Professor Christopher Ives Recognized for Intellectual Leadership

Professor of Religious Studies Christopher Ives was recently named the 2025 recipient of the Michael Horne Award for Distinguished Faculty Scholarship. Established in tribute to a faculty member from Stonehill College’s Department of Physics, the award recognizes professors who have made impactful contributions to their field and intellectual life at the institution. 

Coinciding with this honor, Ives led a public talk during an event held in Alumni Hall on Tuesday, April 1. His address explored his career, as well as the value that scholarship and institutions like Stonehill hold in a democratic society. 

“I’m grateful that Stonehill supports faculty and student scholarship, including our efforts to generate knowledge by analyzing facts, formulating rigorous arguments, and sharing our ideas with others through presentations and writings,” Ives said.

Ives’s research focuses on Zen ethics, Buddhist environmental ethics, and Japanese religious history. These topics have been central to courses taught by him at Stonehill, such as “Religions of China & Japan,” “Buddhist Ethics,” “Buddhism, Nature, and Environmental Ethics,” and “Gods and War: Religion, Ideology, and Nationalism in Japan and the United States.”

Throughout his career, Ives has published several books that have contributed to contemporary understandings of Buddhism. These works include Zen Ecology: Green and Engaged Living in Response to the Climate Crisis (2025), Zen on the Trail: Hiking as Pilgrimage (2018), Imperial-Way Zen (2009), and Zen Awakening and Society (1992).

Ives has written numerous articles featured in peer-reviewed publications like the Eastern Buddhist and the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. His work has also been included in the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, a publication for which he serves as an editorial board member. Additionally, the professor is part of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, an interfaith project that empowers people to preserve, protect, and restore the natural world. 

“Congratulations to Professor Ives on being named the latest recipient of the Michael Horne Award! This honor is truly well-deserved. In addition to his renowned contributions to the field of religious studies, Professor Ives has empowered countless students and colleagues to embrace intellectual curiosity. I am grateful for his continued service to the Stonehill College community,” said Peter Ubertaccio, vice president for academic affairs.