5 ways to promote multifaith literacy on campus
Multifaith Youth Core
Multifaith literacy is the idea that we should be intentional about building appreciative knowledge of religious and ethical traditions different from our own. It’s one thing to increase multifaith literacy within the group, committee, or department where multifaith work is housed on campus—but what if your group could inject multifaith literacy into the campus culture at large? This resource will help you think about why and how you can do that.
Why is this Important?
In a day and age where religious difference is often painted with a negative brush, we see college students offering a counter-narrative at campuses across the country. Since college campuses can be representative of society at large, we think that wider social change has great promise in the hands of college students. Below are five ways you can increase multifaith literacy across campus.
1. Host a campus-wide photo campaign that highlights religious diversity.
Saint Louis University is a good example of how this can be done. Their multifaith group asked a wide variety of students to discuss their religious and philosophical values and write what multifaith cooperation means to them on a sign. They snapped a photo of each person holding up their response. These pictures were shared with the campus body and made into a Facebook photo album.
2. Identify a well-attended function on campus and add a multifaith literacy component.
There are few things more strategic in getting your message across than coupling it with an event that’s already established and successful. Dominican University, located outside of Chicago has a Thanksgiving dinner each year that is always well attended and nearly every realm of the campus community is represented. Students on the multifaith council saw an opportunity to add a multifaith component where reflections on gratitude from various faith-based and philosophical worldviews were placed on the tables along with questions to prompt multifaith dialogue at each table.
3. Have a conversation with student life staff to put multifaith literacy on their radar.
There is more to campus life than just attending class. Residence Life, orientation programs, service and diversity offices, and campus ministry are all facets of campus that have a potential part to play with multifaith literacy on campus. What would it look like, for example, if all RAs had multifaith sensitivity training? Or can you take a page from the University of North Florida’s book and offer a multifaith invocation at each SGA meeting? Incorporating multifaith literacy into these aspects of campus life helps raise it to a visible priority, paving the way to creating a campus norm.
4. Think about where multifaith literacy can be plugged into existing courses.
Even though there’s more to life beyond coursework for college students, it’s still important to strategize about where multifaith literacy might fit into the classroom. Beyond offering a multifaith lens to theology and religious courses (which is a fantastic idea), there are also opportunities to include multifaith literacy into courses in other academic areas or in common-year seminars. For example, many schools have used multifaith texts for common reads. From Diana Eck’s Encountering God to Thich Nhat Hanh’s Living Buddha, Living Christ, there are many books to choose from that promote multifaith conversation and literacy.
5. What would your campus look like if there was multifaith literacy?
There may be some parts of your campus that you can identify as being valuable to your work. Fill in the above blank with that facet of your campus where you can say, “if these people got involved, it could really make a difference..” Think about what that would look like more consistently, then reach out to someone to chat about it.
We’ve only highlighted 5 tactics we’ve seen work with success on various campuses, but there are many other ways this could work! The main thing to keep in mind is, how will multifaith literacy impact institutional change on campus?
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