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Grants in Higher Education

TEAGLE FOUNDATION GRANTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

GRANTS FOR RELIGIOUS WORK

February 2007

Social Science Research Council (SSRC)
Dissemination of "What College Teachers Should Know about the Religious Engagements of Today's Undergraduates"
Project Leader: Jonathan VanAntwerpen

$23,500 over 3 months. Under the auspices of a 2006 Teagle Foundation grant, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) researched and produced a pamphlet on "What College Teachers Should Know about the Religious Engagements of Today's Undergraduates." Following up on that project, SSRC has now developed—in consultation with the Foundation—a two-pronged plan for publication and dissemination of the work. First, a complete version of the pamphlet—crafted as a series of short, self-standing pieces—will be available on the SSRC website. It will be linked to suggestions for further reading, as well as to appropriate essays on the web forum designed for the project. Appearing alongside the pamphlet will be a range of bibliographic materials. The second piece of the dissemination plan involves a shorter, printed pamphlet that will serve as a stand-alone discussion piece and a form of publicity for the web-based version. SSRC plans to actively publicize the work through mailings of the short pamphlet, email marketing, and other forms of advertising.

February 2006

Social Science Research Council (SSRC)
"What College Teachers Should Know about the Religious Engagements of Today's Undergraduates"
Project Leader: Jonathan VanAntwerpen

$40,000 over 6 months. Religion has come to the forefront of education today because of its more prominent role in the public sphere, because of the push for teaching to take students' religious commitments seriously, and because the pattern of religious engagement among undergraduates is changing. Yet college teachers and students often find themselves positioned differently on this issue. Teachers can be surprised by the religious engagements their students bring into the classroom and they may miss important religious components of their students' intellectual lives when students do not bring them up in class. Students, on the other hand, at times feel that teachers do not welcome discussions of religious issues and are not receptive to religious perspectives.

To address this set of issues, SSRC will review existing authoritative research to prepare a short and accessible pamphlet for college faculty and administrators, focusing on students' religious lives and beliefs and summarizing their knowledge of religion more generally. In surveying the current state of knowledge regarding student attitudes and experiences, perspectives and practices, understandings and activities, the aim is neither to adjudicate between competing claims in the literature, nor to initiate new research, but rather to draw on existing scholarship in order to provide a clearer sense of the shape, scope, and substance of students' religious engagements. The pamphlet will also include suggestions for further reading.

Click here for an interview with SSRC president Craig Calhoun and principal investigator Jonathan VanAntwerpen.