Exploration of faith and religion is part of the education students pursue at MIT, where about 3,000 of those students, almost one-third of the student body, join in religious activities. They crowd the MIT Chapel and prayer rooms for services weekly and daily. In fact, more than 30 student religious groups are recognized by the Association of Student Activities and are active on campus, giving MIT a vibrant religious life.

Providing opportunities for religious involvement at MIT is part of educating and meeting the needs of the whole person. MIT students are gifted in their ability to use science to solve problems, but they also have questions that are not resolved by scientific theory or mathematical formula. They look to science for some answers, and to faith for others.

“‘Big Bang’ is about how we got here. Scripture is about why we are here,” says Rev. John Wuestneck, a Protestant chaplain and mechanical engineer.

Very often, MIT students express their spirituality through service to others. When one student learned of a women’s shelter needing renovation, for example, over 150 members of MIT’s Tech Catholic Community volunteered to plaster and paint, fix light fixtures, and ready apartments to become transitional housing for women. And for the three successive Christmases, students donated gifts to fulfill the wish lists of children living at that shelter.

A Center of activity

Students come to MIT seeking answers, and the Institute provides them the tools and the spaces they need to discover those answers. The Religious Activities Center is a place where students find enlightenment in faith. The Center and the Chapel are the heart of religious life on campus. They bring together people of different faiths within the MIT community.

Dr. Robert M. Randolph was installed as the first Chaplain to the Institute in September 2007. His role, according to President Susan Hockfield, is to guard the core values of the Institute and serve the faith communities at MIT. His office is, appropriately, in the Religious Activities Center.

Religious life on the MIT campus is most successful when students grow in the understanding of their religious traditions and are encouraged to interact with those of other traditions. At the Center, chaplains of various faiths all have offices on one level; thus, Protestant students visiting their chaplain meet Jewish students visiting Hillel, or Catholic friends stopping in to see their priest, or Muslim friends going to prayers.

“The Religious Activities Center’s presence is a very powerful message to our students, and is a real piece of their education,” says Miriam Rosenblum, Jewish chaplain and director of MIT Hillel, a Jewish students’ organization. “Students can choose to affiliate with a religious organization, and at the same time, rub shoulders with the others.”

The chaplains are financially supported by their own denominations, with MIT providing space and other resources for their work. The Center is also where students come to find community and support, and to explore how their vocations will benefit society. The Technology and Culture Forum at the Center provides opportunities for such conversations. The Forum started in 1964 when an Episcopal chaplain and faculty members began meeting regularly over brown bag lunches to discuss their work and their roles in society.

Today, the Forum hosts 15 to 20 programs a year, bringing experts and students together to explore moral and scientific issues. In MIT fashion, the experts — neuroscientists, sociologists, historians, and theologians — and the students both challenge and learn from each other.

Interfaith community

During the Islamic month of Ramadan every fall, the Muslim Students Association has hosted an interfaith dinner at which Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist students have shared their religious beliefs. Hillel has hosted Friday night dinners for graduate students that have been open to people of all faiths. The contact among different religions at MIT has positive effects, leading to Jewish and Muslim students volunteering together at a local food bank, for example.

The goal is that the effects of such interaction will stay with students after they leave the Institute. “We’re training the next generation of leaders in the Middle East. I want them to know each other before they get out of here,” says Chaplain to the Institute Robert Randolph.

Supporting religious life

Spirituality and religion are integral parts of campus life, as the Institute must educate students not only to excel, but also to be well-rounded members of society. Endowing the work of the Religious Activities Center enables chaplains to continue this important part of an MIT education.

A gift to support religious life at MIT ensures students are not only at the forefront of research in their chosen fields, but are also encouraged to grow as individuals and become leaders, both in their fields and in the world.