Critical Conversations: Addressing Challenges in Interfaith Assessment JT Snipes & Becca Hartman-Pickerill #IFYC #NASPA17 50 min

Introductions JT Snipes Becca Hartman-Pickerill jt@ifyc.org Becca@ifyc.org @jsnipes3 @beccahartman Campus Assessment Campus Stewardship

Goals Engage with the social science behind IFYC’s methodology Understand the emerging trends of interfaith work on campus Articulate the challenges of expanding interfaith work on college and university campuses Apply best practices in interfaith assessment to your campus JT: Provide an overview of the program, invite audience members to share what they hope to learn in the session and why they attended Consent agenda

Terms and Conditions Interfaith cooperation: people who orient around religion differently working together on shared values Religious pluralism: engaged worldview diversity IFYC’s vision: a society where interfaith cooperation is a social norm Respect for religious/worldview identity. Mutually inspiring relationships across difference. A commitment to the common good. Becca: define IFYC mission, methodology,

The Interfaith Triangle 1 Positive Behaviors/ Relationships Appreciative Knowledge The Interfaith Triangle 1 Spend enough time here to explain Robert Putnam and David Campbell’s work Positive Attitudes 1 Patel, E. (2012). Sacred ground: Pluralism, prejudice, and the promise of America. Boston: Beacon Press. 5

IDEALS Highlights JT reports some findings, offers report as hand-out

Leadership Practices for Interfaith Excellence in Higher Education Identity & Mission Campus-Wide Strategy Public Identity Respect and Accommodate Identity Academic Priority Staff & Faculty Capacity Student Leadership Campus-Community Partnerships Assessment JT hands out 9 LP article, Becca introduces the resource and notes that we will reference it throughout the session THIS IS A KIND OF CAMPUS-WIDE ASSESSMENT https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/2015/winter-spring/patel

Challenges to Interfaith Work Respecting and accommodating religious and secular identities at the margins Incorporating religious/worldview identity into existing diversity priorities (history of privatizing religion, silos) Framing worldview diversity engagement as a civic value Building new, sustainable community partnerships Entrenched campus/(inter)national patterns of how worldview identity is engaged

Assessment Case Studies Respect & Accommodation: Dartmouth University Private secular, New England, 6K students Staff/Faculty Capacity: University of North Florida Public, large, Southeast, 16K students Academic + Community Partnership: North Park University Private religious, Midwest, 2.5K students Challenge: Interfaith University Private secular, Midwest, 8K students Dartmouth (JT) – campus climate UNF (Becca) – Staff-faculty capacity North Park University (Becca) – optional – academic & community partnership Northwestern University (Becca) - challenges Could offer UCLA to have a west coast school J.T. Our first case comes from Dartmouth University. As you can see from the slide Dartmouth is a private nonsectarian institution located in the New England area with around six thousand students. Before I explain the accomodations they provided I want to first give a little background information. Dartmouth is an institution that has a strong chaplaincy. And this summer Rabbi Daveen Litwin stepped in to continue the good work that Nancy Vogele began. Dartmouth’s structure is primed for expansion of interfaith programming and cooperation on campus. Structurally they have a multifaith advisor and a strong program known as multifaith conversations. The big question they had was how effective is their programming. Enter IDEALS – As a participant in IDEALS Rabbi Litwin was able to notice emerging interfaith trends on her campus. She saw that students had low appreciative attitudes toward evangelical students. This was not surprising because the campus has a significant population of secularly oriented students. The finding prompted her to take two actions. The first was have a student panel of directors review, interpret, and analyze the raw data. The result was leveraging the popular multifaith program to address evangelicalism. The second action was to approach fellow administrators with the data, and invited them to help collaborate to make the campus more welcoming for evangelical students. The plan is not without challenges, but Rabbi Litwin is able to generate positive action toward greater campus interfaith cooperation and pluralism.

Small Group Conversation Break into groups of 4 and discuss any of the following questions. Assign a notetaker and speaker to report back to the larger group: Which of the scenarios resonated most with you? How does it relate to your campus context? What from your training speaks to these challenges and opportunities? What training do you need to overcome these challenges? Small group discussions where each participant can draw out where resistance to assessment and/or interfaith work sits on campus Discuss strategies for overcoming these barriers in small groups; synthesize in large groups Share some assessment resource printouts

Resources E-mail Becca@ifyc.org to complete the Campus Interfaith Inventory https://www.ifyc.org/ideals & IDEAS www.ifyc.org/webinars Expanding Buy-in for Interfaith (3.21.2017) Curriculum & Resources Introduction (3.22.2017) Planning for Next Year (4.27.2017)

Spring 2018 Administration Do you have the pulse on interfaith engagement for your campus? Spring 2018 Administration VIEWS measures students’: Perceptions of religious/ worldview climate Attitudes toward others Engagement with diverse others Pluralism orientation Early-bird Registration Deadline: Friday, September 29th Final Registration Deadline: Friday November 3rd For more information visit www.ifyc.org/views Questions? Email us at survey@ifyc.org How do your students experience worldview diversity?