University of Sioux Falls
Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Faculty, students and members of neighboring academic, religious, and scientific communities congregate monthly throughout the school year to participate in roundtable forums. A nationally recognized scholar will be invited to address the society and the community-at-large. The society hosts a widely publicized annual spring symposium to bring the work of each year to the public. Three delegates – two faculty and one student – will attend the Metanexus annual conference each June. Core membership includes faculty from departments of natural sciences, philosophy and theology. The aim of the Forum is threefold: 1) to facilitate a welcoming and lively, transdisciplinary discourse with the intent to discern new religious and scientific insights and to build fundamental approaches to foundational questions; 2) to sustain an enduring avenue for faculty development opportunities in the constructive engagement of science and religion; and 3) to foster student development by encouraging young scholars to participate in the society’s events and by intimately incorporating the existing honors program. Topics and readings explore historical overviews and contemporary considerations of seminal issues in science and faith including: consciousness and the soul; physics and cosmology; medicine and health; biological sciences; and matters in ethics, philosophy and the social sciences. Additional plans include the endowment of a faculty development program and the founding of a respected Speaker’s Bureau in the service of local religious, educational, and civic institutions. The University of Sioux Falls provides matching funds.