Moravian University’s Global Religions department, known for its courses connecting ethics, culture, and public life, worries that it may be at risk.
Moravian is facing financial challenges, and as a result, the administration is asking certain departments to compile “health reports” to assess student outcomes, class sizes, and the number of majors.
The Department of Global Religions is one of the departments under review, but is not among the seven programs officially considered “at risk.”
According to Interim Provost James Scifers, the request for a Health Report did not stem from any specific concern about Global Religions. Instead, it is part of a campus-wide shift to a rotating three-year program review cycle. Last year, the administration attempted to evaluate 36 programs at once, which Scifers described as “way too many programs to do well.”
Moving forward, twelve programs per year will undergo review to allow for more thorough feedback. Global Religions is one of twelve departments under review this year.
The Health Report process, Scifers explained, includes two components. The first looks at quantitative indicators: majors, minors, retention, graduation rates, and, where relevant, the cost of running the program. But he stressed that these data points do not tell the full story.
“That doesn’t reflect the value of that discipline and how they contribute to the university on a larger level,” he said. For departments like Global Religions, whose primary impact comes through service courses across majors, the review weighs enrollment patterns, general education contributions, and interdisciplinary influence.
The second component of the review focuses on qualitative direction, including whether new programs or curricular innovations might strengthen the department. Scifers compared the process to accreditation cycles: even though Global Religions is not an accredited program, the review encourages units to modernize, refine their curriculum, and identify new opportunities.
Last year, seven programs were identified as “at risk” and moved to annual review—not as a prelude to cutting them, Scifers said, but to support improvement and ensure there is a path forward. “Program closure is not the goal,” he emphasized. “The goal is to improve the student experience.”
Professor of Religion Kelly Denton-Borhaug explains that religious courses don’t just serve majors; they serve nearly every corner of the university. She reported that one student said that they decided to take the department’s “Moral Injury: A Public Health Crisis” course because they are interested in working with military veterans in the future; they write about deeply appreciating their encounters with military veteran leaders who co-teach the course from the Philadelphia VA Moral Injury Program.
Nursing students study theological perspectives on death and dying in Introduction to Christian Theology. Public Health majors analyze reproductive justice in Advanced Topics in Ethics: Abortion. Education students in The Civil Rights Movement and the Moral Life confront how moral leadership shaped American democracy.
“Religious Studies faces perhaps some of the greatest pressures from the current cultural and political climate in terms of its value for our students regionally, nationally and even internationally,” Denton-Borhaug said. “At the same time, many studies emphasize that religious literacy is more important now than ever.”
Denton-Borhaug stated that any misconceived low estimation of the department’s contributions is in contrast to the strong enrollment in courses, as well as strong course evaluations, in which students regularly report on the importance of these classes in their educational journeys focused on diverse majors.
“Unfortunately, the social climate in the U.S., and concomitant mis-assumptions that humanities majors, and especially religion majors, will not be able to achieve viable employment, is a misconception that only has gained further traction in the culture at large,” she said.
Brie Jacobs, a recent double-major in Environmental Science and Chemistry graduate who was enrolled in the course, “The Civil Rights Movement and the Moral Life,” recently wrote a piece in The Comenian regarding the importance of the class.
“This class fell into the liberal arts aspect of my degree. As an environmental science major, I didn’t take many humanities courses,” she said. “I was moved by the dedication that both Denton-Borhaug and [Emeritus Professor Bob] Mayer had to not only draw attention to the moral dilemmas we face in our daily lives, or the moral responsibility a nation has, but also to show my classmates and me those who have accomplished, thoughtful lives that have profoundly affected the way we all live today.”
