The Department of Religious Studies relies on support from many sources, including individual gifts. Such gifts support undergraduate student research, student writing prizes, and events of interest to the university and to the local community.
What does the department spend money on?
Bringing in a speaker can cost around $1000-$1500 or more, for airfare, hotel, meals, and space rental. These are links to some of the recent speakers the department has brought to campus. Typically we host between 6 and 10 speakers per year for events that are open to the public and have no charge for admission.
Every year, we use around $800-$1000 to fund undergraduate writing awards and student achievement awards. Our end-of-year events--one for all of our majors and minors, and one for graduating seniors and their families--cost about $1000 per year.
RST Tea, a forum for informal conversations between students and faculty, costs about $35 per week for student help and supplies.
We also use department funds to support innovative teaching projects, to sponsor individual student research, to fund peer advising, and to enable our students to attend national and local conferences.
You can help!
We are grateful for all the enthusiasm these events and programs generate amongst our students. You can support the Department and its many activities by giving online here. Even a gift of $5 or $10 can make a difference.
Thanks for your support.
Celestial Map, Turkey, 16th c.