Mission Statement
We empower each other to engage personally, intellectually, and practically with the full richness of human life. Religion is at the heart of that richness. Religious studies is the interdisciplinary inquiry into how local, national, and global communities live together and engage in big questions of meaning. You are invited to join the community of faculty and students, whether in a class or as a major, to grapple with difference, to embrace challenge, and to imagine a just and sustainable world.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completing the religious studies major, students will be able to…
- Examine the diversity within and across religious traditions, including their practices and teachings, using interdisciplinary tools.
- Draw from historical and contemporary expressions of religions
- Incorporate art, music, and cultural symbols
- Describe the context around the development of religions, specifically how religious peoples and ideals both have shaped—and are shaped by—the experiences and histories of individuals, communities, nations, and regions.
- Analyze the complex relationships between religious communities and the academic study of religion, as captured in the range of statements made about religions, including confessional, prescriptive, descriptive, and analytical statements.
- Use key concepts from the field of religious studies to analyze lived experiences, including one’s own. Responsibly represent the experiences of others in such an analysis.
- Conduct research responsibly within the field of Religious Studies.
- Evaluate different religious and secular values, information, and ideas, including our own already-held assumptions, and apply them beyond the classroom.
Updated 5/13/2024