TOMMIE MEDIA – POSTED ON MARCH 6, 2016 BY MARISSA GROECHEL
St. Thomas, an outspoken Catholic institution, is increasing efforts to accommodate the 51 percent of non-Catholic students on campus.
The Rev. Larry Snyder, St. Thomas’ vice president for mission, teamed up with Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based organization aiming to encourage interfaith dialogue and community-building. Though many opportunities exist for Catholic students, who represent just under half of the student body, Snyder said he wanted to extend services across other religions to meet those needs.
“Even though we are a Catholic institution, we welcome students of other traditions. In doing so, we want to make sure that they have opportunities for their faith and spirituality to grow,” Snyder said. “I think it will be a great way to welcome people expressing their faith.”
According to Nasser Asif, the director of marketing and communications at Interfaith Youth Core, the group’s vision is to make interfaith cooperations the social norm on college campuses.
“We do that by working with colleges and universities, because we see them as mirrors of a larger civil society that can reflect that desired society where interfaith cooperation is a norm,” Asif said.
Interfaith Youth Core has worked with a number of different types of religiously affiliated institutions, and Asif has found that Catholic campuses have done a great job in engaging with these issues robustly.
“One of the things that we have always led with or helped the campus lead with is its own values, and there are a lot of established Catholic values around interfaith cooperations,” Asif said.
A group of students, faculty and staff from diverse departments will work with Interfaith Youth Core to create a plan that complements St. Thomas and advances the interfaith cooperation campus-wide.
Snyder explained the three-step process necessary to implement a successful strategic plan.
“The first stage is a survey,” Snyder said. “It’s a very thorough survey that will give us a lot of information … about, not only people’s identity as their faith or worldview, but then also how comfortable our students are with other faiths and other worldviews.”
Mapping out St. Thomas’ religious assets, like the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning, the Muslim Christian Dialogue Center, campus ministry and various student organizations is the next step in the process.
The third stage develops a strategy.
“It’s not just, ‘Are we providing services for various faiths,’ but more about in the curriculum,” Snyder said. “Are there opportunities to take classes that will help you understand others?”
The project was recently launched and will take about a year to implement, according to Snyder.
“We are not going to do any less with our Catholic students than what we are doing now … but for me it’s like raising up the others to be of value as well, which only makes us stronger,” he said.
St. Thomas sophomore Emma Teal, who identifies as Presbyterian, is involved with faith-based campus groups and goes home to Eden Prairie on Sundays to attend church with her family.
“If the chapel at St. Thomas offered a service that fit with my religious beliefs completely, I would for sure attend,” Teal said.
Snyder hopes to implement an interdenominational service in the St. Thomas Aquinas Chapel. He hopes the project will help build a society based on understanding others.
“We can embrace our differences as something that’s not threatening but really enhances who we are both as individuals and again as a university community,” Snyder said. “It’s really helping people cultivate that respect and need to find common ground for the common good.”
Interfaith Youth Core’s vision is to develop knowledge, relationships and attitudes that surround religion. St. Thomas hopes to mirror these values in the coming year.
“We really are all in this together,” Snyder said.
Marissa Groechel can be reached at groe5630@stthomas.edu
