Skip to content Skip to navigation
Vassar
Skip to global navigation Menu

Religious and Spiritual Life and Contemplative Practices

Vassar College

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.  

Our Spaces

A multi-story brick building with steep gabled roofs and half-timbered architectural details including a covered archway entrance. A tree is in the foreground, the ground is covered in autumn leaves, and a lampost is to the right.

Pratt House

A fully accessible hub for the RSLCP office with a second floor prayer and meditation space, first floor multi-purpose floor space, kitchen and ritual kitchen, second floor 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 an outdoor labyrinth.

A light blue two-story house with a white front door and a covered entryway.

The Bayit

Our home for Jewish Life at 51 Collegeview Avenue, with a dairy kosher kitchen, multi-purpose downstairs gathering space, downstairs den a second office for the Rachlin Director for Jewish Life, upstairs study, a quiet room for personal meditation/prayer/study, and more.

Red brick building with stairs and flowering cherry trees in the foreground.

The Old Laundry Building

The Muslim Prayer Space on the ground floor of the Old Laundry Building, with its own wudu station.

A large chapel built of light-colored stone, featuring a prominent square tower, seen across a grassy lawn on a sunny day.

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.