College students across Arkansas can now take a more active role in planning and leading diocesan Catholic Campus Ministry events through the Student Ministry Advisory Committee, said Deacon Richard Papini, diocesan director of campus ministry.
“SMAC is a way for students to take more ownership in planning statewide events while building their own campus activities,” Papini said. He also leads the CCM programs at Conway’s University of Central Arkansas and Hendrix College.
Currently, 19 students are on SMAC with plans to include more students as interest grows, said Kerry Evans, co-chair of SMAC and a sophomore at Hendrix College.
In addition to giving students more of a leadership role, Evans said she hopes SMAC would unify campus ministry programs across the Diocese of Little Rock.
“For me, SMAC is a movement towards unity and cooperation with the many Catholic campus ministries around the state,” Evans said. “A trademark of the Catholic faith is its universality. I see SMAC as an effort to live out this universality within our campus ministries.”
Evans said she and a few other students approached Papini with concerns about how diocesan CCM events were planned.
“We were concerned about the confusion involved in the current method of planning these events. From there, SMAC was created in hopes to improve this situation,” she said.
Prior to SMAC, diocesan CCM events were planned on a rotating basis by the various campus ministry programs, Papini said. Of these, the main event is the Campus Ministry Convention held each February or March in Little Rock.
For now, any college student who is active in his or her Catholic faith and wishes to be on the committee may join SMAC, Evans said. The selection process for members is very informal.
“We began by sending an e-mail out to all of the campus ministers throughout the state in hopes they would invite their students to attend,” she said. “We were very impressed with the turnout.”
After this year, the group will determine if a more formal application process is needed, Evans said.
Papini said 18 people from six campuses attended the organizational retreat held in September at St. John Center in Little Rock. The second meeting was held Oct. 20 at the same location with 15 students.
In between meetings much of the group’s work is done through e-mail, Evans said.
Papini said the group hopes to model itself on the Youth Advisory Council currently in place for high school youth ministry students in Arkansas.
“The Youth Advisory Council is made up of 11th- and 12th-grade students from parishes across the diocese,” Liz Tingquist, diocesan director of youth ministry said.
“YAC is responsible for all the diocesan-wide programming that takes place during the school year. With my direction and the direction of the Adult Advisory Council, they are responsible for developing prayer services, skits and also for the leadership at all our events,” she said.
Tingquist said she met with the college students to brainstorm ideas on how SMAC can provide leadership to diocesan events at the September SMAC meeting.
“I believe we need better continuity between our high school CYM programming and our CCM,” Tingquist said.
Papini said the two SMAC meetings focused on planning three diocesan-wide events: a fall retreat at Subiaco Abbey, Nov. 9-11; a right-to-life event, Jan. 19-20; and the next CCM convention, Feb. 23-24.
The right-to-life weekend would be an event for college students similar to CYM’s Weekend Extravaganza for high school students, Papini said. It would be an overnight event before the Mass and March for Life in Little Rock.
Though the CYM and CCM events would happen simultaneously, they would be in different locations with different leadership and programs, Papini said.
On Sunday, Jan. 20, everyone would then come together for the Mass for Life at the Statehouse Convention Center followed by the March for Life to the State Capitol, he said.
For more information, call Papini at (501) 336-9091 or e-mail him at catholic@ cyberback.com.
For a list of campus ministry locations statewide, visit the diocesan Web site at www.dolr.org/offices/campusministrylocations.php.
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