Rachel Wagner

Instructor of Religion

Hendrix College

This project will promote tolerance and further educational goals of ACS schools by providing a central portal for study of the world’s religious traditions. At present, no ACS schools have a comparable resource. Five ACS schools (Centenary College, Millsaps College, Rhodes College, Rollins College, and Washington and Lee) have lists of related web-sites and religious resources connected to their religion department home pages. This project will greatly enhance the resource capabilities of all ACS schools by providing a central portal from which students will be able to access visual, audio, and text-based resources as a supplement to their classroom learning and as a primer for those students wishing to begin a self-educational journey. The portal will incorporate the research of those ACS institutions that have provided lists of resources by revamping the interface and giving students an easy, self-guided tutorial in the world-religions. It will also serve an educational function for the college community as a whole by providing an interactive calendar of religious holy days with explanatory links, by pointing viewers toward specific sites that are academically reputable, and by offering a central forum for religious discussion among students of all the ACS schools. This site and the research which constitutes it will be available for the use of all ACS institutions in connection with their own web-sites.

This project will focus on the seven major world traditions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam. By providing only select links to exemplary texts and visual and audio aids, students will acquire a more balanced introduction to the traditions than they might gain in an unguided self-search of the internet.

Now, even with the aid of large lists of on-line resources, students have to sift through a bewilderingly large array of materials of varying quality and differing organization. Those students seeking basic orientation in comparative religions are quickly lost in the variety and magnitude of resources available on-line. Because many students are only beginning to acquire the critical tools needed to accurately judge the quality of sites, many of them either give up when faced with the immensity of resources or focus their energies on tangential or inaccurate material. Some of this material is produced by persons or institutions with no academic credentials and with no real background in the religious traditions discussed. For these reasons, a basic introductory educational site with carefully selected supplemental links is very much needed.

The ACS World Religions portal will serve at least five major purposes:

1. To provide a supplement for World Religions or Comparative Religions classes at ACS schools
2. To provide a basic introduction to the world religions in its own right for the use of the academic community as a supplemental resource for politics, history, and philosophy classes
3. To encourage tolerance among people of various traditions by demonstrating the beauty of the various world traditions
4. To provide a central calendar of religious holidays for use in promoting awareness and appreciation for world traditions across college campuses
5. To serve as a central forum for religious discussion among students at all ACS institutions who wish to access the World Religions Portal chat room and discussion board

Because it is meant to help beginning students, the site will offer direct links to immediately relevant topics instead of expecting students to sift through hundreds of sites on their own. This project will be much more than a mere resource list, although students seeking opportunities for further research will find them to be easily accessible.

1. links to on-line museum displays for examples of visual art in a particular tradition
2. links to specific sound-clips of a given tradition’s music and oral traditions, as available
3. contact information for representatives of the various traditions willing to accept questions and comments on-line and by email (for example, many monasteries are on-line)
4. an interactive calendar of religious holy days, with links to brief explanations about them
5. links to sites devoted to archaeological research in the traditions, including visuals of holy sites where applicable

Carefully chosen examples of the visual, musical, oral, and personal traditions of the faiths will be offered. Although the purpose of the Portal is introductory, students interested in further exploration will be directed to the larger list-style reference guides available at those ACS institutions that have compiled such lists (see above).

The effectiveness of the project will be evaluated by students of REL 110, Religion in a Global Context, in the fall of 2001 and the spring of 2002. These students will provide input by:

1. Recommending sites which fulfill the above requirements through a "Religion on the Web Project" already in progress (Fall RGC class)
2. Locating appropriate visuals, audio, and other items on-line (Fall and Spring RGC classes)
3. Utilizing the site and evaluating it in terms of ease of use and helpfulness as a course supplement (Spring RGC class) The site will be used in a tech-ready classroom to supplement some class activities and select parts of it will be required reading for the class.

In addition to student review, the support persons listed below at Hendrix will also provide feedback. The site’s development will involve the input and collaboration of the other members of the Hendrix Religion Department: Dr. John Farthing, Dr. Jane Harris, Dr. Jay McDaniel, and Dr. Frances Flannery-Dailey. Input will also be asked of those ACS schools that already possess some on-line reference materials. The final product will of course be available for all ACS schools to utilize.

This project will harness the resources of various on-campus support-services. Hendrix reference librarian Britt Johnson has experience in on-line research and informational development, and leads introductions for students to the acquisition of on-line skills and information. Danny Mann, Desktop Support Specialist and Web Designer has also agreed to provide support, from the Informational Technology Center at Hendrix College. Karen Fraser, Assistant Director of Information Technology, has previewed this proposal and offers her own support. I would also like to spend several days in residency at the ACS Technology Center, for particular help with developing the audio-visual portions of the site, especially in terms of respecting copyrights of on-line material and in developing new audio-visual material to place on the site.