What if Tufts were to introduce a sixth distribution requirement: religion?
As registration for the spring semester approaches, everyone is thinking about requirements. In order to graduate with a liberal arts degree, Jumbos must complete or bypass of the foundation requirements (writing, world civilizations, quantitative reasoning, and an extensive foreign language/culture option) and also fulfill the University distribution requirements, earning two course credits in five different areas of study (humanities, arts, social sciences, natural sciences, and mathematics).
The idea to make religion a mandatory part of the undergraduate experience at secular colleges has made some headway in the greater academic community. On Oct. 3, a committee of faculty and students at Harvard recommended that core requirements be expanded to include religion.
Tentatively called "Reason and Faith," the new requirement would include subjects such as Charles Darwin and religion and democracy.
While the suggestion of yet another academic obligation is enough to make many Jumbos cringe, some affiliates of the Comparative Religion Department at Tufts see the value in enforcing the study of religion.
"What Harvard is doing makes sense," Chair of the Department of Comparative Religion Joseph Walser said. "Teaching students to think critically about anything is the point of a liberal arts education. Religion is important because it's one area that has been ignored."
According to Walser, religious ignorance can be dangerous. "If you don't think critically about [religion], you fall into old, unhelpful patterns," he said. "Non-critical understandings of religion end up perpetuating patterns of oppression. With a critical understanding, you can break those patterns."
Senior and comparative religion major Erica Brody agreed. "So much violence and conflict results from people not having knowledge about other people's views," she said. "It's hard to dehumanize someone when you understand how they think."
The adoption of a religion requirement by all colleges and universities, Brody believes, would result in a noticeable shift in attitude. "Even the people most opposed to religion would have to acknowledge humanity of people who are radically different from them. You would breed a generation that is more compassionate and more understanding," she said.
Junior Margaux Birdsall, a biology major who is currently taking a course on Hinduism, thinks the incorporation of religion into academics is essential. "I think it's very important to be aware of other religions if we're going to have any hope of creating a community in an international world," she said.
What about the international community at Tufts? Sophomore Aditi Manwani, who is also studying Hinduism this semester, said Tufts' diverse student body makes the study of religion all the more practical.
"Because you're interacting with people from all over the world, it's good to have some knowledge about religions and societies outside your own," Manwani said.
University Chaplain Father David O'Leary agreed: "I would be a strong proponent of the view [that] to know a culture fully is to understand what that culture or people hold as Sacred," he said in an e-mail to the Daily.
According to O'Leary, however, the study of faith is often misunderstood: "Sadly, I think most students confuse studying or learning about a religion or faith tradition with becoming a believer," he said. "The Comparative Religions Department does not teach Faith, we teach an understanding of religious or spiritual traditions."
Brody believes that the study of faith is relevant to both the secular and the religious: "Religion is universal," she said. "It's a part of human nature. Even if you're an atheist, you make a choice not to believe in God."
While many agree that an understanding of religion can be beneficial, fewer advocate for its requirement. At Tufts, curriculum changes must be proposed by a faculty committee.
One objection to a religion requirement holds that it would restrain even more students' flexibility in course selection, something O'Leary understood, though he said that he "welcome[s] the Harvard committee's recommendation for a mandatory course in religion."
"At Tufts I would go a bit slower in making a mandatory requirement. There are already so many distribution requirements to be filled," O'Leary said. Still, he said that it is a "fundamental point that more people should know about religions." O'Leary suggested that students use a Comparative Religion course to help fulfill either the humanities or world civilizations distribution requirement - "not to become a believer, but to see how others think and act because of their own faith or spiritual traditions," he said.
Birdsall offered a solution as well. "It might be nice to have either a world civilization requirement or a religion requirement," she said. In Birdsall's model, each student would make his or her own selection between the two areas of study.
Another possibility would be for the "religion requirement" to take a less traditional and more co-curricular form, such as Tufts' "Pathways to Faith" program. The program, which was launched this year, is aimed toward reducing religious tension, with an emphasis on Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Freshman Keith Hofmann, the project's Christian coordinator, said that "Pathways to Faith" is more conducive to improving inter-group relations than are courses in the comparative religion department.
"It's different from reading a textbook about another religion because you're actually talking to a Jewish, Christian, or Muslim person," Hofmann said.
Still, Hofmann said that the Tufts community would benefit from any kind of religion requirement. "I would say that [the Tufts campus] is very welcoming and tolerant, but at the same time, it's very segregated so that Muslims, Jews, and Christians tend to stay with their groups. I think a class on religion could help to integrate the faith communities," he said.
Rabbi Jeffrey Summit, one of two principal investigators on the grant for "Pathways," said that religion is important because it's visible everywhere: "Different religious traditions have shaped our culture and literature and art and music and politics, and in order to have a deeper understanding of the world, it's very helpful to have a sophisticated understanding of religion," Summit said.
According to Summit, however, a religion requirement is unnecessary. "I wouldn't push to have a religion requirement on campus," he said. "Instead, I would like the opportunities for study and discussion to be compelling and high quality so that students would be drawn to them. There should both be academic opportunities and extracurricular, dialogue-based opportunities."
