Helen and Wm. Gordon Ross Lectureship

Under the auspices of the Helen and Wm. Gordon Ross Lectureship on Religions, Spirituality, and Culture, the Faculty of the Department for Studies of Religions and Spirituality annually offers lectures on and presentations about religious and spiritual topics of interest.  The Faculty invites to campus both well-known scholars who study varieties of religious or spiritual phenomena and influential religious or spiritual leaders to deliver lectures and presentations on important historical and contemporary topics, issues, questions, and problems in this vast region of human experience, history, and culture.

When one of the namesakes for this lectureship, Wm. Gordon Ross, retired from Berea College in 1968, colleagues, friends, and admirers of Helen and Wm. Gordon Ross established an endowed lectureship in appreciation of the Rosses and their many years of faithful service to Berea College and its students.  The generous donors stipulated that the College use the income from this endowment, in the names of Helen and Wm. Gordon Ross, to bring outstanding philosophers, religious thinkers, and scholars of religions and spiritualities to Berea College.  Both the Department for Studies of Religions and Spirituality and the Department of Philosophy jointly administer the income from this endowment: the endowment supports lectureships for both academic departments.