New Specializations Allow MA Students to Focus on Ecology or Eco-Chaplaincy

Students returning to or enrolling in HIU in Fall 2025 will have new specializations to choose from in both the MA in Interreligious Studies and the MA in Chaplaincy. These new options allow master's level students to center their studies in love of Earth. 

Dr. Lisa Dahill, Director of the Center for Transformative Spirituality, has been instrumental in launching HIU's Graduate Certificate in Eco-Spirituality as well as these new specialization options.

"We need to re-knit our relational and spiritual connections to place and its creatures and elements, as central dimensions of the religious traditions that orient our lives and our place in the cosmos, as part of these religions’ calls to love and justice," she said. "We are coming to see that peace, justice, and the flourishing of creation are utterly inseparable from one another; we are expanding the “inter-” nature of HIU’s identity to include interspecies as well."  

Students choosing the Ecology and Religion specialization in the MA in Interreligious Studies will take three courses in Ecological Studies and one course or independent study in which substantive connection to ecological questions will be made. Such students are expected to submit a project or thesis focusing on eco-theology, eco-justice, or eco-spirituality.

Students choosing the Eco-Chaplaincy specialization in the MA in Chaplaincy will take three courses related to ecology (counting as three of the program's five electives) in consultation with the program director. Students in this specialization will also complete an ecologically oriented Field Education experience.

HIU's Doctor of Ministry program, relaunched in 2024, also includes a specialization in Ecology and Religion: Leadership for Life on Earth.

"These programs meet a growing need for theologically rich and scientifically grounded inter-religious training in the ecological/spiritual needs of our time, in relation to radically destabilizing climate systems and uncertain prospects for the human future," Dr. Dahill said. 

"We urgently need religious leaders trained in addressing these impacts and inviting humans of all ages and backgrounds into restorative forms of renewed kinship and love with Earth’s creatures, lands, and waters, toward creative new ways of being human on Earth: the newest phase of HIU’s transformative vision."

For more information on HIU's Ecological Programs and Initiatives, visit this page or email admissions@hartfordinternational.edu