Covering Religion prepares students to work as religion writers on newspapers and magazines or for broadcast and new media outlets. In the Spring 2006 semester the class will focus on the rich diversity of religious faith found in India.

The first seven weeks of the course will be spent reporting on religion in the New York area. Each student is assigned a faith or a sect of a faith in which to specialize. These will include Hindu, Muslim and Christian sects as well as Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Jews and Zoroastrians. Each student will make an oral presentation about his or her assigned faith and will help shape the religious itinerary of the trip.

In March, the class will travel to India and visit some of the holiest sites of the religions they have been covering. This study tour is sponsored by a generous grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation.

In past years, the class visited Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories. In each of these places, the group met with religious leaders and visited synagogues, mosques, churches and shrines.