The School of Education and Social Policy is offering a new course this quarter-Introduction to Faith and Service.
Moved by the message of last October’s sixth-annual Interfaith Youth Core conference, SESP teamed up with The Center for Civic Engagement and The Interfaith Youth Core to create the class in an effort to improve on-campus civic engagement and religious plurality, said Tim Stevens, University chaplain and co-teacher of the class.
“It offers an opportunity to think and learn together about the intersection of faith and what people are actually doing in the world,” he said.
The course, SESP 351, bolsters the current class offerings in the SESP curriculum, Stevens said. While Northwestern already offers classes on religious studies and service, Stevens said he believes this course explores service in a different way.
“Some of the faculty in SESP noticed that in their courses, questions of faith would come up,” he said. “They wanted to be able to offer a course that would put those questions on the table.”
Stevens co-teaches the class with Eboo Patel, the executive director of Interfaith Youth Core, and Jody Kretzmann, a SESP research associate professor. The class also features guest lecturers from different religious backgrounds. The diversity of the lecturers reflects the class’s aims, Kretzmann said.
“All of the students are expressing a great interest and willingness to broaden their knowledge of and interaction with other faiths and traditions,” he said.
The class provides a “safe place” to discuss a variety of faith perspectives and commitment to service and civil engagement, Kretzmann said.
Allegra Mount, who volunteers at Gale Academy, an after-school program in Chicago, said NU should continue to support classes that encourage students to learn about service.
“As part of our education, it’s important for us to understand that we are fundamentally part of a larger whole and we have duties to encourage the growth of the collective group, not just ourselves,” the Weinberg sophomore said. “Students should be given the tools to not only better their futures, but our future as a global and diversely religious society,” she said.
