Two hundred full-time ministries have been closed or significantly reduced, leaving students and others in academic settings with little or no spiritual home. For example, twenty years ago in New York there were at least ten full-time chaplaincies supported by six dioceses.
Today there are only a few ministries with partial support.
Currently in Province VIII there are only two universities with full-time Episcopal chaplains. This is one significant reason that the church now finds itself with few young adults in the pew, leadership positions, or holy orders. One supports constituency-based strategic planning for campus ministry. The other provides financial and technical support for long-term fund development . A national campus ministry gathering in December 1997, called Real Presence, was conceived as a planning effort to stimulate interest in campus ministry and to develop the capacity of the church for work in this important mission field.