On Wednesday July 17, the Studies in Religion Discipline hosted over 400 year 11 secondary school students and their teachers for the annual World Religions Symposium. The Symposium is aimed at students pursuing the Studies of Religion secondary school curriculum, which has been adopted by over 200 schools in the Southeast Queensland region, and is one part of a broader engagement program that the Studies in Religion runs with secondary schools of SEQ.
The day began with opening plenaries, followed by five repeated break-out sessions delivered by the staff of Studies in Religion, Dr Adam Bowles (Hindu Sacred Texts), Assoc. Prof. Neil Pembroke (Spirituality in the Everyday), Dr Tom Aechtner (Science and Religion Conflict) and Dr Ryan Williams (Islam), along with Honorary member of the Discipline Dr Rob Fringer (The Bible: Interpreting Christianity’s Sacred Text).
After lunch, the day continued with a Q&A session, in which the members of the discipline were joined by Studies in Religion Adjuct Dr Shirin Jamarani, and PhD candidates Chris Gibbons, Jennifer Creese and Neal Apel, to form expert panels to answer questions from the student audience. For the panel members, this is always the most enjoyable part of the day. The questions from the audience, with many budding Studies in Religion scholars among them, were often complex and certainly challenging for the panel to respond to on the fly. The day was a great success, with the students hopefully learning new things (as certainly the hosts did) and having an experience of the University's campus. In just a couple of years we hope many of them will be walking through the Great Court, wondering how on earth they will locate the room for their first lecture.
The next World Religions Symposium is scheduled for July 22, 2020. Registrations are open now.
Any enquiries can be directed to admin-hapi@uq.edu.au
