Partnership with

The Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society

The mission is to translate Benjamin Franklin’s timeless yet timely nonsectarian civic vision for Penn and for American democracy itself into a 21st century, university-anchored agenda of fact-based research on urban and other faith-based organizations.

 

Penn’s Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (PRRUCS) is a program of the School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania.  The PRRUCS mission is to translate Benjamin Franklin’s timeless yet timely nonsectarian civic vision for Penn and for American democracy itself into a 21st century, university-anchored agenda of fact-based research on urban and other faith-based organizations. Such a nonsectarian civic vision models both robust respect for religious pluralism and a bedrock belief that sacred places, both on their own and via public-private partnerships, can and should serve secular purposes unto “the common good”.  PRRUCS aims to advance knowledge and promote mutual understanding concerning contemporary America’s most complex and contentious church-state issues through survey research on religion and democratic values in America, arts and sciences teaching relevant to religion, service-learning initiatives, and special events and projects.

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Just released!

Check out a PRRUCS special issue entitled Should Groups Matter? Religion, Freedom, and Contemporary Civil Society, co-edited by Dr. Luke Sheahan and Dr. Daniel Cheely, who is the Executive Director of PRRUCS and Director of Collegium, this timely collection of essays features leading scholars of diverse outlook who deftly address current issues in a manner that is broadly accessible. 

For this PRRUCS Volume I, Dr. Cheely serves as co-editor with Dr. Luke C. Sheahan, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Duquesne University and a non-resident scholar at PRRUCS.  Of the collection of essays, the editors note: 

“A time to restitch the social fabric of our community will follow our spring lockdown. If we hope to promote a healthy polity as we resume activity amidst the lingering threat of pandemic, we must think critically and constructively about how social and physical well-being will continue to be related. We hope that this collection of essays, reflecting on both our foundations and our futures, might help us advance in our ongoing quest for the common good.”

Volume I contains the following essays:

  • Reflections on Citizenship while Staying at Home, Catherine E. Wilson

  • Can We Save our Toxic Political Atmosphere?, Lia C. Howard

  • Ordering Parental Rights, Children’s Autonomy, and Civic Education:  A Philosophical Foundation for Public Policy, Melissa Moschella

  • Dual Allegiances? American Citizenship and Religious Obligations, Rogers Smith

  • Faithful Americans: Catholic Reconciliations of Identity in Early America, Michael D. Breidenbach 

  • Freedoms Like a Fox: The Constitutional Community and First Amendment Rights, Luke C. Sheahan

  • Pluralism in the Chinese Political Community: A Nisbetian Perspective on the State of Chinese Non-Governmental Organizations and Civil Society, Luke C. Sheahan

Check it out
 
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Student Fellowship Opportunities

Each semester, the Program for Research on Religion & Urban Civil Society (PRRUCS) seek public-spirited Penn students to place in paid, on-campus fellowships. Past Fellowship topics have included:

  • G.E.M. Anscombe Archive

  • Philosophy of Finance

  • Magi Project in Science, Philosophy, and Theology

  • Service-Learning and Scholarship

  • History of the Book in the Early Modern World

  • Religion and American Public Life

  • Collegium Podcast

Applications Currently Closed