Hi everyone,
[Please forgive any and all grammar infractions. I'm pulling the tech school card here.]
After CT5 I was inspired by the stories of close friendships between different people and religious groups at other universities across the country, and I was so glad that I had made such great and interesting friends in so short a time. I felt that I really wanted to start an IFC at MIT, (we have a dialogue group, but the focus is on comparative discussion and our main events throughout the year are speakers and panels) and so I've been trying to 1) gather information on how other groups found their beginnings and 2) make a group of five students to help guide the direction of the council so that we can begin accepting applications in the fall.
After trying to gather some people willing to put time into getting this started, I've begun to feel less hopeful. Many people won't distinguish between interfaith dialogue and interfaith positive action, which maybe is legitimate in the sense that perhaps we don't need another interfaith group. How many of your groups include dialogue, how many are separate?
I suppose I could try to make my focus more unique. Maybe "to develop interfaith brotherhood through community service," or something. What I ultimately feel is lacking from the dialogue group MIT has in place already is that it is so intellectual and comparative, even when it's controversial. We just aren't real friends. We'll argue, we'll listen and nod, but we're not developing a community and most importantly, we're not involving the campus of MIT.
I've begun contacting people at Johns Hopkins and Harvard, but I've gotten no responses from other universities. If you know anyone who was involved in or knows about the beginnings of your interfaith councils, could you send their contact information to me at leanna AT mit dot edu, please? I would really appreciate it. I'm really losing steam here.
Also, if you have any ideas for how I can push forward or some ideas for preliminary events we can do in our first year as a student group, please please leave some comments for me.
Thanks for listening. <3
Leanna
My school's council started as the Religious Organization Council where every religious club's president was *required* to be at the meetings. It was ineffective, and half the people didn't want to be there.
ReplyDeleteWe transformed into Interfaith Council (attendance optional and open to everyone) a few years ago, and we've changed the Peer Ministry positions to Interfaith Coordinator positions. They are scholarship positions (about $3000/year) for 6-8 hours/week "jobs." People have different focii--some work with Christian life, others with Jewish life, and this past year I ran Interfaith Council. Next year I'll be running the campus interfaith/social justice Obama initiative thingy.
Getting stuff going on my campus is HARD, and it's difficult if you're working with a university that is non-religious to hostile degrees, apathetic, or both. I can sympathize.
I recommend doing a retreat for the people who ARE participating... that is like the number one way to make significant bonds happen. Have coffee dates with one another and schedule fun time. If you have any friends who are *not* in the group but are religious and like soc.just./comm. service, then have them come in and speak about why they think it's important.
For the intellectuals, you could do a panel about the importance of service work in religion, and then follow that up with an actual service project. Can be as simple as raising money or a full-on event.
Just my thoughts. Feel free to contact me off-list at rshort@pugetsound.edu. I can answer more questions and have my university chaplain, who helped change the ROC into the Interfaith Council and beyond, help me with the stuff I don't get.
Peace,
Rebecca
U. of Puget Sound '12