Sophia Arjana, James Barker and Isabella Mukonyora make up the three faculty member team that runs both the religious studies and Asian studies majors. Barker said that what they lack in numbers they make up for in passion.
As the years go on faculty members in this department have dwindled and courses have become more limited. Barker said that despite the challenges the department is constantly finding their own “silver linings” to offer students.
Arjana, a professor and researcher teaching religion and Asian studies, spends a lot of her time in Grise Hall. Her office is filled with books, coffee, annotated texts and travel keepsakes. She said she takes her work and connection with students as a priority.
Despite their size, these programs connect with several other disciplines across campus including history, literature and philosophy. Arjana said these majors have a dedicated team behind them that try to facilitate this interdisciplinary collaboration.
Due to the lack of faculty, these programs enroll relatively few majors and minors and offer a limited number of courses each semester, Arjana said.
Barker said that the shrinking of faculty has been happening for a while within their department.
“When I got here, we had like eight full-time faculty in religious studies,” Barker said. “In the last ten to twelve years, we’re down to less than half.”
Barker said that over time, the university has not filled positions when faculty have left the department.
“When they decide not to fill a vacancy, they are making a decision to shrink a major,” Barker said, “There’s no way around it.”
According to the Office of Institutional Research, in the Fall of 2024, there were 10 religious studies majors.
Additionally, according to a study done by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the number of colleges and universities awarding degrees in most of the humanities disciplines has declined in recent years. From 2017 to 2022, the declines in areas like religion were as high as 16%.
Barker said the problem is picking on small programs without adequately accounting for the most obviously measurable value that they add to the university.
“Given that 59% of WKU’s operating revenue comes from tuition and fees, you’d think the raw number of student credit hours per professor would give the most accurate measure of a professor’s productivity,” Barker said. “Not the number of majors within that program.”
Despite the challenges that persist, Arjana said the major continues to be incredibly impactful.
“One thing that I think is really important to understand is the expression that religion is always in the room,” Arjana said. “Even if you’re not a deeply religious person, religion affects your life.”
Arjana said that any job that deals with the public has to factor in religion at some point, especially within the medical field.
“There are patients that can’t do blood transfusions or that prefer not to have medicines with alcohol because they are Muslim,” Arjana said.
Arjana said she tries to consistently emphasize to students the wide opportunity of paths where religious and Asian studies can be beneficial.
Barker said the skills that students develop in the religious studies major are invaluable.
“You can turn on the news at night and say, okay, this is complicated, but here’s what I know,” Barker said. “If you have a conversation with a roommate who has different beliefs, you can figure out how to have a civil conversation about your differences.”
Ilana Fink, a non-traditional student double majoring in sociology and religious studies, said that this track has “been a blessing.”
Fink said she has attempted her degree four times. Fink said she started college at 18, but left after her husband was injured in the Army.
Fink said she was originally studying medicine, she was an Emergency Medical Technician and firefighter and was planning to become a flight rescue medic for the Army.
Fink said she tried to go to college again after her second son was born, but said that it still wasn’t the right time.
“I told myself if I have a direction, I’ll go back, and that was 10 years ago,” Fink said.
Now, as a 38-year-old mom of three, Fink said she now has her plan. She said she intends to become a sociological researcher with a focus in religious studies.
Fink said her passion behind the subjects stems from a life-long interest in people and how they work.
“I think my driving force, which was part of my being an EMT, and being a firefighter, wanting to join the military, all I wanted was to make a difference,” Fink said. “I wanted to do something to help humanity.”
Arjana said these classes are not a theological debate.
“Religious studies at a secular state university is about asking what is the history of these religions, who are the founders, what are their rituals and traditions,” Arjana said.
Barker said his classroom tactics fall under that same umbrella.
“I tell students that I don’t grade you based on what you believe or don’t,” Barker said. “I tend to not even talk in class about what I believe or don’t believe.”
However unbiased and academic this major may be, Fink said the nature of the topic simply opens opportunities for students to question their beliefs.
“Your rose-colored glasses will be shattered, and your understanding will become completely flipped on its head,” Fink said. “It’s going to test you and stretch you beyond your comfort levels, but it’s also going to broaden your understanding.”
Though this concept may seem jarring, Arjana said the need for religious literacy in today’s world is vital. She said this need is clear through the “resurgence of Islamaphobia, at least in the social media landscape.”
She said part of the reason that religious studies has the potential to make such a change now is the evolving diversity of the field that allows for the understanding of more perspectives.
“It’s evolved in the last 100 years from when it was pretty much colonial white men doing it,” Arjana said.
Not only is diversity a silver lining among an array of challenges, Barker said the opportunity to form such “close-knit” relationships with your peers and professors is unlike many other majors.
“I don’t know how many students get this kind of experience,” Barker said.
He said he had the same experience in higher education, becoming friends with his professors and learning that he could rely on them personally and academically, and still does.
“Those kinds of relationships, there’s not a substitute for that,” Barker said.
As the semester comes to a close, the professors behind these programs look to the future of what it means to teach, advise and collaborate in these departments under pressure.
Fink said while it is hard to potentially be a part of one “the last waves” of this program,: she she knows the importance of the work she does.
While she may not have all the answers to the questions raised by these courses, she said the search for answers cannot cease.
“The one thing I know concretely is that we don’t know,” said Fink.