Society for Values in Higher Education

With support from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund the Society for Values in Higher Education (SVHE) invites applications from colleges and universities to develop model programs to address religious illiteracy.

The ten campuses selected, each consisting of a team of 3 faculty and 1 student, will participate in the SVHE Institute/Workshop at the Trinity Conference Center (West Cornwall, CT) June 15-20, 2008. There they will develop curricular and/or co-curricular programs related to issues of religion and public life to be implemented and assessed during the 2008-2009 academic year and afterward widely distributed by means of a monograph summarizing the results.

Institute faculty consist of the following:

· Marvin Kaiser, co-director, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Portland State University; SVHE executive director; sociology of religion

· Robert Spivey, co-director, former chair of the department of religion, Florida State University; former executive director of the American Academy of Religion; SVHE associate executive director; Biblical studies

· Miriam Diamond, coordinator, former associate director, faculty program, Searle Center for Teaching Excellence, Northwestern University; higher education.

· Allen Dunn, professor, Department of English, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, editor, Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal; English literature.

· Richard B. Miller, professor, Department of Religious Studies, Indiana University; director, Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions; religious ethics.

· Nancy Thomas, former director SVHE Democracy Project; senior associate with Study Circles Resource Center; former director ACE Listening to Communities project; higher education.

· Brannon M. Wheeler, visiting distinguished professor and director of Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies, U.S Naval Academy; Islamic studies

Each of the ten participating campuses will support their participants’ experience at the Institute/Workshop by matching SVHE/duPont funds for board and travel costs as follows:

3 faculty @ $500 each = $1,500

1 student @ $1,000 each = $1,000*

Total = $2,500

For further information contact Robert Spivey – bspivey@foundation.fsu.edu or
850/644-0767. Application deadline is January 31.

*Encouraged, not required.