"RELIGION ON CAMPUS WEEK" SHOWS DIVERSITY OF FAITHS

Next week, the Office of Intercultural Affairs (OIA) and a variety of student organizations that have joined to create the new Interfaith Coalition will sponsor the College's first-ever Religion on Campus Week, the OIA has announced. Aside from celebrations of important Christian and Jewish holidays, the week will offer a chance to look at some manifestations of those religions as well as Islam, Mormonism, Baha'i, modern paganism and other faith traditions. Several ecumenical events will explore a variety of religious perspectives on the liberal arts, atheism, homosexuality, prayer and meditation, and death and afterlife.

Dinu Ahmed '08, who is co-president of the Muslim Students Association and a member of the OIA's student staff, has taken a leading role in the emerging Interfaith Coalition.

"Last semester," she reports, "several religious groups on campus held a commemorative event for 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. All the groups involved felt that we had benefited a great deal from the collaboration. It became clear that there are a lot of people at Bryn Mawr who are actively involved in religious groups, but they don't seem to be very visible on campus.

"Religion on Campus Week grew out of our conversations about what each group envisioned for itself on campus and how we could work together to give our communities voice and make them more accessible."

The week's events will open Sunday afternoon with a kickoff tea titled "Thoughts on Spiritual Identity," to be held in Aelwyd, Cambrian Row, from 3 to 5 p.m. Says Ahmed: "We will give people the opportunity to mingle, talk to people of other faiths, and think about their own spiritual identities. We'll ask people to write their thoughts on pieces of paper, and we'll place those pieces of paper around campus to spark discussion for the rest of the week."

On Monday, a community luncheon in the Dorothy Vernon Room, from noon to 2 p.m., will encourage participants to discuss "Faith, Atheism and the Tensions Around Them." From 4 to 6 p.m, the OIA will sponsor an open house at Aelwyd to introduce the community to the facilities there, including kosher and halal kitchens, and to the many religious groups on campus. At 7:30 p.m., the Episcopal Campus Ministry, the Jewish Student Union, the OIA and the Rainbow Alliance will sponsor a "Queer Clergy Panel" in the Campus Center Main Lounge.

On Friday, the OIA's biweekly noontime Diversity Conversation at the Multicultural Center will be titled "Religious Perspectives and the Liberal Arts Environment." Orah Minder '06, Program in Gender and Sexuality Coordinator Anne Dalke, Biology Laboratory Instructor Wil Franklin and Center for Science in Society Director Paul Grobstein will facilitate the discussion.

On Saturday at 2 p.m., the Interfaith Coalition will offer an interactive prayer-and-meditation demonstration and workshop titled "How to Achieve Spiritual Solace Across a Spectrum of Faiths," to take place in the Quita Woodward Room. The final ecumenical event will be Sunday's "Crossing Over: How Different Faith Groups Approach Death," an open discussion to be held in the Campus Center Main Lounge at 2 p.m.

For a complete listing of the week's 25 events, see the OIA Web site.

<<Back to Bryn Mawr Now 4/6/2006

Next story>>