Leveraging Christian Study Centers for a Flourishing World

Discourse about religion and its bearing on the big questions that higher education has historically investigated is largely absent from America’s elite universities. Accompanying this shift over the past 75 years is the sense, in many sectors, that the modern university has lost its spiritual and moral direction. We believe the program outlined in this proposal could achieve consequential change. Pathway One of our plan is centered at Upper House, a Christian study center at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and serves as a top-down and bottom-up prototype for reigniting religious and spiritual inquiry at an R1 university. Pathway Two—a broadened application of Pathway One—offers pilot grants to eight like-minded Christian study centers located at other elite American universities to support innovation and determine strategies that reestablish discourse about religious and spiritual matters on campus. Collectively, these pathways set the stage for further investment to affect institutional change at top tier universities through the growing Christian study center movement. Upper House requests $234,000 over 24 months to fulfill these objectives. To support our work, we will host a visiting theologian, who will participate in both pathways’ activities. We will also create one science and faith student cohort, and two faculty cohorts in Madison that will investigate how—past and present—religion and spirituality influence campus life, teaching, and research at the University of Wisconsin. Faculty cohort outputs will vary, but will include at least one publication and a history of religious engagement at the university. We will also host two summits convening representatives from eight study centers who will apply for up to eight $7,000, 15-month grants. All of these activities will result in a culminating conference and a series of video and print resources. Collectively, these activities will identify human and intellectual resources and strategic prototypes.