The Office of Religious and Spiritual Life and Contemplative Practices (RSLCP) oversees, advises, and supports a wide range of religious and civic communities and initiatives on campus and plays an important role as a college liaison to the mid-Hudson Valley community.

Staff members are available for pastoral counseling and spiritual support for any concerns or questions students may have. Our office is made up of an associate dean for RSLCP, a director for Jewish student life and assistant director for RSLCP, an advisor for Muslim student life, and part-time affiliate advisors who serve the Jewish, Episcopal, and Roman Catholic communities on campus. A faculty advisor volunteers to support our Buddhist Sangha.  

Look for more information soon on this website about our spaces, which include:

• Pratt House, a newly renovated fully accessible hub for the office in the middle of campus, with a 2^nd floor prayer and meditation space, multi-purpose 1^st floor space, kitchen and ritual kitchen, offices for our multi-religious staff and administrator, a wudu station (or ablutions sink, for communities that do ritual washing before prayers), conference room, and a new outdoor labyrinth
• The Bayit, our home for Jewish Life at 51 Collegeview Avenue, with a dairy kosher kitchen, multi-purpose downstairs gathering space, a second office for the Rachlin Director for Jewish Life, upstairs study, a quiet room for personal meditation/prayer/study, and more
• The Muslim Prayer Space on the ground floor of the Old Laundry Building, with its own wudu station
• The Vassar Chapel, the campus’s ceremonial center, open daily for prayer, our annual Lessons and Carols service, choir rehearsals and chapel organ practice, lectures, concerts, and more

The RSLCP Office is a Campus Partner of the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab (CIL), a member of the Association for Chaplaincy and Spiritual Life in Higher Education (ACSLHE), and affiliated with Hillel International.

Mission

The Office of Religious and Spiritual Life and Contemplative Practices helps students integrate lives of passionate commitment, embodied practice, and intellectual critique at Vassar and beyond. Our programs articulate a lively public role for religious imagination and ensure that opportunities for spiritual and democratic formation are part of the demanding and creative education Vassar offers—for the religiously devoted, the spiritually curious, and the radically questioning.