RPLP is Now the Institute's First Center
The Boniuk Institute is proud to announce that, as of this fall, the Religion and Public Life Program is now the Religion and Public Life Center--the first center under the Boniuk Institute! Led by religion scholar, Director Rachel C. Schneider, the RPLC will continue to investigate how religion shapes and is shaped by the world around us, and how religion motivates human action. RPLC will also function as a hub of multidisciplinary research where religion can be studied across different contexts, so that we can better understand religion's impact in contemporary global public life and equip others to confront common challenges. The center will continue its excellent training and outreach programs, as well as its top-notch research, with special emphasis on religion, gender, and inequality; congregations and religion in institutions; race, racism, and religion; and religion, civic capacity, politics, and social change.
Sociologist Tariq Modood Named the 2025 Boniuk Institute Senior Scholar
Each spring, the Boniuk Institute presents the Senior Scholar Award to an individual who has made outstanding scholarly contributions to the public understanding of religion broadly as well as pluralism and tolerance. We are excited to announce that Professor Tariq Modood, a professor of sociology at the University of Bristol and the founding director of its Centre for the Study of Ethicity and Citizenship, has been named as the 2025 Boniuk Institute Senior Scholar.
READ MORE ABOUT THE 2025 BONIUK INSTITUTE SENIOR SCHOLAR
The Institute Partners with the University of Chicago's NORC on a Nationwide Survey
In July, the Boniuk Institute conducted a national survey to investigate Americans' attitudes on current issues in reproductive health, religious conflict, and religion. Using NORC's AmeriSpeak Panel, Institute scholars surveyed 1,308 U.S. adults, including oversamples of Jewish and Muslim respondents. Respondents were asked for their attitudes towards IVF, genetic modification, and other reproductive technologies; the role of suffering and beauty in their approaches to medical technologies; their experiences of religious discrimination and the personal impact of conflict in the Middle East; and their perceptions of Antisemitism and Islamophobia. Results from this study will be used to further scholarship on religion and health and religion and conflict and to further Boniuk Institute's mission to study and advance religious tolerance.
Book Release: Religion in a Changing Workplace
Employees are increasingly embracing the notion of "bringing their whole selves to work," and many employers are encouraging them. Those whole selves often include religious identities, however, and that can make things complicated. In a new book, Religion in a Changing Workplace, by Boniuk Institute director Elaine Howard Ecklund, and co-authored with Denise Daniels and Christopher P. Scheitle, available at the end of September, the authors make their case for the inclusion of religious self-expression in the workplace, identifying why and how organizations can foster a diversity of religious beliefs and expression. Read a preview of this new work from Oxford University Press.
The Institute Welcomes New Faculty Advisory Board Members
This fall, the Boniuk Institute welcomes six new members to its Faculty Advisory Board: Sherwin Bryant, Huatse Gyal, Alexandra Kieffer, Rithika Kumar, Brian Ogren, and Kirsten Siebach. The FAB is instrumental in providing guidance to Institute leadership in the selection of fellowship recipients, senior scholars, in mentoring center leaders, and in acting as Institute ambassadors at Rice University and beyond.