Interfaith Fellows Program
The Interfaith Fellows Program trains up to fifteen undergraduate students to become more knowledgeable about different religious traditions and more skilled at communicating with people from other religious backgrounds. We want to equip our fellows so that they can play an important part in working out the mechanics of religious pluralism and interfaith discourse within civil society. We see our fellows becoming an interfaith avant-garde who might serve as leaders in an ever increasingly interconnected global world. We seek to provide them (and eventually other students whom they help involve in campus interfaith events and programming) with the knowledge and skills to surmount the barriers of religious difference and to become interfaith leaders in whatever career trajectories the future might hold for them.
During their yearlong fellowship the fellows will:
- Have meaningful encounters with people of other religious traditions.
- Honor their fellow students’ religious background, culture, and values, and respect their otherness.
- Approach different religious traditions both intellectually and experientially.
- Explore, interpret, and understand different religious ideas, acts, and practices towards social justice.
- Become more self-aware of their own religious beliefs and values.
- Develop their interpersonal and communication skills.
- Gain awareness of major religious traditions and their crucial role in global developments.
- Identify additional opportunities for interfaith engagement that would help sustain the CRGC’s efforts towards more interfaith awareness and collaboration on campus.
Fellows will provide three short written assessments of their yearlong experience.
Interdisciplinary Religion Group
The Interdisciplinary Religion Group (IRG) is an informal working group of graduate students and faculty members whose interests involve the study of religion. Our hope is to provide a forum where participants can workshop research-in-progress, discuss theoretical and practical issues involved in the academic study of religion, and form connections across departments at UW-Madison. As our name suggests, we welcome participants from across the humanities and social sciences. The IRG aims to hold monthly meetings.
If you are interested in receiving regular updates about the activities of the IRG, please contact one of the coordinators: David Schulz or Dr. Eric Carlsson.
Please see the events page for the upcoming meetings.