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INTERFAITH SPACES AND CONVERSATION
INTERFAITH SPACES AND CONVERSATIONS
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By Hanna Bregman and Eloise Vaughan Williams
In many ways, Tu s students have come to appreciate the diverse and vibrant opportunities for exploring questions of spirituality and building faith-based communities. e Interfaith Center, with its large windows that invite sunlight into its neutrally-colored interiors, is the product of a concerted e ort by Tu s University to create a space that functions as a hub for community meetings, spiritual curiosity, and the sharing of ideas. is building is the physical manifestation of longstanding ideals of civic engagement and religious pluralism at Tu s. is tradition spawned Conversation Action Faith and Communication (CAFE), a Pre-Orientation program that o ers an opportunity for students to engage with these ide- als at the very beginning of their time at Tu s. Community of Faith Exploration and Engage- ment (COFFEE), a year round extension of CAFE, encourages students to contin- ue their engagement once their lives at Tu s are underway.
Freshman Romy Arie, the student
a airs coor- dinator for COFFEE, said that she was drawn to CAFE due to “the community organizing aspect. I think a lot of people don’t realize that a really big goal of CAFE is to learn about community organizing… It’s not necessarily a faith [centered] Pre-O.” e intersection between faith and community engagement is not new to Tu s. In Senior John Lazur’s directed research project that seeks to explore the evolution of faith and spirituality at Tu s, they found that the university has been interested in ideals of religious pluralism since its founding. Admittedly, “Tu s was founded as a Universalist institution by Universalists, and in a lot of senses, for Universalists. But, also, when it was founded as a college there was an immediate commitment to a nonsectarian education,” said Lazur. “ is immediate commitment to nonsectarian education— if not secular education—[ran] in counter to other colleges and universities, especially in New England,” they continued.
Lazur’s research expounds on Tu s’ commitment to social engagement as intertwined with the religious identities of its students. Crane eological School, Tu s’ divinity school, opened in 1869 and closed a century later. e school “always struggled nancially, it always struggled
academically, [and] it was never accredited,” Lazur said. By 1915 to 1920, the Universalist presence had become somewhat of a minority. Because of this, the Crane eological School “shi ed the focus. It was no longer about any relation to Universalist theology. [Instead it asked,] how do we prepare in terms of practical skills? How do we prepare these students to be religious leaders for social and moral improvement in the world?”
Within this context, Tu s’ emphasis on interfaith spaces and explorations of faith as it relates to civic engagement appears to descend from a broader legacy of religious pluralism and social outreach.
Speaking to her experience in COFFEE, sophomore Grace Rotermund expressed her belief that COFFEE can be thought of as a community space before a religious space. Framing a purportedly faith-centered university program as a space that primarily fosters an exploration of personal and
community values speaks to the evolution of experiences of faith on campus.
In a statement to the Tu s Observer, Malvika Wadhawan, a sophomore involved in CAFE and the South Asian Political Action Committee (SAPAC), stressed her profound appreciation for the way in which “people [in CAFE] want to engage and learn from each other.” For Wadhawan, as “a space that strives to be interfaith,” SAPAC has also facilitated meaningful experiences centered on “unpacking Hinduism and talking about the di cult, hypocritical, and uncomfortable parts of a religion and cultural community that has a lot of power and privilege.” Wadhawan also emphasized a point echoed by other students involved in interfaith communities at Tu s: as an interfaith community, SAPAC o ers opportunities to “learn from other people and challenge [her] own views on how faith connects to the broader world.”
Similarly, Freshman Rebecca Krauss has found ful llment in her experience within the Jewish community at Tu s Hillel. Prior to arriving at Tu s, she wrote in a statement to the Observer that she “wasn’t really sure what [she] expected or wanted from the Jewish community.” Regardless of pre-college expectations, her experience in Hillel has “showed how comforting it was to… have this support system and group of people who shared [her] love for Judaism.” Now, a semester and a half in, Krauss nds herself as rst-year programming chair and a Hillel social intern. Similarly, Owen omas, a freshman also involved in Hillel, expressed his appreciation for casual Jewish-speci c spaces on campus. omas said, “Having random conversations about how we’ve experienced faith… you hear about the way that other people have participated in traditions throughout their lives… in more unstructured ways that you don’t necessarily get in a more formal space.” e desire for casual spaces for exploration and conversation is shared by those who are eager to engage in meaningful conversations in a non-religious setting. In this vein, Lazur stressed the signi cance of the creation and implementation of a Humanist Chaplaincy at Tu s. Establishing a Humanist Chaplaincy, Lazur said, “marked a shi in the interfaith community at Tu s… ere was this acknowledgement that the University Chaplaincy was not only serving traditionally religious students… so, whether students are atheist, agnostic, questioning, seeking, spiritual but not religious… [they] aren’t outsiders to the University Chaplaincy.” e university’s stress on community and connection that is recognized and appreciated by Lazur and others involved in the Humanist Chaplaincy has remained pervasive in campus culture across contexts. Junior Nishita Gaba re ected on her enriching experiences within Tu s’ interfaith spaces. Her time in CAFE, for instance, inspired her to become a peer leader years later. “I think what ful lls me now as a peer leader is seeing a community grow every year—it’s always so surprising to me the connections people can make in six days.” e widespread appreciation of communities students nd and participate in within Tu s’ mainly chaplaincies and interfaith groups re ects the dedication and open-minded quality of the students who comprise them. As Lazur said, “ e question of belonging is not centered around ‘What tradition are you from?’ It’s ‘Do you want to be here? And are you curious enough to connect with other people?’”
