St. John’s University has received two grants for their theology and education departments’ projects.

The funds total $110,433 for the projects and come from the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, and the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad program.

The theology grant will be directed toward the “White Privilege and Theological Pedagogy” project in the amount of $29,425 from the former funder. The latter will fund $81,008 to the “Connecting Across Languages and Cultures in Bosnia and Herzegovina: An Immersive Curriculum Development Experience for Educators” project.

The grants have already begun, commencing on July 1.

The goals of the first project are to “gain insight into the distorting impact of white privilege on theological pedagogy for theology faculty at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, and to improve their pedagogical practices for building supportive, anti-racist teaching environments for theological education,” a release recently issued on the schools' website said.

The second project's goal will be to “promote, improve and develop the study of foreign languages and area studies at varying levels of education (grades 8 through college)," the release stated. "In addition, the overarching goal of the project is to develop a collaboration between education students, licensed teachers and college faculty in order to create curriculum projects that explore the intersection of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s three official languages, politics, history, educational systems and cultures.”

The second project will include a component for a four-week study-abroad program for summer 2021, which is tentative given the state of events.

The grants will be available through June 30, 2022, and are being administered by Theresa Johnson, who is the associate professor of education at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University.

The grants being made available to students will ensure that those interested in pursuing these courses of study have the ability to do so without undue financial strain.