ABSTRACT
This chapter helps people who want to begin creating a religious literacy program on their campus as quickly as possible. There are many types of universities in the United States, but the two that present the starkest contrast with NYU are public universities and religiously affiliated universities. At public universities, discussions about religion and spirituality are often complicated by the legally mandated separation of church and state upon which all federal and state grants are dependent. Besides structural issues, there are also challenges that can arise at any university when introducing conversations about religious and spiritual diversity for the first time. The chapter focuses on three main challenges that occur most regularly on campuses around the world, and explain how we have handled them at NYU: how to approach issues of representation and equity; the impact of direct geopolitical conflicts on the relationships between student groups; and the skill set necessary for facilitating and creating workshops.
