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Spiritual and Religious Diversity

SUNY Cortland is a community of students, staff, and faculty from a wide range of religious, spiritual, and secular backgrounds. As a campus that seeks to support and affirm the practices and observances of its members, we offer below an overview of ways to foster a supportive and affirming environment for individuals who may be fasting and/or abstaining from work as part of their religious observance. 

This campus resource is designed to both increase our awareness of when and how our students and colleagues may be observing religious holidays and to better enable us to establish a culture of planning that is proactively mindful of faith-based observance and strives to promote a living, learning, and working environment that operates with religious inclusion in mind. We recognize that how any individual member of our campus community chooses to observe their faith is up to them, and we invite faculty and staff to work collaboratively with students and/or employees to coordinate any needed adjustments to when work will be done to support their faith-based observance.

In the context of the classroom and workplace, faculty and supervisors can signal a commitment to fostering an inclusive environment for religious observance by proactively noting that as part of beginning-of-semester or employee-onboarding discussions and/or communications. As a helpful reference, here is some framing language that can be used: The classroom/workplace is a space with individuals from a range of religious, spiritual, and secular backgrounds, and many faith traditions have holidays where fasting and/or suspension of work is part of the observance practice. Please feel free to coordinate with me if there are ways I can adapt when or how you complete your work in ways that support your religious observance.

For a list of major religious holidays for the current academic year, visit the Registrar's Religious and Holiday Observances page. If you have questions about any of the information below or how to support students or employees related to religious observance, please contact Renee Wells, Chief Diversity Officer, at [email protected].  

Outlook Calendar of Fasting and/or Suspension of Work Holidays

To help the SUNY Cortland campus community with support and planning, the Institutional Equity and Inclusion Office has an Outlook calendar that students, staff, and faculty can add so that it displays along with their personal Outlook calendar. This calendar is specifically for the religious holidays when members of the campus community may be fasting or abstaining from work as part of their observance. Below are instructions for how to “add” the calendar to your personal Outlook:

  • Go to the myRedDragon homepage 
  • In the Quicklinks column, click on “Cortland Webmail” and login using your SUNY Cortland credentials 
  • Once your webmail opens, scroll to the column along the far left and click on the calendar icon 
  • Once your calendar opens, scroll to the left column and click on “Add calendar” 
  • Once the window opens, scroll down to the text box under “Individual calendars” and type “[email protected]” and click on “save” 
  • You should see “Institutional Equity and Inclusion Office” listed as one of the calendars in the left column. You can check or uncheck it as needed to choose whether to display it at the same time as your personal calendar.

Important notes about Outlook Calendar dates:

  • While we aim to include as many major religious holidays as possible when members of our campus community might be fasting or abstaining from work, the list of dates provided on the Outlook calendar should not be assumed to be all-inclusive; students, staff, and faculty may observe other holidays and/or other religious traditions.
  • Also, each religious holiday has been added so that it appears on each date that it is observed. Different faith traditions have different practices with respect to the timing of holiday observances. For example, some holidays are observed during a single calendar date, while some are observed from sundown to sundown across calendar dates. You can click on and open any individual calendar entry to see the observance notes for more specific information about the holiday. Some calendar days have no holidays listed, while others have several. All the holidays have been added so they display on any given day as entries in the time slots between 6:00 AM and 12:00 PM. (These times are only placeholders so the holidays can be displayed on the calendar.)

Ways to foster a supportive and affirming environment for members of the SUNY Cortland community who are fasting

  • Students and employees can feel vulnerable or intimidated when interacting with faculty and/or supervisors about their religious, spiritual, or secular identity. Faculty and staff should work to signal openness to help reduce barriers to conversation. Faculty and staff should also be mindful that students and employees might discuss their identity as part of a conversation about their needs, but that might not mean those students and employees want to share their identity or needs more broadly. Thus, faculty and staff should be mindful to protect student and employee privacy.
  • Fasting for religious observance often runs from sunrise to sunset across faith traditions, which means individuals who are fasting will likely have a higher level of energy and focus earlier in the work/school day.
  • If you have an exam scheduled on a day that students will be fasting, check with them to see if they would like to arrange to take the exam at a different time of the day when they might feel more alert/focused.
  • If you are teaching a class or leading an activity that requires physical exertion (e.g., athletic practice, fitness class, course-related field work), make sure students know they can check in with you about their energy level and ability to participate.
  • If you are planning a student event (e.g., leadership awards ceremony), avoid scheduling it on a date when students might be fasting. (Many student events are catered with snacks and/or meals, and it is most inclusive to host such events on dates when all students will be able to fully participate.) Alternatively, you can schedule the event to begin after sunset so that all participants will be able to fully participate.
  • If you have employees whose work requires physical exertion (e.g., unloading packages, trimming hedges), check with them to see if they would like to focus on the more physical tasks at a specific time of the day or to partner with a colleague to distribute tasks in a way that feels sustainable for the employee while they are fasting.
  • If you have staff meetings scheduled on a day when employees will be fasting, consider not bringing in snacks for the team for that meeting.

Ways to foster a supportive and affirming environment for members of the SUNY Cortland community who are abstaining from work

  • Xavier University (Cincinnati, OH) maintains a resource page that provides helpful context for understanding suspension/restriction of work in relation to religious observance. Below is some of what they highlight: 
    • A work-restricted religious holy day is “a recognized denominational sacred or holy day that is observed by persons or groups who are required – through a set or system of religious beliefs, laws/doctrines, tenets, canons or theology – to restrict or limit work and/or physical or mental activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something; toil; labor. This definition may include academic endeavors (e.g. examinations, classroom activities and research, or out-of-classroom learning experiences).” 
    • Also, “Sunday is widely observed as a Sabbath and day of worship for many faith traditions. In the Jewish faith, Saturday (beginning at sunset on Friday) is a work-restricted Sabbath. Regulations governing observance for worship depend on regional customs.” 
  • Religious observance of any faith-based holy day varies across cultures, regions, and individuals. What one person understands as an observant way to suspend or restrict work on a holy day will vary from another person’s understanding, even for the same holy day of the same religious faith. Thus, it is important to allow each student, colleague, or employee to practice observance in the way that aligns with and affirms their faith and to work with them to flex when job- or class-related work will be done that will allow them to both practice their faith and meet their academic and employment expectations. 
  • Knowing which holy days involve suspension or restriction of work can enable us to avoid (as much as possible) scheduling exams, projects, job presentations, etc. on days when students and employees may need to abstain from work. It is helpful to get in the habit of reviewing this calendar of work-restricted holy days as you map out the calendar of major curricular, co-curricular, and employment due dates for the semester or academic year. 

SUNY Cortland Religious Policy and Accommodation Under NYS Education Law Section 224-A

  • 224-a. Students unable because of religious beliefs to register or attend classes on certain days.
  1. No person shall be expelled from or be refused admission as a student to an institution of higher education for the reason that he or she is unable, because of his or her religious beliefs, to register or attend classes or to participate in any examination, study or work requirements on a particular day or days.
  2. Any student in an institution of higher education who is unable, because of his or her religious beliefs, to attend classes on a particular day or days shall, because of such absence on the particular day or days, be excused from any examination or any study or work requirements.
  3. It shall be the responsibility of the faculty and of the administrative officials of each institution of higher education to make available to each student who is absent from school, because of his or her religious beliefs, an equivalent opportunity to register for classes or make up any examination, study or work requirements which he or she may have missed because of such absence on any particular day or days. No fees of any kind shall be charged by the institution for making available to the said student such equivalent opportunity.
  4. If registration, classes, examinations, study or work requirements are held on Friday after four o'clock post meridian or on Saturday, similar or makeup classes, examinations, study or work requirements or opportunity to register shall be made available on other days, where it is possible and practicable to do so. No special fees shall be charged to the student for these classes, examinations, study or work requirements or registration held on other days.
  5. In effectuating the provisions of this section, it shall be the duty of the faculty and of the administrative officials of each institution of higher education to exercise the fullest measure of good faith. No adverse or prejudicial effects shall result to any student because of his or her availing himself or herself of the provisions of this section.
  6. Any student, who is aggrieved by the alleged failure of any faculty or administrative officials to comply in good faith with the provisions of this section, shall be entitled to maintain an action or proceeding in the supreme court of the county in which such institution of higher education is located for the enforcement of his or her rights under this section.

6-a. It shall be the responsibility of the administrative officials of each institution of higher education to give written notice to students of their rights under this section, informing them that each student who is absent from school, because of his or her religious beliefs, must be given an equivalent opportunity to register for classes or make up any examination, study or work requirements which he or she may have missed because of such absence on any particular day or days. No fees of any kind shall be charged by the institution for making available to such student such equivalent opportunity.

  1. As used in this section, the term "institution of higher education” shall mean any institution of higher education, recognized and approved by the regents of the university of the state of New York, which provides a course of study leading to the granting of a post-secondary degree or diploma. Such term shall not include any institution which is operated, supervised or controlled by a church or by a religious or denominational organization whose educational programs are principally designed for the purpose of training ministers or other religious functionaries or for the purpose of propagating religious doctrines. As used in this section, the term "religious belief" shall mean beliefs associated with any corporation organized and operated exclusively for religious purposes, which is not disqualified for tax exemption under section 501 of the United States Code.

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