Increasingly in both the private and public (e.g., world history classes) school settings, students are being introduced to basic religious ideas, teachings, personalities, and practices of the world’s religions. As teachers become familiar with the contemporary, living character of religions, it is apparent that these diverse traditions also struggle to address major contemporary issues. One urgent concern central to the world’s religions is the broad spectrum of socially and environmentally related problems. Embedded within many of these diverse religious traditions are important perspectives on human-earth relations that have been transmitted to people in various cultures throughout the centuries.

This second annual High School Teachers Workshop will focus on ecological dynamics developed within three religious traditions—Native North American, Christianity, Hinduism—and will explore ethical issues in religion and ecology as well as the problems and possibilities involved in the religion/science dialogue. Drawing on the work of the Forum on Religion and Ecology, this secondary school teachers workshop will also explore ways in which selected religious traditions might enter into dialogue with other key disciplinary fields concerned with the environment (e.g., science, education, ethics, economics, and public policy).

Participating Faculty

John A. Grim, PhD
John Grim is a professor in, and chair of the Department of Religion at Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. As a historian of religions, John undertakes annual field studies in American Indian lifeways among the Apsaalooke/Crow peoples of Montana and the Swy-ahl-puh/Salish peoples of the Columbia River Plateau in eastern Washington. Raised in the Missouri drift prairies of North Dakota, John ventured into the urban environs of the Bronx to study with Thomas Berry at Fordham University. There, he completed a doctoral dissertation on Anishinaabe/Ojibway healing practitioners entitled, The Shaman: Patterns of Religious Healing Among the Ojibway Indians (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983). With his partner, Mary Evelyn Tucker, he has coedited Worldviews and Ecology (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1994), a book discussing the environmental crisis from world religious and contemporary philosophical perspectives.

John coorganized, with Mary Evelyn Tucker, a series of thirteen conferences on “Religions of the World and Ecology” held at Harvard University’s Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) from the Spring of 1996 to the Fall of 1998. The culminating conferences in this series were held at the United Nations on October 20th, and the American Museum of Natural History on October 21st, 1998. Work begun at the conferences has continued through the establishment of The Forum on Religion and Ecology. John is also president of the American Teilhard Association, an organization that explores issues in religion and science especially in light of the thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the late 20th century reworking of Teilhard’s thought by Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme.

David L. Haberman, PhD
David L. Haberman is professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University. His publications include Journey Through the Twelve Forests: An Encounter with Krishna (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994) and Acting as a Way of Salvation: A Study of Raganuga Bhakti Sadhana (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988). He recently finished a translation of a sixteenth century Sanskrit text, published as The Bhaktirasamrtasindhu of Rupa Gosvamin (Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, 2000). His current research involves a study of the theology and ecology of the Yamuna River of northern India. Dr. Haberman has been a popular presenter from our summer seminars in past years.

Mary Evelyn Tucker, PhD
Mary Evelyn Tucker is Professor of Religion at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where she teaches courses in world religions, Asian religions, and religion and ecology. She received her PhD from Columbia University in the history of religions, specializing in Confucianism in Japan. She has published Moral and Spiritual Cultivation in Japanese Neo-Confucianism (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York, 1989), and coedited many volumes including,Worldviews and Ecology (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1994), Buddhism and Ecology (Cambridge, Mass.: Center for the Study of World Religions/Harvard University Press, 1997), and Confucianism and Ecology (Cambridge, Mass.: Center for the Study of World Religions/Harvard University Press, 1998). She and her partner, John Grim, have directed a series of ten conferences on World Religions and Ecology at the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR) from 1996–1998. In October 1998 they held two culminating conferences from the series at the United Nations and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. They are the series editors for the ten volume CSWR World Religions and Ecology series. They are also editors of the Ecology and Justice series published by Orbis Press. Mary Evelyn has been a committee member of the Environmental Sabbath program at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) since 1986, is a member of the Earth Charter Drafting Committee, and is Vice President of the American Teilhard Association.

Mark I. Wallace, PhD
Mark I. Wallace is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion at Swarthmore College. He is the author of Fragments of the Spirit: Nature, Violence, and the Renewal of Creation (New York: Continuum, 1996) and The Second Naivete: Barth , Ricoeur, and the New Yale Theology (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1990), editor of Paul Ricoeur’s Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1995), and coeditor of Curing Violence: Religion and the Thought of Rene Girard (Sonoma, Calif.: Polebridge Press, 1994). He is an ordained Presbyterian minister, a member of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, and active in the environmental justice movement in the Philadelphia area.

Registration
Total registration fee is $500.00. This includes room and board, books, and materials. All housing units are air-conditioned and are located in university dormitory rooms. Food service will be provided by the university, with occasional meals out. Participants will have access to university library, computer, and recreational facilities. Applications will be accepted in the order received, therefore, early registration is encouraged. All registration fees are nonrefundable.

To register by email contact: programs@rsiss.org

Fellowships
Thanks to a generous grant from the Forum on Religion and Ecology we will be able to offer twenty-five fellowships to this year’s conference.

Fellowships will cover the complete costs of tuition, room and board, and books. The goal of the fellowships is to allow teachers from schools that have little to no professional development funds to participate in the summer seminar. We encourage teams of teachers in the sciences and humanities to apply and register for the workshop. Not only does this teamwork model the idea of dialogue among the disciplines, but it makes it easier to instigate curricular change and course offerings within schools. Fellowships for two teachers from the same school will be given special consideration.

To apply for fellowships, please include, in addition to regular application information:

1. A short statement, no longer than a page, on how you are integrating religion and ecology into your curriculum or how you think you might do so
2. A syllabus from at least one course either in religious studies or another humanities or science course you teach
3. A book review written for other teachers on a title relevant to this interdisciplinary field

Teachers from schools that can easily pay the costs of transportation and the regular registration fee of $500 are encouraged to do so.

For additional information, contact: seminars@rsiss.org or visit the Religious Studies in Secondary Schools website.