Wesleyan’s Interfaith Council is hosting its first Faith Shadowing Week now through April 26 in an effort to encourage students to attend religious and spiritual meetings of faiths that are not their own and to give them the chance to engage in open conversations about their experiences.
“The goal of this week is to allow both religious and non-religious students on campus the opportunity to get a glimpse at what the different religious and spiritual fellowships and events look like and how different traditions form and take shape,” wrote Interfaith Council member Lydia Ottaviano ’17 in an email to The Argus.
Participants were able to sign up ahead of time to attend any of the regularly scheduled religious and spiritual events that take place each week on campus. This includes Shabbat services, Christian Fellowship meetings and bible studies, Buddhist Faith Fellowship, Muslim Jumma prayers, and Wesleyan Mindfulness Group meetings, among others.
“By promoting relations between religious groups and non-religious people on campus, we hope to get together and have conversations and to gain understanding and knowledge of our religious and spiritual ways,” said Interfaith Council member Jamie Jung ’16. “We want to promote dialogue between faiths and get more people involved in promoting spiritual and religious life on campus.”
The events, organized by the Interfaith Council for the Faith Shadowing Week, include a meet-and-greet and a concluding dinner. The dinner will be held at 5:30 p.m. on April 26 in Allbritton and will provide participants with a chance to share their experiences from throughout the week.
Many members of the Interfaith Council and organizers of the event expressed dissatisfaction with the current religious climate on campus, and they hope that this week will improve students’ current attitudes toward religious life.
“Currently I believe there is a general ignorance towards religion and spirituality on campus,” Ottaviano wrote. “If not actively seeking a religious and spiritual community, it is likely that the thought of religion will not even cross the minds of many students. I say this speaking from typical conversations that I encounter as a religious student on a campus where this is so obviously the minority.”
Jung noted a perceived difficulty in engaging with religion on campus.
“It can be hard for people on the Wesleyan campus to be involved in religious life,” Jung said. “We are supposedly so open-minded, but we seem more closed-minded to certain aspects of [religious and spiritual life].”
Shada Sinclair ’16, a participant in Faith Shadowing Week, shared her struggle with what she sees as a lack of opportunities to openly discuss her beliefs.
“I often shy away from having conversations about my faith with people outside of the Christian community because I’m afraid of what they’ll think or say,” Sinclair wrote in an email to The Argus. “I feel like religious/spiritual groups are minorities here at Wesleyan and most people aren’t receptive when it comes to having conversations about faith.
Sinclair explained that she chose to participate in the event to make connections with other spiritual and religious groups on campus.
“I wanted to seek the traditions of others on campus because I believe religion and [spirituality] is often misunderstood and that’s something I might be guilty of,” she wrote. “Essentially, I wanted to learn about the other groups on campus and also share things about my own traditions as a Christian.”
Members of the Interfaith Council also conveyed interest in improving not only the dynamic between religious and non-religious University community members but also the relationship amongst the existing faith communities.
“We all know each other and respect each other, but we don’t really meet,” said Interfaith Council member Michelle Han ’16. “We’re hoping to create friendships and to be able to discuss our differences with understanding minds.”
The Interfaith Council was established this academic year after several students noted the lack of interaction between the standing religious communities on campus.
“I think as such a new group our role on campus is to become more educated on interfaith dialogue as a council in order to bring programs, discussion, panels, and events like our Faith Shadowing to the larger Wesleyan community,” Ottaviano wrote. “As our experience and our knowledge grows, I believe interfaith will become a more prevalent topic due to it’s versatility and relevance in so many conversations.
Those organizing and participating in the event look optimistically to the future and hope that their efforts during this week foster a wider space on campus for conversations regarding faith.
“I am very excited about this initiative and hope that students have an increased understanding of how others from different religious identities experience faith, ritual, and spiritual growth,” wrote University Protestant Chaplain Tracy Mehr-Muska in an email to The Argus. “The more we learn about other religious traditions, the more easily we are able to identify common ground and celebrate our shared identity as people of faith.”