Christopher (Chris) Vecsey

In fall 2025, as I enter my fiftieth year of full-time college-level teaching, I find myself reflecting on my entire academic career.
Born in New York City in 1948, I received a Catholic education in grammar and high school before attending Hunter College (City University of New York), where, as an undergraduate, I helped form the Religious Studies Program in 1966, and Northwestern University, where I received my Ph.D. in Religion in 1977.   I was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, completing almost three years (1971-1974) of alternate service to the military draft.

Following six years as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Hobart & William Smith Colleges, I have taught at Colgate University since 1982 and was one of the founding members of Colgate’s Native American Studies Program, which was officially inaugurated in 1987.  For nine years (1994-2003) I served the university as Director of the Division of the Humanities.  I was Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion (1990-1992), the Department of Religion (2009-2010, 2017-2019), Director of the Native American Studies Program (1990-1992, 2005-2009, 2014), President of the American Association of University Professors (1993-1994, 2013-2014), and a member of many elected and appointed faculty committees.  I have won university accolades such as the Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society Distinguished Teaching Award, voted by the students in 1988, the ALANA (African, Latin American, Asian, and Native American) Cultural Center Faculty Award in 2015, the AAUP Professor of the Year voted by the faculty in 2015, and the Jerome Balmuth Award for Teaching in 2018.

My courses at Colgate have included American Indian Religions, Mythologies of Tribal Peoples, Navajo Creation Stories, American Indian Life Histories, North American Indians, The Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) and Their Neighbors, Catholic Traditions, Contemporary Issues and Values, Introduction to Religion, The World’s Religions, America Singing, American Religion in These Times, Disciplinarity and Interdisciplinarity, Religion and Politics in These Times, and Religion in Contemporary America.  I have linked and co-taught several of these courses with Tim Byrnes, Colgate’s Peter L. Kellner Third Century Chair in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.

I have devoted much of my scholarly life to understanding American Indian religion, history, and culture.  Colgate has supported my research generously, and generations of Colgate students have shared in my commitment to Native American studies.  I am the author of five books about American Indian religions:  Traditional Ojibwa Religion and Its Historical Changes (1983), based upon my dissertation at Northwestern; Imagine Ourselves Richly:  Mythic Narratives of North American Indians (1988), partly co-authored by Carol Ann Lorenz, Colgate’s Professor of Native American Studies Emerita.  The paper edition was published by Harper, San Francisco, in 1991.  My major work consisted of three volumes: American Indian Catholics:  Vol. 1:  On the Padres’ Trail (l996); Vol. 2:  The Paths of Kateri's Kin (1997, which won a Catholic Press Association award for History/Biography in 1998); and Vol. 3:  Where the Two Roads Meet (1999).  I have also published dozens of articles, reviews, and review essays over the decades.
In addition, I have edited eight books regarding American Indians:  American Indian Environments.  Ecological Issues in Native American History (1980), with Robert W. Venables; Belief and Worship in Native North America (1981), by Åke Hultkrantz; The Study of American Indian Religions (1983), by Åke Hultkrantz; Iroquois Land Claims (1988), with William A. Starna; Religion in Native North America (1990); Handbook of American Indian Religious Freedom (1991); The Crossing of Two Roads (2003), with Mark G. Thiel and Marie Therese Archambault; and Native Footsteps Along the Path of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha (2012), with Mark G. Thiel.  From 2001 to 2020 I served as editor of the series, The Iroquois and Their Neighbors, published by Syracuse University Press.

In the twenty-first century I expanded my publishing interest to include contemporary journalism and religion.  I come from a family of journalists; my oldest brother George covered religion (as well as sports and regional America) for The New York Times.  From 1970 to the present, I have collected tens of thousands of religion articles published in The Times, a corpus that has informed both my teaching and writing.  In 2004, I was featured for my pedagogical innovation regarding journalism and religion:  "Using the News to Teach Religion," Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, PBS: Thirteen/WNET.  I have written three books about religion and journalism:  Following 9/11.  Religion Coverage in The New York Times (2011), Jews and Judaism in The New York Times (2013), and Catholicism in the Eyes of The New York Times. The Epoch of Pope John Paul II (2025).  In addition, I have edited Women and Religion, Philosophy and Feminism (2019), based on a symposium I organized in honor of my elder colleagues, Professors Emeritae Marilyn Thie and Wanda Warren Berry.