Sara Pessin is no stranger to the study of spirituality: she’s a professor of philosophy and Jewish thought.
but Practice In her new role as director of spiritual life at the University of Denver, she will be focused on spirituality, helping students connect with their spiritual side and administering faith-based initiatives.
DU Newsroom caught up with Pessin to find out how spirituality impacts college life.
What does your role as a spiritual life leader include?
Part of my new role, located within the Division of Student Affairs and Inclusive Excellence and linked to the work of 4D Experiences, is to support students in the pursuit of spiritual wellness, broadly defined, including meaning-making related to purposeful lives and careers, existential and ethical exploration, spiritual and religious identity, and opportunities for interfaith exchange.
I see my role as working with a wide range of students, both undergraduate and graduate.
We’re also partnering with multiple campus and community partners; we’re helping to run several new initiatives, including Spiritual Supper Club, Spiritual Storytelling, and our “Holiday Hellos” project; and, of course, we’ll continue to shape this position as we learn how to most effectively support students.
What role do you think spirituality plays in higher education?
In particular, spirituality — defined broadly to include our broad range of relationships with ourselves, the world, our neighbors and beyond — is a deep part of many of our experiences, from music to meditation, hikes to vacations, poetry to prayer.We therefore think it would be beneficial to give DU students and other community members further opportunities to reflect on what spirituality means to them and live by it.
While it’s okay if not everyone identifies with the idea of spirituality, it is an aspect of higher education worth exploring further, especially if we leave room for people to define it in a way that is meaningful to them.
What is the biggest misconception about interreligious studies?
Interreligious work is often thought of as simply an invitation to share meals with new people and become friends. Of course I love that and have done a lot of that and will continue to do so, but interreligious work can also be about learning to be advocates for our neighbors’ ability to practice different spiritual and religious views and values, even if that makes us a little uncomfortable. It can be an invitation to learn to have hope with and for our neighbors from different backgrounds, which can sometimes be uplifting and sometimes involve very messy complexities. And interreligious studies is about learning to engage in both ways.
Is part of your role mentoring students?
Because my new role is part-time, I am constantly working as a mentor to students: I have taught courses to both graduate and undergraduate students, supervised the dissertations of many students in the joint doctoral program in Religious Studies at DU and the Iliff School of Theology, and worked closely with the president of the Undergraduate Student Government during my time as an American Council on Education Fellow last year.
Being able to work with and learn from students in a broad curricular context informs my research, my teaching and my new role because it helps me think more broadly about the broader curriculum and extracurricular opportunities. Working closely with students, whether in my course on Coexistence and Philosophy of Religion or my new course on Interreligious Civics, continues to be an important source of motivation and inspiration for me.
What is the best thing about working at DU?
The people. Over the years, I’ve really enjoyed working with different partners across campus on projects, and it gives me the feeling that there are still limitless possibilities.
For more information about Spiritual Life at DU, visit the organization’s website at https://studentaffairs.du.edu/spiritual-life.
