About

The Center for Interfaith Dialogue, which is part of Student Affairs, transitioned from the Center for Religion and Global Citizenry in summer 2023. The goal of the new Center is to provide resources and offer programs for religious and spiritual diversity, identity, literacy, spiritual well-being and engagement among UW-Madison students. The Center educates students about religious pluralism and promotes interfaith dialogue and cooperation. Paying special attention to international and minority students for whom religious identity is particularly important, the Center undertakes initiatives to foster respect and understanding among the different religious communities on campus.

The Center is dedicated to promoting religious identity, dialogue, and understanding. It enhances the University’s capacity to make religion a meaningful diversity category and carries out programs leading to a more inclusive religious climate on campus. It increases our students’ religious literacy as well as their dialogue skills so that they can function effectively as citizens of a religiously diverse world.

The previous Center for Religion and Global Citizenry (CRGC) was established in 2017 after the closing of the Lubar Institute for the Study of Abrahamic Religions in June 2016. CRGC’s mission was to increase UW-Madison students’ religious literacy and their facility for communicating across boundaries of faith so that they may function effectively as citizens of a religiously diverse world. It served as a resource for UW-Madison students and the greater Madison community for interfaith programming and discussion. CRGC collaborated with the University Religious Workers on selected projects and was a founding partner of the LOKA Initiative at UW-Madison.

Our Programs

The Interfaith Fellows Program

The Interfaith Fellows Program trains up to 25 undergraduate students to become more knowledgeable about different religious traditions and more skilled at communicating with people from other religious backgrounds.

The Lubar Institute (2005-2016)

The Lubar Institute created better understanding of the Abrahamic traditions and their interrelationships by encouraging ongoing discussion of these traditions among scholars, members of those traditions, and the general public.

Statements

  • UW-Madison Faith Leaders Call for Humility – not Hate – when exercising our First Amendment Right to Speak about Israel-Palestine

    We, the members of the Center for Interfaith Dialogue’s Faith Advisory Council at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have something to say about the power of speech to create both benefit and harm. At this moment, we …

  • Statement on Racial Violence

    We are mourning the recent victims of police brutality George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, among countless others. We offer our prayers and outrage to all victims of racial injustice. …

  • Letter from UW-Madison Religious Leaders

    Dear Badgers, It has been an extraordinary time of unsettling events in our community, nation, and world. We know that your lives have been upended and many of the things you were looking forward to …

  • Statement on the COVID-19 Crisis

    The University of Wisconsin-Madison has suspended all in-person classes and events until April 10 due to our current public health emergency. The ongoing crisis effects our planned programming for spring semester, including our Interdisciplinary Religion …

  • Statement on Recent Religious Violence

    We are again in mourning, this time for the death of one Jewish worshiper and the injuries of several others at the hands of a white supremacist attacker. Chabad synagogue was observing the last day …

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