Rahuldeep Singh Gill-Sikh professor teaches religion at CLU

Rahuldeep Singh Gill tends to stand out at California Lutheran University, where he is the only religion professor who is not Christian.
Gill is a Sikh, a popular religion in the Punjab state of India, where he was born. And he wears a dastar, or turban, setting him apart both on campus and in the community.On campus, Gill uses those differences to encourage others to examine their biases, his own open mind serving as an example, said Rudy Lugo-Rios, 20, a junior majoring in psychology.

“He takes that first impression and works with it,” Lugo-Rios said. “He turns it into a lesson about how we think — that we need to look at our own assumptions, that we need to look beneath the surface.”
Gill also allows students and colleagues to understand another religion through the eyes of a believer — a valuable asset, said R. Guy Erwin, a CLU professor of religion and history.
“He’s a visible witness to us of the diversity of the world,” Erwin said.
Gill is in his second year at the Thousand Oaks university, where he teaches several survey courses, including Introduction to Christianity and Introduction to the Study of Global Religions.
He’s also taught courses that reflect his own interests. Last semester he taught Songs of Indian Saints, where students read Hindu, Muslim and Sikh poetry from the Medieval period. This semester, he’s teaching The Sikh Tradition: A Case Study in Global Religions.