.
“I came to the conclusion that it was a marketing technique,” said Ivan Macias, a third-year political science student.. “I am Catholic. … As someone who prays, I don’t need to garner people’s attention. I don’t pray in public or I don’t do things like condemning people for ‘praying’ in the same manner. I am satisfied praying in the privacy in my home, knowing that it’s authentic.”
Lucy Kalinowski, a fourth-year theatre student, was confused by the display.
“Traffic stopped in the hallway,” she said. “I had to weave between people to get to class. Post cards that covered the walls, it was intense and overwhelming. … It was a little eerie, off-putting to say the least. When scanning the wall for my own name, I had a stranger come up to me and quietly ask, ‘Do you know where they got the list?’ She seemed worried.”
Kalinowski’s encounter was not unheard of. While the majority of students seemed to have, at worst, a neutral reaction, some were upset for reasons that have nothing to do with religion.
The names that were posted were not students’ preferred names. As a result, the birth names of some transgender students were publicly displayed, putting them at risk of being outed.
Adjunct faculty member and transgender activist Char Davenport found that troubling.
“Several transgender students told me they felt disrespected and violated,”Davenport said. ”College is hard enough, and to add stress and sleepless nights worrying about personal safety necessarily makes it even more difficult.”
His House’s display was specifically sanctioned by the University, so the organization is not in violation of any posting policy.
Koch explained that members of the organization went to Student Life to ask permission to host an event that was not within the confines of the University’s current posting policy.
“(Bryan Crainer and I) sat down and talked at the end of last semester,” he said. “He explained that we could receive permission to do this one-time event, much like the Optimistic Club puts up encouraging sticky notes occasionally around exams.
“The agreement was that we would post and take down the cards ourselves, as well as ensure that anything that fell off the wall was picked up in a timely manner. We also used blue painter’s tape by request of Campus Facilities.”
Crainer pointed the organization to the Office of Institutional Research to obtain the student directory information. Koch emailed Director Nicholas Wagner, explaining the event and requesting a list of student names.
“He provided us with an electronic copy of the names of everyone who was registered for the winter semester,” he said. “As far as I know, no group had to vote to approve it. No information other than names was provided to us.”
Davenport, however, suggested that the University’s posting policy be reviewed.
“SVSU’s policy should reflect the integrity of transgender students, the concerns they have for acceptance and their own safety,” Davenport said. “This is another indication that SVSU should revisit their policy on what some people call ‘preferred names.’ For a transgender person, it isn’t a preferred name at all. It’s a necessary name, and it is as necessary to their identity as anyone else’s name. SVSU’s policy should reflect the integrity of transgender students, the concerns they have for acceptance and their own safety.”
His House is now aware of this controversy.
“Our list provided did not use preferred names,” Koch said, “Though I do not know how we could have avoided this, as any student who has a preferred name still has to correct rosters [that] professors receive for classes. The privacy issue seems to me more of a reaction to the realization of how accessible basic information is today.”
