By Kimber Quinney
Contributor
If we agree that an important role of the university is to educate students for global and responsible citizenship through awareness of diversity and practicing inclusiveness, I hope we might also agree that CSUSM is doing its part.
CSUSM’s mission, vision and values statement reflects our institutional commitment to inclusiveness and multicultural diversity. In our celebration of diversity, we do not have to look far to find examples of the varied and constructive ways in which the campus community promotes diversity: Conversations that Matter and Diversity Awareness Month (Office of Diversity, Educational Equity and Inclusion); Engaging Diverse Dialogues (CHABSS initiative); the Diversity Mapping project; and the Civility Campaign (Student Life and Leadership)—all of which, of course, amounts to a partial list of many more campus activities related to diversity. Indeed, CSUSM is the recipient of the 2014 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine.
In spite of our good work, a crucial issue of diversity exists to which we have devoted insufficient attention—religion. Given the global unrest that exists because of religious extremism and the potential for violent conflict based on religious difference, our mission to educate students for responsible citizenship demands that we foster interfaith understanding. And yet religion as in issue of diversity is often overlooked at CSUSM. My plea is to correct that oversight.
A handful of excellent resources exist to help facilitate conversations about religion at college campuses, but the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC / http://www.ifyc.org ) founded by Eboo Patel is a forerunner in this respect. Patel and coauthor Cassie Meyer have made a strong argument for the “Civic Relevance of Interfaith Cooperation for Colleges and Universities” in the Journal of College and Character (2011). IFYC conducts campus climate assessments of religion and spirituality, recently releasing Engaging Worldview, a report on national trends in campus religious and spiritual diversity (http://ifyc.org/worldview). IFYC has joined with the Council of Independent Colleges to provide faculty with professional development about Teaching Interfaith Understanding (http://www.cic.edu/meetings-and-events/Faculty-Development/Pages/Interfaith.aspx). Finally, IFYC is persuaded that raising awareness about religious diversity must begin with students. To this end, IFYC’s Better Together campaign (http://www.ifyc.org/better-together) aims at educating students to become interfaith leaders and to empower change.
Even if CSUSM does not take advantage of direct collaboration with IFYC, we can find ways to follow the organization’s lead by embracing religion in our many conversations about diversity, thereby promoting religious pluralism. Religious pluralism as defined by IFYC includes respect for people’s diverse religious and non-religious identities, mutually inspiring relationships between people of different backgrounds and common action for the common good (http://www.ifyc.org/about).
If we take seriously our commitment to educate students for global and responsible citizenship through awareness of diversity and practicing inclusiveness, we simply cannot afford to exclude religion.
Kimber M. Quinney is Adjunct Faculty in the History Department and Faculty Liaison for Engagement Scholarship in the division of Community Engagement. If you are interested in working to raise awareness about religious diversity and to foster interfaith dialogue at CSUSM, please contact Dr. Quinney at [email protected].