Aside from Harvard College itself, no school sends more grads to the Harvard Divinity School than Carleton. Yet, as Carleton Chaplain Schuyler Vogel ’07 says, the College hasn’t had a formal structure for helping students explore a future in religious leadership. A new initiative, funded by a grant from the Council of Independent Colleges and the Lilly Endowment Inc., aims to change that. The new $40,000 grant will fund a two-year initiative, starting in fall term 2025, to assist those exploring post-Carleton spiritual paths.
“A lot of professional aspirations are robustly supported here,” he says, noting pre-health advisors charged with helping students who want to go into medicine. “Despite having such a long, strong legacy producing students in religious leadership, we haven’t provided intentional scaffolding outside of existing offices and departments.” The Religious Leadership Fellows Program will offer stipends for travel plus mentorship opportunities with dozens of congregations and faith-based organizations across Minnesota and the country.
But the aim isn’t necessarily to send more Carls to Harvard Divinity. “We define religious leadership broadly. For some that may be a track to be ordained as a Christian clergy person or a Jewish rabbi; for others it may be to engage with their faith tradition through social justice or charity work,” he says. “Religion can be expressed in many different ways. And our job with this grant is to give students the time, resources, and institutional support to see what they want to be doing with their lives through a religious lens.”