Adjunct Assistant Professor of Religious Education

Dr. Charles S. Chesnavage graduated from the Fordham University Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, May 2016. His dissertation research was on interreligious prayer entitled, “Principles from Inculturation As A Key to Interreligious Prayer: Being Religiously Revelatory and Educative in a Diverse World.” Dr. Chesnavage brings a wealth of interreligious experience to UTS. For the past fourteen years he has facilitated the Annual Interreligious Prayer Service for Peace and Justice Celebratory World Interfaith Harmony. Two of the services were hosted by UTS. He incorporates this interreligious experience into his teaching.

Dr. Chesnavage also belongs to two interreligious conversation groups. Courageous Conversations which is a Jewish-Christian conversation group, and Neighborhood Interfaith Conversation between Jews, Christians and Muslims. Both groups meet in Westchester County, New York.

Dr. Chesnavage is also President of the Westchester Coalition against Islamophobia (WCAI) which is a grassroots association of concerned non-Muslim and Muslim individuals, committed to opposing bigotry and discrimination against Islam and Muslims and to defending the civil rights of all. WCAI has offered presentations and panel presentations on issues of Islamophobia as a means of public education and outreach to public officials, clergy and the general public.

He is a past participant in the Building Abrahamic Partnerships Program out of Hartford Seminary, which included intensive immersion and education in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions.

He is a past participant in the Bearing Witness and Advanced Bearing Witness Programs sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League in promoting Jewish-Catholic Relations with Catholic educators.

Dr. Chesnavage has over twenty years of teaching experience in a Roman Catholic high school, and brings this expertise working with youth to his UTS classes. He has authored two high school religion workbooks and teacher editions.

Dr. Chesnavage is a member of the Religious Education Association (REA), where he has presented at the Annual Conference and has a book review published in the REA Journal. Dr. Chesnavage joined the faculty of UTS in the Spring of 2017.