Kolkata: Jesuit-run St Xavier’s University, Kolkata, is set to introduce a foundation course on religion for undergraduate students starting this academic year.
“The Foundation Course on Religion offers to all undergraduate students the academic exercise to broaden their knowledge and appreciation of religion as an essential dimension of human experience and life,” Jesuit Father Felix Raj, vice chancellor, said.
The course is designed to enrich students’ perspectives in the context of India’s civilizational heritage and to empower them for global citizenship.
“An academic exposition to the world’s religions inculcates unique cultural sensitivities among students. It opens students’ mindsets and aptitudes to a multicultural and international way of being that transcend the boundaries of the conventional and the everyday life,” he explained.
Further, it enables students to equip themselves with critical thinking, communication competence, interpersonal awareness, and intercultural literacy and connectivity necessary for success in an ever-evolving global society.
“The academic objective of studying religion is to facilitate students to see and appreciate the goodness embedded in the beliefs of all people within their distinct religious heritages, whereas in the essentials they are interconnected that calls us to create a culture of harmony,” said vice chancellor.
Quoting Henry H. Ellis, he said, “Religion is the sum of the expansive impulse of a being.”
Father D. John Romus is the professor of Foundation Course on Religion. He is the former dean of the Department of Theology, Morning Star College, Barrackpore, Kolkata.
St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata is a private and Jesuit university located in New Town, Kolkata, India. It was established in 2017.