Meet Claudia Highbaugh

Claudia Highbaugh

Editor’s note: Highbaugh joined CC as dean of religious and spiritual life Jan. 23. She earned both her doctor of ministry and master of divinity degrees at the Claremont School of Theology and comes to CC from the Harvard Divinity School, where she has been a member of the faculty, a chaplain and associate director of ministerial studies.

Q: What do you see as some of the larger issues of religion and spirituality today?
A: Denominationalism is going away and in its stead we are creating faith and support communities. Within this context, I have some exciting ideas for involving the campus community.

Q: Such as?
A: I want to create events that get our students to think about what they want to do with their values and their life work. I want to mix the faculty into that discussion and bring people in for events and series. One of the first things I have in mind deals with the intersection of religion and spirituality. I would like to look at different cultural ideas of the family. I’d like to find some interfaith families on campus to get us to talk about what that means for religious and spiritual life. I would like to have discussions on how one maintains a religious practice while understanding and holding up the importance of different religious traditions.

Q: What are some of the resources we have on campus that you might include in your work here?
A: There are so many! I want to work with the different faculty members and combine their expertise. For example, visual art is interesting to people. All traditions for hundreds of years have used visual art. I’m finding that young people like to gather around artistic expression. I’ll be talking with the art and music departments. Down the road, the idea of doing an annual theme appeals to me. I would like to focus on a theme using rivers for example, to involve religion, culture, art. This gives us an opportunity to look at rivers in a variety of places and cultures; the Nile, and the Mississippi are two important examples. Poets, musicians and visual artists use water in art. Water is a deeply religious and cultural symbol.

Q: Art and music easily blend with spirituality. Are there other areas that could be brought into religion and spirituality in some context?
A: Absolutely. The College has such a strong environmental sciences program, which corresponds quite well with Native American traditions. They teach us why we need to be ecologically sensitive. Listening to undergraduates, I hear that they get clear about what has to be done by hands-on activities, not just intellectualizing. Native Americans use basic symbols and ideas. Their regard for the earth and their community rituals help us to think about how cultures practice religion as a part of community and family life.

Q: So what are your plans for the spring semester?
A: I’ll be on campus most of the time. One day a week I’ll be teaching a class at Harvard. I want to start working closely with the chaplains. We will have some planning sessions as we work together to have some coordinated campus events. I know you had Diwali [in November], which celebrated a Hindu holiday in a big way. Perhaps we could think of having a variety of major cultural and religions special days on campus. I’ll be spending a lot of time in the spring meeting and talking with faculty to see what resources we have. I am a team player. I want to engage the different departments and try to be creative with the wonderful resources at Connecticut College.