Interfaith Interactions

While snacking on hot cross buns, rice pudding, and challah earlier this month, over 70 students gathered around an arch of colorful poster boards carefully arranged at the back of Lowell dining hall. Each tasty sample of holiday food was accompanied by a conversation about the traditions of one of the many religions represented on campus.

The Harvard College Interfaith Council organized this culinary evening as the Kickoff Festival for its celebration of the first-ever National Interfaith Awareness Week during mid-April. By collaborating with 12 religious groups and the Harvard Secular Society, the Council works to foster interfaith dialogue among the more than 20 faith-based organizations on campus.

A COUNCIL IS BORN

The Interfaith Council was officially established in 2004 as a purely discussion-based group, but didn’t initially generate much enthusiasm, according to current council chair Zeba A. Syed ’09.

Originally there were three students on the executive board and about 40 members in total. The council has since been revamped and now organizes community service events, and socials, as well as panel discussions. The group’s membership list currently includes over 600 students with seven members serving on the executive board.

During National Interfaith Awareness Week, each day at noon a different religious group held a public service in front of the Science Center. Syed said that one of her most significant personal moments that week came when she joined in the Harvard-Radcliffe Catholic Student Association’s recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours.

“Being able to participate in prayer with the CSA members was so personally meaningful, as it demonstrates how open our religious communities are to other faith members,” Syed said.

Aside from the public services and the Kickoff Festival, the week also included a panel on commonalities between Christianity and Islam, a community service project at the Salvation Army food kitchen, a film screening about women’s religious activism, and a religion-themed trivia night.

“The scope of this week shows how much the Interfaith Council has matured over four years,” Syed said. “We can now take on a lot more than discussion and dinner in a dining hall.”

She added that the council has been working with students at Wellesley, Brown, and Tufts to hold interfaith events on their campuses.

“HCIC spearheaded this interfaith initiative and publicized it to other schools, who may choose to use our model to shape their own Interfaith Awareness Weeks,” Syed said. “Over the years, we’ve acquired the resources and manpower to make this a national approach.”

A (NON)TRIVIAL PURSUIT

Interfaith Awareness Week concluded with teams gathering in the Adams Lower Common Room to test attendees’ knowledge of other religious faiths in the form of a team trivia contest. Prior to the event, each co-sponsoring group submitted 10 questions concerning the major beliefs, people, holidays, and scriptures of their religion. No student was allowed to answer a question concerning his or her own religion.

“I was very pleasantly surprised by how many facts—some obscure—students knew about other faiths,” said Sabrina A. Zearott ’09, the council’s publicity chair. “I didn’t realize how aware Harvard students are of other faiths.”

Zearott herself answered one such obscure question, when the moderator asked for “the name of the first Hindu sage to come to America in 1893 for the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.” Zearott correctly answered Swami Vivekananda, a fact that she said she learned in a course at Harvard. She attributes much of her knowledge of religions to Harvard classes.

“I’ve always been interested in different religions and how people understand the perspectives of others,” says Zearott, who concentrates in anthropology.

GETTING THE BALL ROLLING

Council members said they aimed to promote collaboration among religious groups that extended beyond National Interfaith Awareness Week.

“We don’t intend for the week to be an end in itself,” Syed said. “We hope that the religious groups involved will use the connections they make this week to initiate their own interfaith programs in the future.”

Echoing Syed’s sentiments, Harvard Islamic Society external relations chair Fauzia Shaikh ’10 said the Interfaith Council has helped “get the ball rolling” in planning events with other religious groups.

For Harvard Hillel vice-president of community relations Rebecca D. Gillette ’10, the Interfaith Council serves as a “united body to deal with joint programming and issues that affect many, if not all, of the different religious groups.”

She added that she views the council’s role as addressing sweeping matters, while individual groups are typically responsible for initiating one-on-one contact.

“The council is a great conduit for interfaith dialogue,” said Catholic Student Association (CSA) co-chair of interfaith and ecumenical outreach Matthew P. Cavedon ’11, who also noted an upcoming event between CSA and Hillel. “We hold our faiths very near and dear to our hearts. Anytime we share our most deeply held beliefs with others, that’s beneficial for all involved.”

—Staff writer Brittany M. Llewellyn can be reached at bllewell@fas.harvard.edu.