A new school year brings a di verse group of students to Ath ens, and many organizations are looking to expand their events and work with other groups on campus to help teach about dif ferent cultures.
Teaching and learning about new religions and cultures is an important part of college, said Omar Kurdi, communications chair for the Muslim Students Association and a junior study ing political science.
“In the context of new stu dents, we (MSA) hope to teach them about Islam and not just what they get from media,” Kur di said. “…We like to work with groups such as Better Together and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Athens because they are always active in uniting different people.”
The UUFA is a place where people of many religious back grounds, faith paths or no faith can build a community and a have a place to worship, explained Barbara Harrison, president and chair of UUFA and coordinator of community service in the Campus Involve ment Center and off-campus living.
UUFA’s efforts tend to fol low the path of social justice, so they partner with groups such as United Campus Ministry. How ever, there is a struggle to keep a strong student Unitarian Uni versalist group going, Harrison added.
“Due to our location (Longview Heights), it’s tough to get students out to us with out a car, but they can always reach out to us for rides,” she said. “We’ll be doing all that we can to get students more involved this year.”
Hillel, the center of Jewish life on campus, is also actively in volved with social justice groups on campus, said Lauren Gold berg, engagement professional for Hillel.
“We have a huge leadership team this year that will be com ing up with programming that will give students an opportu nity to do some hands-on so cial justice work,” she said. “We will partner with groups such as UCM, Good Earth Farm and the Women’s Center.”
Although some groups are more involved than others are, the University Interfaith As sociation opens the doors for people to get to know each other.
“Cru is connected with the University Interfaith Asso ciation, so we have relation ships with many faith-based groups,” said Nick Stapleton, field staff member for the Christian organization Cru. “It is important to be part of UIA because UIA fosters commu nication and trust between the many religious organizations on campus and with the uni versity itself.”
Pairing up with other orga nizations to celebrate different holidays helps to strengthen ties and bring unity to the campus, said Bhakti Shah, ex ecutive committee member of the Indian Students Associa tion.
“The Indian Students Asso ciation at Ohio University has a very simple mission: to unite everyone who loves something about India,” Shah said. “All we look for in members is par ticipation in at least one of the many activities we have and spreading the knowledge about India and its culture wherever they go.”
