Overview
Fr. William Graf, Chair
Robert Dunbar, Jane Hicks, Linda MacCammon
The mission of the Department of Religious Studies at St. John Fisher College is to foster the academic study of religion in all its diversity in order to equip students to live in and appreciate a culture of religious pluralism.
To accomplish this, we expect those who take our foundational 100- and 200-level classes to: 1) be able to recognize the texts of the major world religions and recognize at least two ways of interpreting these texts; 2) be able to describe a religion using its sacred words, rituals, normative actions, and institutional composition; 3) be able to recognize contemporary intra- and inter-religious controversies; and 4) be able to use the library facilities, including the Internet, to aid them in accomplishing these tasks. Ordinarily, at least two foundational courses at the 100 level are required for a major or minor in religious studies.