Friends World Program of Long Island University offers a two semester, thirty credit field course in world religions and culture. A group of students, a faculty advisor and an administrative assistant travel to Taiwan, India, and Turkey to engage in an intensive and comparative study of the teaching, texts, and practices of the world's major religions. In addition to the Director's year-long seminar on Comparative Religion, at least one course on the religions and culture of each country will be part of each ten week segment.

The experiential aspect of the program enables a depth of understanding not possible through classroom study or research. Students live among the people, participate in their ceremonies and rituals, and see their shrines and holy sites. They travel to the source of the world's great religious traditions, and develop a course of study that synthesizes classroom-based work and experiential learning.

Past programs have included lectures on, and visits to: Soto and Rinzai Zen Monasteries, Shinto Shrines, a Soka Gakkai annual meeting and the Kurama Fire Festival in Japan; the Gandhian Peace Foundation, the Taj Mahal, the Tibetan community in Dharmsala, the Jain temple and pilgrimage site in Sravanabelagola, and Sufi and Sikh temples in New Delhi in India; Cappadocia, Atatürk's Mausoleum and the Haci Bayram Mosque to observe noon prayers and traditional burial prayers in Turkey.

more about the program