Religion and nonprofit leadership: From classroom to community

ated before the new concentration was available, but her work for the Emerald Youth Foundation and, now, the Appalachian Regional Commission, shows how involved religious studies graduates have been in the nonprofit sector.

with a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

The academic study of religion helps us reflect on ourselves and learn more about those around us. It introduces us to the religions of the world as well as the complex roles that religion plays in our own communities. Like other disciplines in the humanities, it helps us explore what it is to be human — to think, analyze and imagine — and provides a strong foundation for countless future careers. Our students, though, made visible one future in particular that has become a new part of our curriculum – namely, a major concentration and minor in religion and nonprofit leadership.

Our students inspire us with their engagement in the world. Watching our graduates head not only to graduate school, law school or seminary, but also into nonprofit work focused on environmental justice, health care and education, helped us to reimagine our curriculum.

Tyler Hardin, class of 2016, is one of those graduates. As he wrote in a department spotlight, “My love of sports and serving young people led me to the Emerald Youth Foundation, a nonprofit inner-city ministry in Knoxville ... my religious studies background gives me an appreciation of different beliefs, which is something that comes into play when I’m serving families.”

Katherine Harwell, class of 2019, also gradu-

The same is true of Logan Doar, class of 2019, who is currently completing a master’s of public policy at the University of Washington. He has found that religion is an often overlooked aspect of community development and credits his experience at UT with preparing him for this work.

“Academically studying religion at the University of Tennessee challenged me to critically analyze texts from different perspectives without inserting my personal biases,” Doar said.

“Interpreting information across economic, social, environmental and cultural sources gives us a more comprehensive understanding of a community’s history, how their lived experiences frame their perspectives and how to use this knowledge to equitably meet the community’s needs for lasting change.”

Inspired by these students and many others, associate professor Megan Bryson set to work to build the curriculum for this new program, which is noteworthy for its integration of courses from several colleges, including the Haslam College of Business, the School of Journalism and Electronic Media and the UT Institute of Agriculture, as well as the new religious studies course “Religion and Nonprofit Leadership.” The major concentration includes a supervised internship

The program has provided a wonderful new opportunity to work with our department’s active Board of Visitors and connect with a variety of organizations in the wider local and regional community. We have been thrilled to see interest from religious studies majors as well as those in other colleges, who see the concentration as a minor that can support their future goals.

The first religion and nonprofit leadership major to graduate was Cody Hubbard, class of 2021, who completed an internship at the Path of Life summer camp and wrote a research paper on the ministerial exception to Title VII. Current students have completed internships at Los Gozosos (Joy-Filled Home) Orphanage in Guatemala, East Tennessee Children’s Hospital and Remote Area Medical.

Landyn Ford, a student who worked at East Tennessee Children’s Hospital, reported that he benefited greatly from the concentration.

“The curriculum has equipped me with a capacity for critical reasoning as well as an appreciation for the nonprofit sector,” Ford said. “My experience has ultimately prepared me for my graduate studies in hopes of pursuing a career in healthcare administration in a nonprofit healthcare organization.”

It is important to note that students in religion and nonprofit leadership can belong to any religion or no religion, since the courses focus on the academic study of religion and the role of religion in the nonprofit and public spheres. Religion is an important part of the nonprofit world: in addition to nonprofits with religious missions, many other nonprofit organizations work with religiously diverse groups of people or other forms of religious diversity.

The current generation of college students particularly values education that gives them tools to make a difference in their communities and beyond. In religious studies, this has encouraged us to think beyond the classroom in developing programs that help students connect a broad-based, cross-cultural academic understanding of religion to the grand challenges we all face. Whether our students go into healthcare, public policy, education, law, sustainability or theology, they are prepared to make a positive difference in the communities they serve.