World Religions in Greater Indianapolis was funded by a competitive grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities program titled “Bridging Cultures at Community Colleges.”

Project Directors Edward Curtis and Art Farnsley proposed a 17 month program during which they would work with fifteen instructors at Ivy Tech Community College to help them use world religion resources more effectively in their classroom teaching.

Visiting academic experts on Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism engaged the instructors during monthly seminars.  One seminar covered the history of each religion as a global movement; a second seminar covered each religion as it is practiced in the United States.  A third seminar moved to a house of worship in Indianapolis where instructors could learn about that religion through the eyes of recent immigrants.

The instructors teach in several different departments at Ivy Tech.  They developed modules for their varied courses based on the religions studied:  One module about each tradition as a global movement and one about each tradition as practiced in the U.S.   Those modules are available here.