- Student Life
Religious Life
UATX has no religious affiliation and no requirement that anyone believe anything. Every community of faith on this campus exists because students built it and keep it running.
Prayer and Worship Night
student-run Christian group
Worship, scripture, and open prayer on the sixth-floor lawn at Union. Started by seven friends; now the most active Christian community on campus.
The Catholic Club
founded in year one
Part intellectual salon, part parish, part community. Tuesday lunches, monthly service at the Trinity Center, and two pilgrimages in the works.
Jewish Life
JewATX, Chabad, Olami, Hillel
Shabbat dinners twice a term run by students, plus Chabad, Olami, and Hillel a few blocks away near UT-Austin.
- A student-run Christian group
Prayer and Worship Night
At a university with no chapel, no chaplain, and no religious affiliation, the most active Christian community on campus is one the students built and sustain entirely on their own.
Prayer and Worship Night started with about seven close friends who wanted a standing time to worship and pray together. After the first year, they opened it to the rest of the school, and they now typically meet outdoors on the sixth-floor lawn at Union. An evening typically involves a couple of members leading worship on guitar, a group reads scripture together, and the night settles into a long stretch of open prayer, moving around the room as people feel moved to speak.
Most members attend church off campus. The largest cluster goes to Providence Church, about a fifteen-minute walk away; the rest are scattered across other congregations. Faculty involvement has included talks on ancient Greek and the Bible, and there’s been talk of an ancient-Greek Bible study soon.
Many members see UATX’s lack of a chapel or religious requirement as part of the appeal. Because nothing is mandated, the community is made up entirely of people who have chosen to be there. Students often describe it as the best of both worlds: a rigorous, open academic environment where they learn alongside people of every belief and background, and a faith life they’ve taken up freely and made their own. Being asked to think hard about what they believe, they say, tends to deepen their faith.
Several things have grown out of it
Easter sunrise services
On the roof of Union, two years running. Provost David Ruth joined the first year and has led short Bible talks for the group on a few occasions.
A women's prayer circle
A smaller group that meets some evenings to pray, read the Bible, and talk through how their lives are going.
Cross-cohort friendships
Because the group mixes cohorts, it’s bridged a divide between the classes that students say otherwise runs fairly deep.
Contact
Ellie Murphy — emurphy@student.uaustin.org
Marin Medefind — mmedefind@student.uaustin.org
- Part salon, part parish
The Catholic Club at UATX
At many secular universities, Catholic life happens quietly, somewhere off campus. At UATX, it happens in the middle of everything — over lunch, in seminar rooms, at sunrise services, and a few blocks away serving the homeless. The Catholic Club was founded in the University’s first year, and has grown into one of the most active communities on campus: part intellectual salon, part parish, part community.
What makes it different
UATX students don’t check their habits of mind at the chapel door. The same Socratic, skeptical, go-deeper-or-go-home energy that defines a UATX seminar defines the Catholic Club.
Nobody here is expected to nod along. Students press on doctrine. They ask why. They say, “That doesn’t make sense to me — let’s talk about it,” and then they actually talk about it, sometimes for hours. Devout cradle Catholics who know the Catechism sit next to Protestants, Jewish students, lapsed Catholics finding their way back, and the simply curious — and everyone is welcome to push, probe, and question.
The result is something rare: a community where faith is protected and examined — and where examination strengthens it.
Monthly service at the Trinity Center
Feeding and serving Austin's homeless
Packing Food for the Homeless
What a week looks like
Tuesdays over lunch. The club meets weekly, usually around a shared meal. The format rotates:
Guest speakers
Priests from the Diocese of Austin, scholars, and leaders, including the executive director of the Austin Institute, have all addressed the club.
Faculty talks
One professor gave a talk on marriage as a sacrament — complete with a statistical regression analysis showing the link between practicing one’s faith and building a stable, lasting marriage. (Only at UATX does a talk on the sacraments come with regression tables.)
Formation and history
Sessions on the teachings of the Church, the lives of the saints, and the sweep of Church history from Christ to the present day.
Open discussion of the moment
When news breaks — a new pope, questions about AI, war in the Middle East — the club gathers to work out what the Church teaches, what is settled doctrine, and what is open to debate.
Activities
The discussion doesn’t stay in the seminar room. The club puts its faith into practice — off campus, out in Austin, week after week.
Serving the homeless
Once a month, members walk a few blocks from campus to the Trinity Center to feed and serve Austin’s homeless.
Mass together
Several times each term, students organize group outings to Sunday Mass — sometimes choosing churches for their architecture or to experience the different rites within the Catholic Church — followed by a long brunch. Even students outside the faith regularly join for the meal and the conversation. Students also go together to church spontaneously throughout the school year.
Marking the calendar
From Ash Wednesday outings to ecumenical sunrise services on Easter morning, the liturgical year is lived, not just studied.
Where it's headed
The club’s ambitions match the University’s. Two pilgrimages are in the works:
Rome
A trip to the Vatican and St. Peter’s Square.
World Youth Day, Seoul 2027
Fundraising is already underway to send UATX students to join young Catholics from around the world in South Korea.
Club leadership
The club is faculty-shepherded and student-driven.
Faculty leads
Ricardo Vilalta, Professor of Computer Science — co-founder
David Puelz, Associate Professor of Statistics and Data Science — co-founder
Scott Scheall, Associate Professor of Philosophy & Economics — co-founder
Student leadership
Eliana Ulloa — President
Patrick De La Garza — Vice President
Join us
Whether you’re a committed Catholic looking to deepen your formation, a seeker weighing the biggest questions, or just someone who wants a good argument and a better lunch — you are welcome. Meetings are typically on Tuesdays at lunch during the school year.
For more information, contact Eliana — eulloa@student.uaustin.org or Patrick De La Garza — pdelagarza@student.uaustin.org.
- Small, and run by students
Jewish Life at UATX
Jewish life at UATX is small and run by students. The center of it is JewATX, a student group that hosts Shabbat dinners twice per term and organizes around holidays. Beyond campus, students have easy access to Austin’s Jewish community, including Chabad, Olami, and Hillel, which all sit within a few blocks of each other near UT-Austin.
Shabbat table, Union
A typical dinner: 15–25 people
Students cook and host
Passover Seder in Bastrop
JewATX
Because the University’s core curriculum assigns the Hebrew Bible, most students on campus have read it, including those who aren’t Jewish. That makes for a wider circle of people who can hold a serious conversation about the text, and it carries the University’s habit of questioning everything into Jewish learning.
JewATX is run entirely by students. Shabbat dinners are the main activity. Students take over a dorm, cook, and host. A typical dinner brings in 15-25 attendees, including students from UT and professionals around Austin. Faculty and staff also attend occasionally, and usually one or two people lead a short discussion on the week’s Torah portion.
Last spring, students put together a Passover Seder in a Bastrop Airbnb for about ten people. A past Passover paired a matzah breakfast with Exodus trivia, open to the whole school. During admitted-students weekend, JewATX hosts a Friday-night Shabbat for incoming Jewish students.
Matzah breakfast and Exodus trivia, open to the whole school
Chabad
The Rohr Chabad Jewish Student Center at UT, directed by Rabbi Zev Johnson, sits a few blocks from the dorms and is one of the most active Jewish spaces UATX students use. It’s open through the week, not just for Shabbat, and UATX students are among its most consistent regulars, with many coming several times a week.
What’s on offer runs the range from the social to the serious: Shabbat dinners and services, one-on-one learning with the rabbi or staff, Sunday bagels, holiday programming, and national Chabad events like the Pegisha Shabbaton, which brings students together in New York. There’s generally something available most days.
A common entry point is Sinai Scholars, Chabad’s flagship course. It’s an eight-session seminar built around the Ten Commandments and how Jewish thought approaches faith, family, ethics, and relationships, ending with a Shabbaton, a short paper, a completion stipend, and access to a national alumni network. Many UATX students take it in their first year.
Rabbi Zev also hosts an annual all-campus UATX Shabbat that draws a largely non-Jewish crowd — students who come to experience the evening and stay for the whole thing. He has said UATX students are among the most consistent he sees, and that the questions they raise in his Friday-night discussions are unusually sharp.
Olami
Olami Texas is geared toward students who want to learn in depth in a relaxed, come-as-you-are setting. Its focus is on meeting students wherever they are in their own Jewish background and going from there — through classes, discussions, trips, and one-on-one learning. Rabbi Efraim Abrahams is a frequent study partner, as comfortable with Plato, the Greeks, and Seneca as with the Jewish canon, and has led reading groups on campus. Students set the agenda: sessions range from digging into Jewish texts and traditions to clearing up misconceptions to just talking things through over coffee.
Texas Hillel
Texas Hillel is the largest and most established of the campus options. Pluralistic by design, welcoming students across backgrounds. It runs the broadest menu: Shabbat dinners, weekly Torah study and other learning cohorts, service and interfaith groups, and kosher dining. Together with Chabad and Olami, all within a few blocks of each other near UT, it means there’s usually a Jewish event, meal, or class available most days.
Contact
Eitan Zarin, Founder and President, JewATX — ezarin@student.uaustin.org
Rabbi Zev Johnson, Chabad Rabbi — zjohnson@uaustin.org
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