By Cheryl Hedlun
Integrated University Communications

(June 1, 2009) Exploring the history of religion, finding one’s goddess archetype, sharing near-death experiences, interpreting dream symbols and discovering one’s own personal hero’s journey are a few of the creative themes explored in courses taught by Sharon L. Coggan, PhD, director of the Religious Studies Program at the University of Colorado Denver. Inspired imaginations and self discoveries are common byproducts of Coggan’s instruction style, where students enter the story telling realms of religion and mythology.

“I had one creative writing student who would take an image away from a lecture and turn it into a first person narrative,” Coggan, at left, says. “Another student wrote about her own life and duties on a Colorado ranch in mythic form, where the men were referred to as the Ram-Rod tribe and the women as the Limp-Rag tribe.”

Coggan’s personal hero’s journey began when she answered the call for higher education by earning a triple-major undergraduate degree in French, Philosophy and Religion from the University of Denver. She earned two masters’ degrees from Harvard Divinity School and Stanford University, and met the arduous demands of the dissertation for a PhD from Syracuse University. “Now sharing my knowledge with all of my students is the boon I have won for all humanity,” Coggan jokes in the Hero’s Journey course.

Accompanying her on adventures, students are transported through space and time. Coggan has herself explored the pyramids of Egypt, the historical landmarks in Europe, the natural landscape of Canada and the cultural diversity in the United States. However, circling back to her native hometown, Denver, Coggan states, “It’s where I have my roots, and I was very fortunate to find my career here.” 

As for the students she mentors in her classes, Coggan encourages them to find the higher self—whether it is through the Hero’s Journey, Goddess Traditions, Concepts of the Soul, Dream Analysis, Mysticism, or any of the religious themes of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, etc. As T.S. Eliot wrote in “Quartet No. 4: Little Gidding” of Four Quartets:

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

When each semester wanes, Coggan knows a new one will soon be rising, and she’ll have the opportunity to take her students through fresh explorations of the ancient and sacred.  “I’m mostly concerned with what the students get out of the class,” states Coggan.