Overview

EDUCATION as Transformation

A National Project on 
Religious Pluralism, Spirituality and Higher Education

On September 27 and 28, 1998, over 800 representatives (including presidents, faculty, administrators, students, religious life professionals and trustees) from more than 250 colleges and universities gathered at Wellesley College for a National Gathering to explore issues of religious pluralism and spirituality in higher education. This was the inaugural event of the EDUCATION as Transformation Project.

" I came here because I knew that a movement was starting..."
-- Cheryl Keen - Professor of Self, Society and Culture, Antioch College

"This movement is about awakening the desire for wholeness that lies deep in every human heart."
-- Victor Kazanjian - Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life, Wellesley College

"The openness to transformation, to new knowing, has to move from head to heart."
-- Arthur Zajonc - Professor of Physics, Amherst College

"Our task is to envision a whole new place for spirituality in education."
-- Diana Chapman Walsh - President, Wellesley College

"Authentic spirituality wants to open us to truth: whatever truth may be, wherever truth may take us."
-- Parker Palmer - Writer and traveling teacher; Senior Associate, American Association for Higher Education

"The college and university campus is America's most promising experiment in religious pluralism..."
-- Peter Laurence - Project Director, EDUCATION as Transformation Project

"(In seeking this pluralism) we have an opportunity to steer into some of the most intractable differences and seemingly most difficult problems right here on our campuses."
-- Diana Eck - Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies, Harvard University

"We need a change whereby our colleges and universities become supportive of particular religious expressions and exemplary of the way in which all spiritual paths are finally leading to the same sacred ground."
-- Susan Laemmle - Rabbi and Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

"I am going to carry that vision (of the multi-faith service led by students) at the chapel yesterday home with me and I am promising myself that I want to be faithful to that vision all the rest of my life."
-- Vincent Harding - Professor of Religion and Social Transformation, Iliff School of Theology

 

What is the EDUCATION as Transformation Project?

Educational professionals from around the country have initiated a multi-year project entitled EDUCATION as Transformation: Religious Pluralism, Spirituality and Higher Education. The goals of this project are:

- to explore the impact of religious diversity on higher education and the potential of religious pluralism as a strategy to address the dramatic growth of religious diversity in American colleges and universities

- and to consider the role of spirituality at colleges and universities and particularly its relationship to: teaching and learning pedagogy, the cultivation of values, moral and ethical development, and the development of global learning communities and responsible global citizens. 

The EDUCATION as Transformation Project is a multi-year organizing effort begun in 1996 to initiate a national dialogue about religious pluralism and spirituality in higher education. The project is currently working with more than 350 colleges and unviersities to facilitate the creation of multi-constituency dialogue teams including faculty, students, administrative staff, alumni, trustees and religious life professionals within their institutions to consider the above questions through materials provided by the project. With leadership from a national group of project advisors, the EDUCATION as Transformation Project has generated great excitement within the higher education community.

The Project's First Event ~ A National Gathering

This excitement was dramatically portrayed in September of 1998 as representatives -- presidents, chancellors, deans, faculty, administrators, students, alumni, trustees and religious life professionals -- from more than 250 colleges, universities and related institutions came together at a two-day national gathering entitled EDUCATION as Transformation: Religious Pluralism, Spirituality and Higher Education and held on the Wellesley College campus. This inaugural event for the EDUCATION as Transformation Project has been hailed as the beginning of a movement that will enable institutions of higher education to provide leadership for the country and the world in areas of religious pluralism and spirituality as a part of the educational experience. 28 college and university presidents attended this event, together with 210 faculty members, 170 administrators, 205 students, 112 religious life professionals and 83 alumni, trustees and representatives from education related institutions.

The presenters at the National Gathering included some of the top educators in the country on these issues including: Parker Palmer, Senior Associate of the American Association of Higher Education; Diana Eck, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard University and director of the Pluralism Project at Harvard; Vincent Harding, Professor of Religion and Social Transformation at the Iliff School of Theology; Diana Chapman Walsh, President of Wellesley College; Peter Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard University; Robert Thurman, Jey Tsong Khaka professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies at Columbia University; and more than 75 other scholars. Participants attended plenary sessions, roundtable discussions and workshops on topics ranging from definitions of spirituality, moving from religious diversity to pluralism, and how institutions can better reflect an educational process which includes moral, ethical and spiritual issues and global citizenship.