CEDAR FALLS - Lilly Endowment Inc. has awarded a University of Northern Iowa professor a three-year research grant.

Betty DeBerg, head of the philosophy and religion department at UNI, was awarded $700,000 to study campus ministries nationwide.

"In the humanities, it's not easy to get funding research. To have such a generous grant is a real opportunity, and I'm aware of that," she said.

DeBerg starts the project this month, partnering with John Schmalzbauer of Southwest Missouri State University. DeBerg also selected Doug Magnuson, a leisure, youth and human services professor at UNI, to serve as the project manager.

"Betty is an outstanding historian of religion," said Magnuson, who previously worked with DeBerg to create a certificate called "youth development in a religious setting."

DeBerg will study four types of campus ministries. She'll start by examining chaplaincy programs at church-related private colleges, like Wartburg College. She will then evaluate denominational campus ministries at state-funded schools, like St. Stephen's Catholic Church or the Lutheran Student Center at UNI. Nondenominational organizations, like Campus Crusade for Christ, will be included in DeBerg's study, as well as congregation-based ministry programs, which include any program a church develops to appeal to college students.

"One of the things that makes her work so interesting is her commitment to field work," said Robert Orsi, a colleague of DeBerg's and a Harvard professor of American religious history.

Following the three-year research project, Schmalzbauer and DeBerg plan to write a book. Orsi said he looks forward to learning of DeBerg's conclusions.

"Religious questions to me are the most interesting to think about," DeBerg said. "It's so fascinating to see how people experience their beliefs. I'm thrilled I get to do this and get paid for it."

DeBerg grew up in South Dakota and attended a Lutheran church.

She went to Concordia College, a Lutheran school in Minnesota. She had no plans to study religion until she enrolled in a required theology course.

"And I fell in love with the academic study of religion," she said.

She then earned a master's degree and a doctorate from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. She has taught at UNI since 1997.

This is the second grant she has received from Lilly Endowment Inc. Previously, the organization funded her 1996-97 study of campus ministries for the book "Religion on Campus."

"She has a very sophisticated, institutional analysis that will allow her keen insight into these campus ministries," said Kim Maphis Early of the Programs for the Theological Exploration of Vocation, an organization that partners with Lilly Endowment Inc.

DeBerg's goals for the study include finding out how campus ministries function and what kind of impact campus ministries have on students.

"I want to understand young adulthood in terms of religious faith and practice," DeBerg said. "And I want to help religious denominations to decide where campus ministries should be on their priorities."