Interfaith Student Association seeks to open discussion
Rather than discussing differences in beliefs, members of the Interfaith Student Association, or ISA, spent their opening social playing games designed to find out what they had in common with each other Wednesday night in the Living Learning Center.
Allison Fife, a senior majoring in history and economics and the president of ISA, said finding commonalities is the point of the association, which is in its first year at Utah State University. She said spirituality is a big part of individual identities, but this often becomes the cause of contention.
“You may have two people in a room of different faiths that, turns out, disagree fundamentally over highly controversial issues, and if you focus on those differences and those disagreements, then you’re likely to reinforce stereotypes, reinforce conflict,” Fife said. “But if we reinforce the ideas of similarities, if we reinforce kind of a common understanding that we’re all in this together, that we can accomplish a lot together, then it makes it more possible for interfaith cooperation to happen.”
Bonnie Glass-Coffin, an anthropology professor who serves as the faculty advisor for the association, said people with doctrinal differences often have shared values — such as compassion, service, and hospitality — that can build bridges between them. She said this includes both religious people and those who identify as either atheist or agnostic.
“One of the things that tends to unite people around the idea of the sort of Aggie spirit is this idea of service to the common good, of really trying to do something to make the world a better place,” Glass-Coffin said.
Glass-Coffin said the interfaith movement on campus started because of a research project she did, the goal of which was to find out the campus climate when it comes to interfaith dialogue. She did this through round-table discussions with about 65 people and individual interviews with about 35 students. She found that everyone was interested in having dialogues about their beliefs, but no one felt safe doing so.
“Students who are LDS voiced concern that they couldn’t express their commitment to the LDS faith on campus because it’s a public university campus, and their professors wouldn’t go for it,” Glass-Coffin said. “Students who were not LDS professed concern that they already felt marginalized because 85 percent of our students are LDS, and they didn’t want to bring up their faith commitments because they didn’t want to feel embarrassed or put down or maybe be proselytized.”
Glass-Coffin said atheists and agnostics especially did not feel safe talking about their beliefs because of how religious USU campus is.
Erica Hawvermale, a sophomore majoring in medical anthropology who helped with Glass-Coffin’s research, said friendship dumping among international students was another problem that was found.
“People would befriend these international students until they learned that these international students wouldn’t convert to the church, and then friendship’s gone like that,” Hawvermale said.
Hawvermale said the research also suggested that students want to be to be able to talk about faith with their professors.
“Kind of like the allies training where there are stickers where students know that they can go talk to a professor about problems they’re having with coming out and with their personal identity, students want a place where they can talk about faith and converse about faith in a safe manner where they’re not gonna be bashed and they’re not gonna be judged,” Hawvermale said.
Glass-Coffin said this year the association hopes to raise awareness about the desire to have interfaith dialogues on campus. She said one of the ways the group did this was it invited Eboo Patel, a key figure in the interfaith movement, to speak in the Kent Concert Hall. She said the response was positive.
“Eleven hundred people showed up at the Kent Concert Hall to hear him speak,” Glass-Coffin said. “If that’s not an indication that there’s some interest in this kind of stuff, I don’t know what is.”
Glass-Coffin said a big part of Patel’s message was religious discussions do not have to convince anyone to leave their faith. In fact, a dialogue can help someone articulate his or her convictions.
Fife said the Interfaith Youth Core, Patel’s non-profit group that seeks cooperation among people of different faiths, has three principles that are important for an interfaith movement to be successful: the ability to voice beliefs, engagement in discussion with other people to build understanding and action with others to build the community.
“Ultimately, we are hoping to give opportunities for students to voice, engage and act on their religious or spiritual identity,” Fife said.
David Tauber, a junior majoring in religious studies and anthropology who does public relations for ISA, said he hopes the organization changes the religious climate on campus. He said people can be ignorant when it comes to different beliefs and their approaches can be offensive.
He gave the example of an agnostic friend who tried explaining to other people what she believed and they responded that it was a silly way of being.
“It’s not necessarily completely widespread, but it’s enough that I’d like to see it changed in any capacity,” Tauber said.
Tauber said he does not think the organization itself can change the campus climate, but it can help allow change to happen through organizing events and training that help people learn how to alter their interactions.
“When you change one person, it might not mean much, but when you change one person every day for a year, 300 people, that’s the beginning of something,” Tauber said.