Respect Graduate School

Respect Graduate School is committed to providing equal educational opportunities. It is an inclusive institution whose members treat each other with dignity and respect. It does not discriminate against persons on the basis of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or disability.

Our institution is governed by a highly qualified Board of Trustees, who represent the cultural mosaic of our society in terms of gender, race, religion, and occupation

Our Mission

Respect Graduate School is an academic institution through which students and faculty engage in teaching, learning, and research primarily in Islamic Studies. With genuine appreciation and study of traditional Islamic Disciplines, RGS employs interdisciplinary approaches to respond to evolving opportunities and challenges of North American social contexts. In addition to offering students and faculty academically excellent and stimulating environment, RGS develops engagement with and furnishes service to the broader society, and establishes relationships with other academic and social institutions.

Our Goals

1. To educate men and women to be scholars and leaders for society who are moved to respond to changing social contexts intelligently and responsibly.
2. To stimulate in students scholarly creativity, nurture the spirit of leadership and promote respect for all people and diverse ideas.
3. To be an institution that engages society and provides service to it.

Our Commitments

1. Respect

The name of our School expresses our foundational commitments in the present and for the future. Respect for persons, ideas and difference is essential for everything we do at our institution. Respect begins with relationships among students, faculty and staff. We endeavor to center decisions, plans and actions on our students so as to stimulate their intellectual growth, personal well-being, sense of leadership, social responsibility and positive social interactions.
We envision Respect Graduate School to be an academic institution in which people of diverse backgrounds put their varying and at times opposing ideas into respectful dialogs. We are committed to providing equal educational opportunities to all persons in each program. Therefore, the Institution’s policies, and programs will be administered without discrimination against any person based on actual or perceived race, color, sex, religion, ancestry, genetic information, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, familial status, marital status, age, veteran status, mental or physical disability, use of guide or support animals and/or mechanical aids, or any other basis protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws.

2. Academic Level Education

Respect Graduate School provides an academic level of education primarily in Islamic Studies. RGS expects its faculty and students to engage successfully in the rigors of academic level study and research, to be knowledgeable about traditional positions as well as recent developments in the relevant subject areas, and to communicate their understandings effectively. As freedom of expression is essential in stimulating genuine thought, our School encourages the exchange and critique of ideas as fundamental to a graduate education. The anticipated outcomes of our academic education include gaining deeper knowledge and/or professional skills in respective fields, demonstrating capabilities in research and learning, and formulating positions and perspectives that withstand analysis and that contribute to advancing the well-being of society.

3. Service

Service is Respect Graduate School’s way to put knowledge into action. We believe that knowledge bears fruit through its practice; and knowledge that is not realized through action is nothing but burden. Knowledge that is actualized through service is elevated to the level of wisdom. Islamically understood, the best place to put knowledge into action is to serve humanity, for the best among us are those who benefit society the most. Happiness and contentment, the ultimate objectives that we all seek, can be attained both for the individual and the society through service that is altruistic, that is, it seeks nothing in return.

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