by Betül Maden-Yilmaz, MTS ’24 and Samirah Jaigirdar, MTS ’24
Editor’s Note: In this post, HDS Admissions Graduate Assistants Betül Maden-Yilmaz and Samirah Jaigirdar share their experiences with the Certificate in Religion and Public Life program here at HDS. The Certificate in Religion and Public Life (CRPL) is designed to prepare HDS graduates with the tools, skills, and experience to explore professional pathways outside of traditional ministry or academic scholarship. Through the CRPL, MTS and MDiv students engage in a structure of coursework, mentoring, experiential learning, and a final project. Students explore the challenges and opportunities that arise when a nuanced understanding of religion is employed within a particular professional or vocational arena of focus such as education, journalism, government, community organizing, humanitarian action, and arts and popular culture.
Betül Maden-Yilmaz:
I learned about the Certificate of Religion and Public life very early on after getting my acceptance to HDS and I was very excited at the opportunity to earn a certification while working towards my master’s degree. However, I understood that it would come with additional responsibilities, including completing a gateway course, securing an internship, and committing to a capstone project before graduation. The details of the CRPL program unfolded during our orientation in August, just before the commencement of the fall semester. This early insight allowed me to organize my class schedule around the essential gateway course, HDS 3300: Religious Literacy and the Professions.
The course was not an easy one for me; it introduced me to a lot of theory that I had no exposure to before, and it was an adjustment especially in my first semester at HDS. But I truly believe it was the perfect timing for me as it trained me for the rest of my academic journey at HDS extremely well. Within the course, I selected the “education” career track which meant I had a section with the Education Fellow once a week alongside the main course. We studied pedagogical theory which truly helped me understand how religion is embedded within the educational career. This section gave me tools to understand more about teaching and especially while promoting religious literacy in different class settings. In the Education Track section, I was able to work on my final project with feedback from the Education Fellow, Sarabinh, and form a week-long curriculum for a high school English class on James Baldwin’s short story “The Outing.” This was my first time ever writing up a curriculum and lesson plan, and it helped me more than I ever imagined once time came for my internship over the summer before I started my second year of the MTS program.
When time came to choose an internship, after reaching out and interviewing with some pre-approved sites that RPL provided for us students, I decided that I felt best getting an internship in a city that I planned to live in post-graduation, which happens to be Philadelphia. One of the fellows at the RPL, Naomi Washington-Leapheart (although not my career track fellow, she was still so generous to help me), helped me get in touch with a non-profit organization I found online called Interfaith Philadelphia (IP). I interviewed with IP for their Youth Program and was fortunate enough to spend a part of the summer helping plan, write up curriculum, and run their Mosaic Summer Camp program. Getting the opportunity to work on curriculum, then actually get to teach the same curriculum to students in person was a wonderful learning experience for me!
I am very happy that I got to be a part of the CRPL, as I am currently just a few weeks away from submitting the final step to the certification which is my Capstone Project: a High School Advanced Placement Literature Curriculum unit for the novel Between Two Moons by Aisha Abdel Gawad.
Samirah Jaigirdar:
In the spring of my senior year at Connecticut College, I had a chat with my major advisor about the classes I wanted to take at HDS. To my surprise, he discovered that one of his former colleagues from the US Institute of Peace was now at HDS! After a bit of digging, I found out she was leading a program called the “Certificate in Religion and Public Life.” Uncertain about its requirements, I attended the info session during orientation and quickly realized it was a perfect fit for me! The CRPL program aims to show HDS students how they can apply their degrees in real-world settings. To participate, students must choose a specific track, complete an internship, and undertake a capstone project related to that track. Initially torn between the Humanitarian Action and Government paths, I ultimately decided on the Government track after talking with the fellows teaching those tracks as my short-term post-HDS goal was to either be enrolled in a Political Science PhD program or join a think tank where I would research political and religious violence.
In my first semester at HDS, balancing Theories and Methods with the gateway CRPL course, HDS 3300: Religious Literacy and the Professions, proved challenging due to their heavy theoretical focus. However, I soon noticed that readings from both courses sometimes intersected, particularly those on secularity. Looking back, I can say that many of the frameworks from HDS 3300 have been invaluable in my other classes focusing on religion and politics. After the fall, my spring semester didn’t include any CRPL-focused courses, but I did have to apply for summer internships to develop skills in my chosen track. Ultimately, I found an internship with the US Institute of Peace, an institution whose research I had been following since my sophomore year of college!
My summer at USIP was one of the most fascinating experiences I’ve had during my HDS journey. I closely collaborated with the Program on Violent Extremism, specifically examining the incorporation of religious literacy into extremist rehabilitation programs—a topic that became the focus of my CRPL Capstone. The best part about my internship was that I could network around the Institute. Hence, I had opportunities to speak to researchers in different fields in order to inform my post-HDS thinking. Although I ultimately decided to apply to PhD programs, speaking to researchers in the different teams at USIP was helpful for me to ascertain that the think tank space is right for me in the long term.
I’m currently wrapping up my CRPL capstone project, which is a policy paper on religious literacy and extremist rehabilitation programs. As I get closer to graduation and look back on the CRPL program in retrospect, I can wholeheartedly recommend this program to anyone interested in exploring practical ways of putting an MTS or an MDiv into action.
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