Although the University of Wisconsin-Madison funds organizations of a variety of religious backgrounds, some campus religious leaders believe understanding different faiths should play a more prominent role.
Sean McNally, president of Badger Catholic, said a broad perspective of world religions is an “essential” part of the liberal arts education promoted by the university, and he would like to see improvements in campus religious engagement.
“There are completely different worlds for how you live out your faith on campus,” McNally said. “If we’re going to do diversity, let’s do it big and embrace that and have discussions.”
Additionally, McNally said he would like to see an increased emphasis on religion from the university, such as including it in the ethnic studies requirement.
“I’d like to see large group discussions in a respectful and open space,” McNally said. “Highlighting religious diversity more would be something easy to do and give a lot of students a much broader perspective on differences.”
Professor of history and religious studies Charles Cohen also said religious understanding should play a bigger role, adding he believes the university’s religious diversity efforts are “feeble and lacking.”
“Religion as both a category of diversity and a topic of conversation is virtually absent from all of the official student initiatives that this university undertakes,” Cohen said. “It’s swept under the rug.”
However, Cohen, who also serves as the director of the Lubar Institute, which promotes understanding of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, said he is hesitant to force religious learning on students through requirements.
“The importance of exposing students to a knowledge of religion is really important,” Cohen said. “I’m just not sure that mandating it is the most effective way.”
Instead, Cohen said the university needs to move away from a culture that has “a built-in bias against discussing religion” through a bottom-up effort from organizations like the Lubar Institute.
Cohen said this is shown through the institute’s fellows program, which helps students learn to discuss and engage with a variety of world religions.
“We’re training them in the skills to be able to discuss religion and religious diversity in the 21st century,” Cohen said.
