A Continuation of the Relationship between the Sundar Singh Institute of South Asian Studies and Ewing Christian College

The Sundar Singh Institute of South Asian Studies is now the culmination of a bold and progressive academic initiative through the philanthropic agency of the Society of Saint Bartholomew. For many years, the Society (along with its affiliated charities) has been connected to deliberately and discreetly developing the intellectual life of South Asia through the promotion of freedom of thought, interfaith dialogue, and the respectful exchange of ideas among persons of different convictions. Ever since it was created, the Society has been closely associated with the Institute and has informally shaped its genesis, as it has with Ewing Christian College, as a recognized institution of moral character, commitment to excellence, and intercultural and multi-religious engagement.

Though the Sundar Singh Institute can be characterized as an independent research institute, it is proud to partner with Ewing Christian College in academic endeavours. While neither faculty nor administration align the two institutions, their work together is grounded in an indelible spirit of scholarly fellowship. The union of the Institute and Ewing Christian College is not a formal partnership but is based on like-spirited mission and commitment to enhancing educational opportunities promoted by knowledge in the interest of the common good.

In this collegial relationship, the Institute functions as a source of intellectual resource and advisory capacity. Through Ewing Christian College (institutional location), we support students’ research interests by providing access to research opportunities, academic supervision, and scholarship assistance. In return, Ewing Christian College retains the intellectual apparatus to support and enhance our students’ research efforts. The outcome is a vibrant, non-institutionalized way of collaborating that moves beyond the bounds of a traditional institution and offers a mode of scholarly adventure.

Our collaboration has produced a number of academic outputs. It connects the College’s distinct collegiate form of undergraduate education with the Institute’s research context, thereby producing conditions for scholarly outputs, interdisciplinary discussion series, co-seminar series, and pedagogy. Thematic explorations show up multiple times in the collaboration, for example, ancient prophetic traditions, transcultural literacy, ethical-political in/agency, and include mentoring opportunities for both faculty and students that sustain collaborative engagement. The partnership builds progressive scholarly environments in institutional spaces (visiting lecture series, credit-less grading systems, etc.) and opportunities for experimental learning.

But more fundamentally, this collaboration closes an argument: that scholarship, in its best representations, must serve scholarship, sustained by the understandings of the moral, social, and political necessities of our time. Scholarship is never an end in itself, rather a means to conversation. The collaboration demonstrates an investment in critical, experiential, interdisciplinary scholarship that demonstrates commitments to ethics.

The Society of Saint Bartholomew has generously partnered with us in this collaboration to sustain this work, which inspires and creates a new community of scholars committed to not only being “educated” but responsibly engaged and immersed in social critical thinking. This community of scholars, irrespective of academic achievement, demonstrates a moral commitment to humanity and social good that allows for the potentiality of justice and peace.

In summary, the Sundar Singh Institute and Ewing Christian College can continue to work collaboratively, to produce long-term impact on their academic and civic communities. Their students think with not just academic knowledge, but with moral clarity and intellectual commitments that support humane discussion with accountable purposes, practices and cognizance committed to some aspect of the public good.