Even as Anselm House has experienced exponential growth in recent years, our model for Christian formation and faith and learning integration remains the same. In the following reflection, Dr. Andrew Hansen, Program Director, offers a frontline report of some of the highlights from the 2024-2025 academic year.

Just before the presidential election last fall, I was sitting in the library at Melrose Station with about 30 students, packed elbow-to-elbow. We were discussing an important question with a Christian professor from the UMN Law School: How do we love our neighbors by engaging in the political process, while grounding our ultimate hope in Christ rather than politics? In the room were Christians and non-Christians, international students and native Minnesotans, undergrads and graduate students. As you might imagine, the discussion easily overflowed its hour-long allotment over lunch that Thursday afternoon—yet, it was civil, intelligent, and full of humility and curiosity. What a contrast to the headlines from universities all across the nation!

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This event was just one of approximately 350 events that Anselm House hosted on campus this past academic year––gatherings ranging from facilitated teatime conversations with students and faculty to large public forums with visiting scholars. While these conversations involved all sorts of participants and spanned a huge variety of topics and questions, they nevertheless cohere into a programmatic strategy that supports the holistic growth of participants. Consider the familiar image of plant growth as a helpful metaphor for this process. Through hospitality and outreach (primarily, but not exclusively, at Melrose Station) we welcome university members into the Anselm House community, sowing seeds through an invitation to join us in exploring big questions in light of the Christian faith. Some of those seeds will germinate, as university members delve deeper within our Christian education and formation programs, growing roots in the Christian faith that will nourish their whole lives (including their pursuit of knowledge here at the U). As participants mature in Christ and in their ability to integrate their faith with all areas of their lives, we support them as they bear the fruit of public witness and righteousness, a Christian faith integrated with particular fields of study at the University. The following highlights depict just some of the work done in each of these three programmatic areas.
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The seeds sown this year were many! Since last September, nearly 5% of the UMN student body (or roughly 2,800 unique students) has walked down our stairs at Melrose Station to a warm greeting at our welcome desk. Three years ago, this number would have seemed impossible. But we’re now situated at one of the busiest intersections on campus, and the University is responding to our invitations. We hosted 20,000 visits to Melrose Station this academic year––almost double the number of visits in the 2023-2024 academic year. Many of these guests become regulars, greeted by name as they arrive. All guests receive invitations to join us for daily prayer, afternoon teatimes, weekly Wisdom Waffles conversations, and so much more.

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Once seeds have been sown and allowed to germinate, substantial growth can occur. Many of our programs offer foundational Christian education for members of the UMN community, helping them grow healthy roots for the purpose of Christian faithfulness at the University and beyond. For students, our most sustained opportunity for Christian education is our Fellows Program, a multi-year curricular program designed to help students answer the question, “How do I live well in God’s story?” Eighty-five fellows participated this academic year, meeting every other week for dinner discussions with their cohort. Within these cohorts, composed of no more than 12 students with one or more instructors, fellows can form deep friendships that are key to the transformative change in their lives. This year, ten student fellows pursued an even deeper level of formation through our River House Fellows residential community, where students commit to a shared life together. Looking back on the year, one student said that Fellows “has enabled me to continue to engage intellectually with my faith as well as connect with other students serious about living faithfully in their vocations.”
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We recognize that the formation and education we foster at Anselm House––with its focus on the connection of faith and knowledge––is just one part of the nourishment that Christians at the U need, which is why we partner with local churches and campus ministries in their spiritual care for students, faculty, and staff. And for this reason, we were delighted that 100% of our student fellows who responded to our end-of-year survey identified a local church in which they regularly worship. Over 35 campus churches and Christian ministries are part of the Gopher Christian Network, a network that Anselm House facilitates to resource and connect campus ministries for greater impact at the U. All Gopher Christian members have access to Melrose Station for hosting their events, making it a home base for many campus ministries at the U.

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As students and faculty grow in Christian character and in their ability to connect their faith with their work and studies, we see many of them bearing fruit that serves the wider university and world. Christian members of the UMN community––especially faculty, academic staff, and grad/professional students––yield such fruit in faith-informed and service-minded teaching, research, and scholarship in various fields of knowledge. This January, our Center for Faith & Learning launched a major initiative in healthcare, led by a full-time director, Dr. Phil Letizia. In addition to regular meetings to discuss the challenging intersections between faith and healthcare with students and faculty, the initiative hosted a retreat for students, faculty, and healthcare professionals on the importance of silence, solitude, and the discipline of listening. And this August hosted its second-annual Healthcare Symposium on Christian approaches to mental health. Beyond this initiative in healthcare, this spring we convened a faith and business community through an event that drew together over 200 students and business leaders for networking and a panel discussion on the relationship between people, purpose, and profit. The Center for Faith & Learning also hosted distinguished visiting scholars for major public events that engaged questions in artificial intelligence, mathematics, Russian literature, and other fields. All of these visits also featured small, invite-only events with UMN faculty/staff from a variety of faith backgrounds to engage in sustained dialogue with Christian perspectives. We also launched a new lecture series––the Johannson Lecture in Global Christian Thought––focused on bringing global Christian perspectives to the University of Minnesota. Finally, the Center for Faith & Learning is collaborating with Christian faculty at the U to connect faith and learning in the classroom. In the fall of 2024, UMN faculty Marie Culhane, John Deen, Paul Capel, and Kyungsoo Yoo taught the course “Food as a Cultural Good” which wove together a Christian moral framework with scholarship on agricultural and food systems. This course was the result of a partnership between Anselm House and Duke University’s Center for Christianity and Scholarship helping faculty develop courses and seminars that combine Christian faith with classroom teaching.

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Amid all this activity, we were also able to contemplate future directions for Anselm House. Behind the scenes, the Anselm House team undertook a strategic planning process with stakeholders that explored 16 different aspects of (or challenges to) our mission. Through this process, we’ve refined a new and bold vision for Anselm House’s future, one in which institutional growth deepens and expands the sizable Christian community that the Lord has brought to the University, a community able to bear fruit in every field of knowledge present here.

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At the end of a year like this, our team feels not only tremendous gratitude but also the weight of responsibility. Anselm House is stewarding an incredible Christian community at the heart of the University of Minnesota; we feel all the challenges of helping students, faculty, and staff grow deep roots and bear fruit amid the distractions, pressures, and anxieties of our present world. Yet we are hopefully sustained by the Spirit, giving thanks to God for the Christian students, faculty, and staff whom we’re able to accompany in their faithful presence here at the U. And we’re deeply grateful to the myriad partners who give of their time and treasure to sustain and nurture this mission. On behalf of the entire Anselm House team, thank you!