Each year the Religious Studies team hosts the World Religions Symposium, a high school engagement day for Year 11 students. But this year was bigger and better as the team hit the road and went on tour.
Over the course of 3 days the team engaged with more than 900 students from 28 schools in South East Queensland and for the first time ever, Cairns.
Interest from Far North Queensland saw a group of almost 200 students from 6 schools gather at St Andrews Catholic College in Cairns and experience the event for themselves.
Three academics from the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry – Associate Professor Tom Aechtner, Associate Professor Adam Bowles and Dr James Lancaster – were accompanied by Melinda Kopanakis and Melissa Grundy from HASS Marketing and Engagement to the tropics where they delivered a day of information sessions and a Q&A panel.
Tom Aechtner presented on Science and Religion Conflict, Adam Bowles explored Hinduism: Sacred Texts, and James Lancaster spoke on The Ethics and Reception of Job. Each presenter presented their session twice to allow the students to attend 2 sessions each.
The annual event regularly attracts close to 500 students at St Lucia alone but thanks to record interest this year the team delivered 2 back-to-back symposiums back on home ground at UQ just 2 days later. They also welcomed Zerrin Afza, PhD Candidate in Religious Studies, who spoke on Islam and Society.
Each presenter shared their passion for their discipline with groups of inquisitive and highly engaged students, which led to a lot of interest and questions from the students.
Events like this that align with curriculum in schools are proving more popular than ever and this event is an exemplar of high school outreach in HASS.
A big thank you to everyone involved in this venture. At a very busy time of the year days like these would not be possible without the commitment and dedication of our staff.
Anyone interested in learning more about this event and how you might become involved please reach out to HASS Engagement.
