HLTH 300 Religion & Health
HLTH 300 Religion & Health is a semester-long course offered jointly through the Department of Health Sciences and the Department of Philosophy and Religion in the College of Arts and Sciences. Teaching Assistants from the Honors College receive experiential learning credit.
Overall, this course is organized into five units.
In Unit I. Civic Competencies, you will cultivate three professional skills: religious literacy, legal literacy, and science literacy. Throughout the semester, you will apply these literacies as conceptual frameworks to examine case studies about religion and health––moral dilemmas experienced in communities, schools, and hospitals.
In Unit II. Communities, you will apply social science research about diverse religious responses to COVID-19. You will analyze case studies about the helpful or harmful roles that community leaders, religious professionals, and houses of worship played in managing the pandemic.
In Unit III. Schools, you will explore the legal parameters and political challenges to vaccine mandates in K-12 schools. You will study how legislatures, school boards, state health agencies, school administrators, and school nurses responded to requests for medical, philosophical, and religious exemptions. You will examine case studies that emulate best practices for how science communicators, school leaders, and religious leaders combated misinformation and disinformation about vaccines.
In Unit III. Hospitals, you will examine the complex ways patients and healthcare professionals understand the body, illness, healing, life, and death. You will study the religious, spiritual, or philosophical ideas that drive people during personal health crises. You will also explore case studies about hospital chaplains and their work with multidisciplinary healthcare teams.
In Unit IV. Professional Integration, you will offer an in-class presentation about how your three civic competencies—religious, legal, and science literacies—apply to a profession of your choice. This course is made possible by a generous curriculum-designing grant from Interfaith America.
Syllabus
I. Frameworks
Contributors
+23 enrolled College
Special Thanks
Religion & Health was made possible by a generous curriculum-designing grant from Interfaith America and from support from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities at Rutgers University-Camden.
Civic Education for the Common Good
We apply the U.S. Department of Education’s Consensus Statements about Constitutional Approaches for Teaching about Religion
▸ Our approach to religion is academic, not devotional;
▸ We strive for student awareness of religions, but do not press for student acceptance of any religion;
▸ We sponsor the study about religion, not the practice of religion;
▸ We expose students to a diversity of religious views, but may not impose any particular view;
▸ We educate about all religions, we do not promote or denigrate any religion;
▸ We inform students about religious beliefs and practices, it does not seek to conform students to any particular belief or practice.
We apply the American Academy of Religion’s “Religious Literacy Guidelines”
▸ “Religious Literacy Guidelines for College Students.” American Academy of Religion, 2019.
▸ “Teaching About Religion: AAR Guidelines for K-12 Public Schools.” American Academy of Religion, April 2010.
We apply the National Council for the Social Studies C3 Frameworks for Religious Studies
▸ College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards, “Religious Studies Companion Document for the C3 Framework.” Silver Spring, MD: National Council for the Social Studies, 2017.
