Better Together: Fostering Interfaith Appreciation to Advance the Common Good

1. Better Together: Fostering Interfaith Appreciation to Advance the Common Good Jeff Carlson and Claire NoonanDominican University13th Biennial Colloquium of Dominican Colleges and UniversitiesJune 2014

2. Definition: Interfaith Cooperation Interfaith Cooperation respect for religious and non-religious identity respect mutually inspiring relationships relationships common action for the common good common action

3. partnership: campus engagement

4. FRAMEWORK: CAMPUS transformation STUDENT OUTCOMES • Students’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors • Creation of interfaith leaders VISION ECOLOGY • President & administration • Teaching faculty • Administrative faculty • Students • Urgency: Why now? • Relevance: Why us? • Excellence: What is success? CAMPUS OUTCOMES • Supportive campus climate • Sustainable structures

5. vision To craft a vision for interfaith cooperation, explore the following questions in relationship to your campus: Urgency Relevance Excellence • Why us? • Connection to mission, identity & values • Educating for a diverse world • Cultivating global citizens • What’s success? • Cross-campus; high level • High participation • Action oriented • Measurable • Why now? • Religious bigotry • Religious ignorance • Increasing & supporting diversity

6. Ecology The ecology of the campus represents a way to think about structures, assets, and challenges across the institution. How can each dimension of the ecology support interfaith cooperation? President & Administration Faculty Staff Students Alumni and Community

7. Student outcomes Student outcomes should demonstrate measurable change in student attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors concerning religious diversity. STUDENT BODY Levelsof Interfaith Leadership 100% 4 Transformers Knowledge 75% Activists 3 Attitudes % of student body 50% Conversation Changers % of student body 2 Behaviors 25% Supporters 1 Yr. 1 Yr. 2 Yr. 3

8. Campus outcomes To ensure interfaith cooperation is a lasting priority, your campus should be able to measure changes in terms of overall campus climate and in terms of the sustainable structures put in place. President & Administration Campus Climate Outcomes Sustainable Structures Faculty • “My campus values religious pluralism” • “My campus intentionally creates opportunities for me to meet people of different religious/philosophical identities” • “My campus intentionally creates opportunities for people of different religious/philosophical identities to work together on issues of common concern” Staff Students Alumni and Community

9. map campus assets • Core mission • Curriculum including undergraduate general education • Programs and events • Communication pieces • External partnerships • University policies • Include a survey of students/faculty/staff re. interfaith attitudes/knowledge

10. theoversight committee • Faculty, staff and students • Dominican example: Interfaith Cooperation Committee co-chaired by Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Vice President for Mission and Ministry.

11. Strategy of infusion • Interfaith as expression of institutional mission • Interfaith as expression of institutional diversity plan • Transforming endowed chairs, special lectures, campus-wide rituals or major events

12. interfaith learning outcomes • Incorporated interfaith cooperation into an existing Global Citizenship initiative, made concrete through the Higher Learning Commission’s Assessment Academy and Dominican’s focus on the Globally Positioned Student • Interfaith Cooperation Committee created interfaith learning outcomes in order to assess interfaith student learning across campus

13. University-wide Outcomes • Demonstrate a willingness and ability to explore, through dialogue, their own and others’ religious, spiritual, or value-based (RSV) worldviews and traditions • Develop “religious literacy” with regard to facts, values, practices, and philosophies of multiple traditions • Identify warrants and strategies within particular traditions for interfaith dialogue and cooperation

14. University-wide Outcomes • Explore the history of interfaith interchange, organizations, and initiatives following the 1893 World Parliament of Religions • Engage persons and communities with diverse RSV worldviews to address contemporary social concerns • Explain why knowledge about RSV worldviews is important for the students’ chosen field of study or future profession

15. Diversity curriculum audit • Surveyed faculty to determine levels of engagement with multiple aspects of diversity, including religious diversity, in each course • Developed facultygrantsfor course enhancement, targeting gaps/low scorers • Conducted direct assessment of student learning in targeted courses with rubrics developed from interfaith learning outcomes • Incorporated interfaith learning outcomes in specific disciplines, e.g. “explain why knowledge about religious, spiritual and value-based worldviews is important for the students’ chosen field of study or future profession.”

16. Expanding access throughcurricular anchors Liberal Arts and Sciences Seminars as vertical spine of undergraduate Core Curriculum • Taught by faculty from 15 Arts and Sciences Departments, also School of Business, School of Education, School of Library and Information Sciences, and School of Social Work • Students take one each year, with a focused theme and one common text at each level • Dominican has infused interfaith/religious/philosophical common texts at all four levels.

17. LAS Seminars Common Texts • 1st year "The Examined Life": ThichNhatHanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ • 2nd year "Life in Community": Diana Eck, Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras • 3rd year "A Life's Work": Pope John Paul II, On Human Work (LaboremExercens) • 4th year: "The Good Life": Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

18. MINISTRY, STUDENT LIFE & COMMUNITY SERVICE

19. PRAYER AND CELEBRATION

20. INTELLECTUAL AND CULTURAL LIFE

21. SPEEDFAITHING

22. Assessment: LAS SEMINARS • Facilitated pre- and post-surveys for students enrolled in freshman and sophomore seminars inquiring about their attitudes, knowledge, and skills along particular interfaith learning outcomes • Administered surveys to seminar faculty at the end of the semesters to gauge their perceptions on the overall success of the interfaith texts and learning modules (on site visits, and on interfaith dialogue exercises) that had been developed and shared

23. LAS Seminar Assessment • Seminar students report increases in: • Number of “meaningful conversations with someone from a religious, spiritual, or value-based worldview” other than their own • Comfort in discussing their own worldview with others who have a different worldview than theirs • Capacity to name something positive shared with another worldview

24. Students also report increases in: • Knowledge of Buddhism • Understanding why interfaith cooperation is important for the Catholic Dominican tradition • Belief that the college classroom is an appropriate place to discuss issues related to spirituality and/or religion

25. assessment of student learning in targeted courses • Rate student work in multiple courses using rubrics developed from two of the interfaith learning outcomes: • Demonstrates willingness to respond to questions regarding one’s own religious, spiritual or value based worldview • Analyzes the role of religion, spirituality, and value-based worldviews in significant current and historical events

26. students/faculty/staff post-surveys In an all-campus survey administered in 2010, only 28% of student respondents said they “very often” or “often” got “information about different religious or philosophical traditions” from their classes. Now we can confidently say that nearly 100% of undergraduates are exposed to some different religious traditions as a course requirement.

27. Post-surveys First-year students who read Living Buddha, Living Christ are able to identify the Buddhist value of “mindfulness” as a shared value across different religious traditions, and the majority of students (84%) “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree” that participating in the Seminar made them more comfortable discussing their own worldview with others who have different worldviews.

28. Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate Survey In the Spring 2013 administration, Dominican students reported the highest level of curricular religious and spiritual engagement among all students surveyed within that administration

29. Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate Survey Dominican students report increasingly positive attitudes toward people of minority faith traditions and atheists, when compared with Dominican students who were surveyed in 2010 and students on other campuses in the 2013 CRSCS national administration.

30. Campus Religious and Spiritual Climate Survey Contrasted with 2010, when only 25% of Dominican student respondents indicated they had a “very positive” or “somewhat positive” attitude toward Atheism

31. Summary • Map campus assets • Establish an oversight committee • Adopt a strategy of infusion • Develop university-wide interfaith learning outcomes • Conduct a diversity curriculum audit • Create curricular anchors • Create co-curricular experiences • Conduct a variety of assessments