From the beginning, the Department of Religious Studies has been committed to excellence in teaching. To a person, everyone on our faculty is invested in teaching. Among us are award-winning teachers: Wabash workshop, colloquy and salon alumni, teaching grant recipients, authors of scholarship on teaching and learning, and facilitators of teaching and learning in religious studies more broadly. We train our graduate teaching assistants how to teach RELS 2001, “Introduction to World Religions,” and watch them flourish in classrooms at Georgia State and beyond.

This semester, four program alumni are teaching with us: visiting Lecturer Dennis LoRusso, visiting instructor Clare van Holm, instructors Catherine Moore and Ed Van Herik. We’ve met to talk about teaching about once a month online, and each time, I have looked forward to hearing my colleagues’ questions and to turning to them with my own. Another alumna, Lauren Cooper, taught as a visiting instructor. Now, as a staff assistant in Religious Studies and Philosophy, she supports our graduate teaching assistants. In a semester that has been unlike any other, it has been a great comfort to know faculty and staff colleagues in Religious Studies see teaching as integral to their work in a public research university.

By the time you read this, the Department of Religious Studies will have unveiled a brand-new website that features the mission statement we wrote in late May. In a workshop funded by a small grant David Bell received from the Wabash Center, Carolyn Medine, director of the Institute for African American Studies and professor of religion at the University of Georgia, facilitated conversations that led to our new mission statement and an accompanying set of department-wide student learning outcomes. Our intention was to align our mission with faculty scholarship and recent program innovations. Once the mission was in place, we worked through a series of student learning outcomes so our majors, minors and graduate students have a clear sense of what they will learn in our courses. By articulating department-wide learning outcomes, we are better prepared to help students articulate the value of studying religions.

Finally, we welcomed an outstanding graduate cohort this fall and have a group of specially dedicated graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) teaching our core course. Our first-year students come from a variety of backgrounds, including nonprofit work, theater, religious studies and language instruction, and their interests span public health, medical ethics, thesis research and nonprofit management. Our GTAs pivoted to teach RELS 2001, “Introduction to World Religions,” online this fall, and in keeping with our commitment to include more and more current materials by Black, indigenous and scholars of color in our curriculum, they have worked with Dr. Bell to update the course. If you or someone you know would like to join our graduate program, learn more about applying here.

In the spring, all Religious Studies courses will be online again. While we’re focused on doing what we can to keep students, staff and faculty safe, we are also beginning to think about how to reimagine department life and revitalize the community when it is safe to be on campus again. In the meantime, take good care.

Warmly,
Dr. Molly Bassett, Chair of Religious Studies