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Table of Contents
Welcome!.........................................................................1
Getting the Most Out of the Conference.................................2
Conference Overview........................................................4
Special Events...................................................................6
Plenary Sessions..............................................................10
Workshops: Sunday, October 25.........................................18
Workshops: Monday, October 26.......................................28
Workshops: Tuesday, October 27.......................................39
Thank You to Our Donors..................................................46
Thank You To Our NGO Sponsors........................................47
Conference Schedule........................................................48
Map of Norris......................................................back cover
Welcome!
Dear Friends,
This conference allows us to feel the pulse of the interfaith movement. Your lives, projects and presence
make up the beat and strength of that pulse. At this conference, you will learn from and be challenged by
the workshops and speakers, but you will grow the most by engaging deeply with one another. Take time
to hear each other’s stories. Encourage one another. Envision new ways of doing things together. If nothing
else, harness the creative potential of our collective imagination.
Many organizations have conferences, what will make this moment unique is what happens after. IFYC was
born out of a few young idealists dreaming big at a very similar conference in San Francisco eleven years
ago. I am challenging you to do the same — allow this space to be an incubator and sounding board for
your future as an interfaith leader. You have over 500 people standing beside you.
Your leadership in this movement has never been more important. To the Center for Civic Engagement at
Northwestern University: thank you for helping us make this a reality. To participants: thank you for your
presence and the incredible work you do.
Sincerely,
Eboo Patel
Executive Director, Interfaith Youth Core
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Getting the Most Out of the Conference
Bridge-builders Network
Wondering how you can stay
in touch with the people you
meet during the conference?
Are you looking for highquality resources on interfaith organizing on your campus
or in your community? Become a member of the Bridgebuilders Network!
Bridge-builders is an online social network that provides
peer-driven resources and connections for interfaith leaders. You can read blogs about events happening around
the world, join a group of interfaith leaders in your local
area, download new resources every month, and upload
pictures and videos from your work to share with the network. Sign-up now using one of the computers in the Louis
Lobby, or by logging on to bridge-builders.ning.com!
Connecting to the Norris
Wireless Network
Free wireless is available in Norris University
Center for a limited number of conference participants. Visit the information desk to learn
how to log on!
Tell Me Your Story!
During the conference, Bridge-builders Blogs page will allow you to share your personal insights, while keeping up
with your favorite workshops and other presentations you
might have missed!
Sign-up now using one of the computers in the Louis
Lobby or by logging on to bridge-builders.ning.com!
Social Media
Use the Twitter hash tag #IFYC09 to remain
up to date on everything happening at the conference and meet fellow participants that are
Twitter users. Use this tag whenever you tweet about the
conference, and follow us at www.twitter.com/ifyc!
Keep up with our Facebook Fan Page at www.
facebook.com (search “Interfaith Youth Core”
to find us or go to our page directly using Bit.ly:
http://bit.ly/c5Q5e). It’s the best way to follow IFYC at
the conference. Though Facebook, you automatically access the Twitter Feed and have access to our YouTube videos and Flickr pictures.You will also be able to sound off in
conference polls and discussion boards and access
Bridge-builders blogs through our RSS feed.
Visit IFYC’s YouTube Channel: www.youtube.
com/InterfaithYouthCore. Upload your own
videos from the conference and tag them
“IFYC09”, “IFYC”, and “Interfaith Youth Core”.
Check out the Interfaith Youth Core Flickr group
here:
www.flickr.com/groups/interfaithyouthcore. Join our group and add your own
pictures from the conference! Be sure to tag them “IFYC09”,
“IFYC”, and “Interfaith Youth Core”.
Make your voice heard! You may notice people running
around in blue t-shirts that read “Tell Me Your Story!” They
will be recording and collecting the stories of conference
participants through audio and video to showcase on
Bridge Builders, YouTube, Vocalo.org and more. Your story
matters - share it with IFYC’s network and help put stories
of interfaith cooperation into the world!
Getting the Most Out of the Conference
Books that Build the Movement
About Norris University Center
Stop by the Barnes & Noble Books on the ground floor of
Norris and look for the “Leadership for a Religiously Diverse World,” display. You can purchase books by plenary
speakers and workshop presenters, like plenary speaker Jim Wallis’ The Great Awakening and Hearing the Call
Across Traditions: Readings on Faith and Service, edited by
workshop presenter Adam Davis.
As the Community center of Northwestern University’s students, faculty, staff,
alumni, and guests, the Norris University
Center provides services and programs
designed to benefit members of the University family. Through various forms of
involvement and as an integral component of the university, Norris Center offers students direct experiences in
participatory decision-making and educates for leadership and social responsibility in an effort to complement
classroom learning.
Need help?
Wondering where your next workshop is? Have a
question about IFYC’s programs? If you have any
questions while you’re at the conference, feel
free to stop by the information table in Louis Lobby. We
will always have someone available to answer your questions. You can also learn more about how to bring IFYC to
your campus for a training or consultation, find out about
job opportunities, and buy our Interfaith Leader’s Toolkit,
or sign up for our Bridge-builders Network. In addition to
coming to the registration table, look for IFYC staff and
volunteers who are wearing special ribbons on their
nametags. We’re here to help!
Luggage Room
During the conference, luggage can be stored in the Eighteen Fifty-One Room (Room 201). Check-in at the info
table if you need to store luggage.
About the Center for Civic
Engagement
This conference would not be
possible without the generous support of the faculty,
staff and students of Northwestern University’s Center for
Civic Engagement, host of this year’s conference.
The Center for Civic Engagement promotes a lifelong
commitment to active citizenship and social responsibility
among students of all ages. Through an integration of academics, meaningful volunteer service, research, and community partnerships, the Center supports students, faculty,
staff, and alumni as they enhance their own academic experiences while contributing to stronger communities and
a more engaged university. Find out more: www.engage.
northwestern.edu.
Leadership for a Religiously Diverse World is proud to have
Norris University Center as its Conference home.We invite
you explore the facility and take advantage of all that it has
to offer-whether you want to grab a tee shirt from the Norris Bookstore, play a round of pool in the Game Room, or
enjoy a latte at Starbucks. As you discover this wonderful
venue, please keep in mind that on Conference weekdays
the Center will be hosting students and other activities.
About Evanston, IL
While you are here with us, we encourage you to explore
all that Evanston has to offer. Located just north of Chicago,
Evanston has a stunning natural setting on Lake Michigan
with unique business districts, attractive homes on treelined streets, and pleasant public parks. You can find more
information about shopping, dining, sports, theatre, museums and other great information on their website: www.
cityofevanston.org.
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Conference Overview
Plenary Sessions
Join the entire conference community to connect with some
of the leading thinkers in the interfaith youth movement —
from policy makers and religious leaders to young people
on the vanguard of interfaith cooperation.
Workshops
Want to develop your skills as an interfaith leader? Ready
to discover new program models that will help you
strengthen your own local work? The workshops you’ll
have a chance to experience represent the breadth of this
movement.
Special Workshop Tracks
• Media Training
: The Media Training track empowers young leaders of the interfaith movement to utilize
media in furthering the message of religious pluralism.
Working directly with experts at the forefront of media
and messaging, participants will gain media production
skills, explore innovative approaches to story-telling,
and actually produce media pieces and upload them to
various online forums! The Media Training track of the
conference is generously supported by the Righteous
Persons Foundation.
• Speed Faithing Sessions
: Led by young leaders
within a particular religious tradition, these sessions will
bolster your religious literacy, and give you tips on how
to best engage that community in interfaith work.
• Interfaith Youth Core Signature Trainings
:
IFYC’s trainers work with young people and their allies
around the world, training them in the knowledgebase,
framework and skill set of interfaith leadership. Come
experience some of our most popular trainings, and
hone your skills as an architect of religious pluralism!
• Interfaith Leadership Scholarship Training: Through
the Student Interfaith Leadership Scholarship, fifty diverse and exemplary young leaders, all full-time students, have been selected to receive specialized leadership training from IFYC’s Outreach Education and
Training team. They will also participate in planning
sessions on how to implement the Interfaith Youth Core
Campus Hallmarks, and share best practices with one
another. These scholarships are generously supported
by the McCormick Tribune Foundation and the Nathan
Cummings Foundation. These sessions are for scholarship recipients only.
Networking Meals
Mealtimes are your chance to reconnect with old friends
and colleagues and to meet new partners for interfaith cooperation. Grab a boxed lunch and head to a workshop
room to engage in conversation on everything from why
interfaith work is not relativism, to best practices for building city-wide interfaith youth movements. Or go to one of
the open workshop rooms and start your own conversation. See the Networking Meals insert for full details and
schedule!
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Special Events
Sneak-preview of The Calling PBS Documentary Series
and Q&A with the filmmakers
Sunday, October 25, 9 pm
McCormick Auditorium
Free and open to the public
The Calling is a groundbreaking PBS documentary series,
premiering in the Fall of 2010, which chronicles the lives
of new religious leaders and their diverse educational
journeys - from their first days of training, through years
of study, and into their early practice as ordained professionals. With them, the viewer experiences the trials and
triumphs of balancing leadership and living everyday life;
as young people at their own crossroads, struggling with
partners, family, inequity and other challenges. Filmmakers The Kindling Group invite you into the post-production
process through a special rough-cut sneak peek, and
would love your insights and feedback as the “insiders” of
this experience. Stay after for a special Q & A session
with The Kindling Group’s Danny Alpert and Beth
Sternheimer.
Daniel Alpert, Executive Director, Kindling Group
Daniel is a producer, director and
editor whose films have aired on PBS,
HBO and A&E and has been nominated for an Academy Award and national Emmy Awards. His last film, A
Doula Story, documents one woman’s fierce commitment
to empower pregnant teenagers with the skills and knowledge they need to become confident, nurturing mothers.
This film is currently in distribution to Public Television
and is the centerpiece of a nationwide community engagement and education campaign. Previously, Daniel directed, produced and wrote A History of God, a two-hour
documentary special for A&E Networks. He co-produced
and edited Legacy, a feature length documentary for HBO,
which was nominated for a 2001 Academy Award and
Emmy Award for Best Documentary Feature and was an official selection at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. Daniel
also produced No Time to be a Child, a three-part series
that aired nationally on PBS, as well as internationally in
over 12 countries. Daniel has been awarded grants from
the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, The Sundance Documentary Fund, ITVS, the Irving Harris Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, among others.
Beth Sternheimer, Coordinating Producer, Kindling Group
Beth relocated to Chicago from Boston where she worked for 9 years as a
documentary producer and researcher for independent films and museum
projects. Prior to The Calling, she was
the Associate Producer for Secrecy, an independent documentary on government secrecy and for Traces of the Trade,
which documents the descendants of the largest slave trading family in US history as they retrace the Triangle Trade.
Both films premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival
and Traces was broadcast on P.O.V. In addition, Beth was
part of a team nominated for a 2009 national Emmy Award
for Outstanding Research on Traces of the Trade. Beth was
also the Associate Producer for Unfinished Symphony, a
film exploring a 1971 Vietnam Veterans’ anti-war march
in Massachusetts and the controversy that erupted when
the protestors attempted to camp on Lexington’s historic
battlefield. It premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and was subsequently broadcast on the Sundance
Channel. Her museum work includes producing exhibit
videos for the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, US
Holocaust Memorial Museum, National Archives and the
newly built Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. Beth holds a BA in history from Oberlin College and
an MA in American Studies from UMass – Boston.
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Special
Events
Film Screening: Pray the Devil Back to Hell
and Q&A with filmmaker Gini Reticker
Monday, October 26, 8 pm
McCormick Auditorium
Free and open to the public
Pray the Devil Back to Hell is the extraordinary story of a
small band of Liberian women who came together in the
midst of a bloody civil war, took on the violent warlords
and corrupt Charles Taylor regime, and won a long-awaited peace for their shattered country in 2003.
As the rebel noose tightened upon Monrovia, and peace
talks faced collapse, the women of Liberia – Christian and
Muslims united - formed a thin but unshakable white line
between the opposing forces, and successfully demanded
an end to the fighting– armed only with white T-shirts and
the courage of their convictions.
The women of Liberia are living proof that moral courage
and non-violent resistance can succeed, even where the
best efforts of traditional diplomacy have failed.
Stay after for a special Q&A session with director Gini
Reticker.
Gini Reticker is an Emmy-winning,
Academy Award-nominated documentary director and producer. She
produced the Academy Award®
nominated short Asylum, and the
Emmy nominated A Decade Under
The Influence. Directing for the PBS
Series Wide Angle, Reticker took home an Emmy and the
Society for Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award
for Ladies First, which focused on the role of women in rebuilding post-genocide Rwanda. In 2006, Reticker directed The Class of 2006, for Wide Angle, spotlighting the first
fifty women in Morocco to graduate from an imam academy in Rabat.
Her first film, The Heart of the Matter received the Sundance Freedom of Expression Award; Out of the Darkness:
Women and Depression garnered both an Emmy and a
Gracie Award.
Before becoming a producer and director, Reticker
worked as an editor on films including: Roger & Me; The
Awful Truth: The Romantic Comedy, PBS American Cinema
Series; and the Emmy-nominated Fire From the Mountain.
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Special
Events
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Bridge-builders Awards Reception
Monday, October 26, 5:00 pm
Join us on Monday night for hors d’oeuvres and the awards
ceremony when we announce the winners!
Schedule of the evening:
5:00 - 5:45 pm: Bridge-builders Awards Reception —
enjoy hors d’oeuvres and conversation in Louis Lobby and
surrounding rooms
6:00 pm: Bridge-builders Awards Ceremony
6:45 pm: Bridge-builders Awards Keynote Address —
Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action
Center of Reform Judaism
The Bridge-builders Awards Reception will honor exceptional individuals, programs and organizations in the field
of interfaith cooperation. The Bridge-builders Awards
Committee received over one hundred nominations, and
IFYC is excited to pay tribute to four of these outstanding
awardees. We thank all other nominators and nominees for
their important contributions to the field.
The Bridge-builders Awards will be given in four categories:
The Bridge-builders Leadership Award will go to a
young person, aged 12-25, who has demonstrated leadership in building sustainable, innovative interfaith cooperation in their local community or at a national level.
The Campus Bridge-builders Award will go to an individual, event, or program on a campus, or a campus as a
whole that has engaged religious diversity positively and
exemplified interfaith leadership.
The Community Bridge-builders Award will go to an
individual, program or organization that builds interfaith
cooperation at the community level, with an emphasis on
youth leadership and common action.
The Bridge-builders Movement Award will recognize
an institution or individual who has significantly impacted
the interfaith youth movement.
Rabbi David Saperstein represents
the Reform Jewish Movement to Congress and the Administration as the
Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. During his over
three-decade tenure at the helm of
the RAC, Rabbi Saperstein has head-
ed several national religious coalitions, including the Coalition to Protect Religious Liberty. He serves on the board
of numerous national organizations including the NAACP,
People For the American Way, Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life and the World Bank’s “World Faith Development Dialogue.” Rabbi Saperstein was elected in
1999 as the first Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and was appointed by President
Obama as a member of the first White House Council on
Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Saperstein
was selected Newsweek magazine as the most influential
rabbi in the country and described in a Washington Post
profile as the “quintessential religious lobbyist on Capitol
Hill.” A prolific writer and speaker, Rabbi Saperstein has
appeared on a number of television news and talk shows
including Oprah and Nightline. His articles have appeared
in the Washington Post, the New York Times and the “Harvard Law Review.” His latest book is Jewish Dimensions of
Social Justice: Tough Moral Choices of Our Time.
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Special
Events
Interfaith Service Projects Around Evanston
Tuesday, October 27, 2:30 pm
Schedule
2:30 pm: Gather in Louis Room to meet your service project partners and find out where you’ll be working for the
afternoon
3:00 pm: Head to your service site to sort through donations, share community with the elderly or work in a community garden
7:00 pm: Return with your service group for facilitated
interfaith dialogue, dinner, and a celebration of all your
hard work!
Interfaith Youth Core is excited to provide an opportunity
for conference participants and members of the Northwestern Community to put the ideal of interfaith leadership into immediate action! If you signed up for the service project, please join us after the closing plenary for an
afternoon of interfaith service and dialogue. Participants
will serve together in groups placed throughout Evanston
and northern Chicago. These projects will be a great opportunity to take common action as well as network with
other leaders involved in the interfaith youth movement!
The service project is only open to participants who preregistered.
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Plenary Sessions
Opening Plenary Session —
A Vision for Interfaith Leadership
Sunday, October 25, 12:00 pm
Louis Room
Opening Remarks: Dr. Eboo Patel, Founder and Executive Director, Interfaith Youth Core
Keynote Speaker: Farah Pandith, Special Representative to Muslim Communities, US Department of State
Eboo Patel is the founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth
Core, a Chicago-based institution
building the global interfaith youth
movement. As a member of President
Obama’s Advisory Council of the
White House Office of Faith Based
and Neighborhood Partnerships, he is working to realize
the President’s priority of interfaith cooperation. He is the
author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the
Struggle for the Soul of a Generation. Eboo holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University,
where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. He writes “The
Faith Divide,” a featured blog on religion for The Washington Post and has also written for the Harvard Divinity School
Bulletin, the Chicago Tribune, The Review of Faith and International Affairs, The Sunday Times of India and National
Public Radio. Eboo serves on the Religious Advisory Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the National Committee of the Aga Khan Foundation USA. Eboo is a
Young Global Leader in the World Economic Forum and an
Ashoka Fellow, part of a select group of social entrepreneurs whose ideas are changing the world. Eboo was
named by Islamica Magazine as one of ten young Muslim
visionaries shaping Islam in America and was chosen by
Harvard’s Kennedy School Review as one of five future policy leaders to watch.
Farah
Pandith
serves as the Special Representative
to Muslim Communities, an office responsible for executing
Secretary
Clinton’s vision for
engagement with
Muslims around the
world on a people-
to-people and organizational level. Prior to this appointment, she was Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of
State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Before joining the
Department of State, she served as the Director for Middle
East Regional Initiatives for the National Security Council.
Pandith also served on the staff of the National Security
Council from December 2004 to February 2007. Prior to
joining the NSC, Special Representative Pandith was Chief
of Staff for the Bureau for Asia and the Near East for the U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID), and from
1997 to 2003, she was Vice President of International Business for ML Strategies in Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to
graduate school, Pandith worked at USAID as the Special
Assistant to the Director of Policy. She has also served on
several boards with a focus on international affairs including the World Affairs Council of Boston, the Council for
Emerging National Security Affairs, and the British-American Project. She is currently a member of the Board of
Overseers of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Evening Plenary Session — A Conversation on Interfaith Leadership
Sunday, October, 25, 7:00 pm
Pick-Staiger Auditorium
Note: Conference participants will receive a ticket for
this event at registration
Reverend Jim Wallis, President and Chief Executive
Officer, Sojourners; Dr. Eboo Patel, Founder and Executive Director, Interfaith Youth Core
Jim Wallis is a bestselling author,
public theologian, speaker, preacher,
and international commentator on religion and public life, faith and politics. His latest book is The Great
Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in
a Post–Religious Right America (HarperOne, 2008). His previous book, God’s Politics: Why the
Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It (Harper Collins, 2005), was on the New York Times bestseller list for 4
months. He is President and Chief Executive Officer of Sojourners, where he is editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, whose combined print and electronic media have a
readership of more than 250,000 people. Wallis speaks at
more than 200 events a year and his columns appear in
major newspapers, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and both Time and Newsweek online. He regularly appears on radio and television,
Plenary Sessions
including shows like Meet the Press, the Daily Show with Jon
Stewart, the O’Reilly Factor, and is a frequent guest on the
news programs of CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and
National Public Radio. He has taught at Harvard Divinity
School and Kennedy School of Government on “Faith, Politics, and Society.” He has written eight books, including:
Faith Works, The Soul of Politics, Who Speaks for God?, and
The Call to Conversion.
Visit Jim Wallis and Sojourners at their website: www.Sojo.
net and read his daily blog at www.GodsPolitics.com.
Eboo Patel — for Eboo’s bio, please see previous session
Directions to Pick-Staiger from Norris University Center:
From any location in Norris Center, proceed to the Ground
floor. (From 1st, 2nd and 3rd floor, take the stairs or the elevator). The Ground Floor is distinctive with modern seating
and the Food Court, a U.S. Bank Branch, and a Bookstore.
On the Ground floor, locate the Bookstore on the southeast
corner and proceed outside the adjacent double doors.
From there, walk straight up the ramp and the Pick-Staiger
Concert Hall entrance will be to your left.
Morning Plenary Session —
Interfaith Leadership,
Social Entrepreneurship
and Movement Building
Monday, October 26, 9:00am
Louis Room
Panelists: Keith Ellison, Fifth Congressional District
of Minnesota, U.S. House of Representatives (invited);
Wayne Firestone, President, Hillel: The Foundation for
Jewish Campus Life; Adria Goodson, Director of Domestic Programs, Hunt Alternatives Fund; Ruth Turner, Director and Chief Executive, Tony Blair Faith Foundation;
Moderator: Adam Goodman, Center for Leadership,
Northwestern University
Keith Ellison serves in the U.S. House
of Representatives as a representative for the Fifth Congressional District of Minnesota, which includes the
City of Minneapolis and the surrounding suburbs.Representative Ellison is
a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). He previously served
two terms representing Legislative District 58B in the Min-
nesota State House of Representatives, from 2003 to 2007.
While in the State Legislature, he served on the Public
Safety, Policy and Finance Committee, and the Election
and Civil Law Committee. Ellison led efforts to protect
Minnesota children from dangerous pesticides and chemicals; he promoted legislation to restore the voting rights of
ex-offenders; and he successfully advocated for an increase in the state’s minimum wage Representative Ellison
serves on the Financial Services and Foreign Affairs Committees. The Financial Services Committee provides oversight for the nation’s housing and financial services sector,
while the Foreign Affairs Committee oversees the country’s diplomatic affairs.
Wayne L. Firestone is the President
and CEO for Hillel: The Foundation
for Jewish Campus Life. He joined
Hillel in 2002 as the Founding Executive Director of the Israel on Campus
Coalition and later the Executive Vice
President for Hillel in the United
States. He directed Hillel’s strategic planning committee
which developed a comprehensive five year organizational plan. Wayne received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law School and worked for the DC law firm Patton
Boggs. Wayne is a graduate of the University of Miami
where he double majored in Judaic Studies and Politics
and Public Affairs and gained national prominence as a
Hillel student Soviet Jewry activist, playwright and intercollegiate debater. Wayne and his wife Stephanie have
three daughters and previously lived in Israel for over
eight years where he served as the director of the Israel
Regional Office of the Anti-Defamation League; founded a
consulting company — Silicon Wadinet — to support Israeli start-up companies; and lectured on entrepreneurship at the Technion. Wayne was twice named by the Jewish Daily Forward as one of the “Forward 50” key influences
who are impacting the way American Jews view the world
and themselves.
Adria Goodson is the director of domestic programs for Hunt Alternatives Fund. She is responsible for the
Prime Movers: Cultivating Social
Capital program and supervises the
ARTWorks for Kids program team and
the manager of philanthropic giving.
Over the course of her career, she has worked with the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s After School Project,
The Hestia Fund, Resource Generation, and the Boston
College Media Research and Action Project. Dr. Goodson
spent almost a decade in for-profit and non-profit manage-
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Plenary Sessions
ment positions. Through her seven-year career at the Leo
Burnett Company in Chicago, she developed advertising
and marketing strategies for McDonald’s Corporation, Kellogg Corporation, and Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Goodson left the agency business to take on the Director
of Marketing position at Chicago Children’s Museum as
the museum transitioned from a 14,000 square foot storefront into a 57,000 square foot anchor tenant on the newly
redeveloped Navy Pier. Dr. Goodson recently published a
chapter entitled “Building Bridges, Building Leaders: Theory, Action and Lived Experience” in the book Rhyming
Hope and History: Activists, Academics, and Social Movement Scholarship. Goodson has her PhD in sociology, specializing in movement theory, social policy, and philanthropy. She was awarded the W.K Kellogg Foundation
Non-profit Opportunity Leadership fellowship and the
Boston College President’s fellowship.
ing. For over 25 years, he has been an advisor and speaker
to business, the media, the non-profit sector and higher
education. His work includes serving as co-chair of the Research Section of the International Leadership Association
and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Johnson & Wales
University. He has given over 100 invited speeches and
workshops and advised dozens of CEOs and other senior
officers and executive teams. Dr. Goodman is one of the
largest grant recipients in leadership research and education in the United States, receiving major grants from the
Ford Foundation and IBM Corp. His current research is the
development of 6 Leadership Questions®, an assessment
and learning tool. For 12 years, Dr. Goodman was President
and CEO of the University of Colorado’s Leadership Institute, the nation’s oldest leadership studies program. Dr.
Goodman earned a Ph.D. in leadership from the Graduate
School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado.
Ruth Turner set up the Tony Blair
Sports Foundation in November 2007,
and is currently chief executive of the
Tony Blair Faith Foundation. Ruth joined
the Prime Minister’s Office in May 2005
as Director of Government Relations
and worked for Tony Blair until his 2007
resignation. Prior to that, she was an Independent Non Executive Director of the Places for People Group Ltd, the UK’s
largest social housing provider. Previously, Ruth co-founded
The Big Issue in the North in 1992, which provided work for
over 500 homeless people each year, and four years later,
set up a registered charity, The Big Issue in the North Trust,
to help the vendors move away from selling the magazine
and get into homes, good health and jobs. Ruth was also a
founding director of Vision 21, a social research and community consultation company and elected by party members as a constituency representative to the Labour Party’s
National Executive Committee. She was a member of the Labour Party’s National Policy Forum, the body responsible for
policy development within the Labour Party. She was cochair, with Margaret Beckett, of the Quality of Life Policy
commission. In 1999 Ruth was a candidate for the northwest
region in the European Parliamentary elections.
Afternoon Plenary Session —
Interfaith Leadership and
Religious Identity
Dr. Adam Goodman is an award-winning educator, researcher, and trusted
advisor to leaders of companies, nonprofit groups and other organizations.
Currently, he directs Northwestern
University’s Center for Leadership.
He is also a co-founder and Partner
with the NorthStone Group, a management consulting firm
that focuses on leadership development and decision mak-
Monday, October 26, 2:00 pm
Louis Room
Panelists: Anju Bhargava, Founder/Convener, Hindu
American Seva Charities; Maha ElGenaidi, President
& Chief Executive of Islamic Networks Group; Greg
Epstein, Humanist Chaplain, Harvard University; Skye
Jethani, Managing Editor, Leadership Journal, Christianity Today; Rabbi Or Rose, Associate Dean of the
Hebrew College Rabbinical School and Co-Director
of the Center for Interreligious & Communal Leadership Education
Moderator: Erin Toolis, Faiths Act Fellowship
Anju Bhargava is a Senior Vice President at Bank of America. She launched
Global Synergy Associates, an international management consulting firm
working at the intersection of Enterprise Risk Management, Business
Transformation and Organization
Management through a combination of both business and
human levers. She is currently a member on President
Obama’s Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and is a convener of Hindu American Seva Charities. Anju began her career over two decades ago as a
banker and has held senior level positions in Corporate
Plenary Sessions
America. Anju has worked at and consulted for diverse
companies including Bear Stearns Asset Management,
BB&T Bank, IBM Global Services, Fleet Bank, NatWest USA,
Chase Manhattan Bank, Johnson & Johnson family, Healthcare entities, Booz Allen, MONY, US government agencies,
GenPact (India). Anju has provided management consulting and thought leadership to alleviate customer pain
points. She has worked extensively in enhancing enterprise/operational and credit risk management infrastructures. She created efficient and effective customer-centric,
end-to-end, process models to facilitate delivery of products and services supporting cross-functional continuous
improvement, process innovation and measurement l(KRIs,
KPIs) leveraging outsourced capabilities. Maha ElGenaidi is President & Chief
Executive of Islamic Networks Group
(ING). Based in the San Francisco Bay
Area, ING is a national educational
outreach organization with affiliates
and partners throughout the United
States. ING promotes interfaith dialogue and education about world religions and their contributions to civilization by annually delivering thousands
of presentations and other educational programs in schools,
universities, law enforcement agencies, corporations,
healthcare facilities, and community centers. ElGenaidi
has spoken to hundreds of schools, churches, synagogues,
police departments, corporations and other public agencies. She has appeared on numerous television and radio
programs and is the author of seven training handbooks
on outreach for American Muslims as well as eight training
modules for public institutions on “developing cultural
competency with the American Muslim community”. She
is active with many state and federal government agencies and was a former commissioner on Lt. Governor Cruz
Bustamante’s Commission for One California. She currently serves on the California Three Rs Advisory Committee,
Santa Clara County Human Relations Commission and is
an Advisor to California’s Commission on Police Officers
Standards and Training (POST) for cultural diversity and
hate crime prevention. Maha has been recognized with numerous civil rights awards, including the “Civil Rights
Leadership Award” from the California Association of Human Relations Organizations, and the “Citizen of the Year
Award” from the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.
Greg M. Epstein serves as the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University and sits on the executive committee of the 36-member corps of
Harvard Chaplains. In 2005 he re-
ceived ordination as a Humanist Rabbi from the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, where he
studied in Jerusalem and Michigan for five years. He holds
a BA (Religion and Chinese) and an MA (Judaic Studies)
from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a Masters
of Theological Studies from the Harvard Divinity School. In
late fall 2009 he will publish his first book, Good Without
God: What a Billion Non-Religious People Do Believe, for
William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Epstein was the primary organizer of “The New Humanism,” an international conference in honor of the 30th anniversary of the Humanist Chaplaincy of Harvard University. He blogs for Newsweek and The Washington Post, and
his work as a Humanist rabbi and Chaplain has been featured by publications such as NPR and Newsweek. He is an
adviser to two student groups at Harvard College, the Secular Society and the Interfaith Council, and to the Harvard
Humanist Graduate Community. He also chairs the Academic Advisory Board of the national umbrella organization the Secular Student Alliance, joining such public figures as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Skye Jethani serves as the managing
editor of Leadership Journal, a publication of Christianity Today International, whose purpose is to equip
pastors and church leaders for the
challenges of ministry in a complex
world. Jethani also contributes regularly to other resources within the Leadership Media
Group including Out of Ur and Building Church Leaders.
He is a “Featured Preacher” on PreachingToday.com and
has written for other magazines including Relevant and
Neue Quarterly. Skye has also been a featured commentator on radio programs and in newspapers around the
country on issues of faith, culture, and the church. Skye’s
first book, The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity, was released by Zondervan
in 2009. Prior to his editorial role with Leadership, Skye
served for six years in full-time pastoral ministry at
Blanchard Alliance Church in Wheaton, Illinois. During
this time he helped Blanchard launch a second congregation in Warrenville, Illinois, and wrestle with questions
of mission and spiritual formation in a postmodern, postChristian culture. As a teaching pastor, Skye’s taught adult
classes with a special focus on issues of faith and culture.
He continues to serve as a member of Blanchard’s teaching team and preaches in both Wheaton and Warrenville
regularly.
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p 14
Title Here
Plenary
Sessions
Rabbi Or Rose is Associate Dean of
the Hebrew College Rabbinical
School and Co-Director of the Center
for Interreligious & Communal Leadership Education (CIRCLE), a joint
venture of Hebrew College and Andover Newton Theological School.
Rabbi Rose is the author of Abraham Joshua Heschel: Man
of Spirit, Man of Action, a biography for children (Jewish
Publication Society), and co-editor of God in All Moments:
Spiritual & Practical Wisdom from the Hasidic Masters and
Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice (both from
Jewish Lights). He is currently co-editing Jewish Mysticism
& the Spiritual Life: Classical Texts, Contemporary Reflections (Jewish Lights, fall 2010). Rabbi Rose is a contributing editor for Tikkun and a member of the advisory committee of Sh’ma.
Erin Toolis, 23, grew up in the small
town of Lisbon, Ohio. She received
her B.S. in psychology and graduated
magna cum laude at Denison University. It was in college that she fell in
love with interfaith work, becoming a
leader in Denison Religious Understanding and an intern of the Office of Religious Life, where
she organized her campus’s first annual Interfaith Week.
As a Buddhist, Erin reveres the power of humanity to liberate one another from suffering. Her passion for service has
taken her on many adventures, from New Orleans for hurricane relief to Guatemala for construction and farming
projects to North Carolina as a camp counselor for chronically and terminally ill children. Her interest in the importance of service to personal growth led her to conduct her
Honors Senior Research project on the effects of servicelearning on identity development. After graduation, Erin
joined the Lutheran Volunteer Corps to learn about simplicity, intentional community and social justice while
working at a non-profit art center for homeless and street
involved youth. Erin enjoys poetry, art, imagination, playing piano and exploring. She now works as a Faiths Act
Fellow in Portland.
Morning Plenary Session —
Interfaith Leadership and Critical
Issues
Tuesday, October 27, 9:00 am
Louis Room
Panelists: Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, Executive Director, African Leaders Malaria Alliance with the Office
of the United Nations Special Envoy for Malaria; Jody
Kretzman, Co-Founder and Co-Director, Asset-Based
Community Development Institute, Northwestern University; Jennifer Bailey, Bill Emerson National Hunger
Fellow, Congressional Hunger Center; Geri Mannion,
Director, U.S. Democracy Program and of the Special
Opportunities Fund, The Carnegie Corporation of
New York
Moderator: Joshua Stanton, The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue
Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur works in the
United Nations Office of the Secretary
General’s Special Envoy for Malaria.
She leads a project to engage African
Heads of State and Government in
meeting United Nation’s SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon’s goal for universal coverage of malaria interventions by December 31,
2009 and an end to malaria-related deaths by December
31, 2015. Previously, Abdul-Ghafur developed and executed faith-based initiatives, with an emphasis on Muslims in
the West, for Malaria No More, a leading non-profit formed
to advance the Millennium Development Goals. From 2005
through 2007, she was responsible for sourcing one of the
nation’s largest service days, Hands On Atlanta Day, which
hosted 17,000 volunteers in 250 unique service projects.
Abdul-Ghafur has committed her personal and professional life to advancing the quality of life for women and
girls here and abroad. In 2005, she compiled the critically
acclaimed anthology, Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak (Beacon Press) and has been selected
for a variety of local, national and global leadership programs including, most recently, Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow, Doha 2009. She is a recipient of the Kent Place School
Young Alumna achievement award and was the first recipient of the United for Change Award for Excellence in Human Service.
Plenary Sessions
Jennifer Bailey has worked with
young people of different racial, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds from Chicago to Cusco, Peru.
She is a graduate of Tufts University,
where she served as President of the
Emerging Black Leaders, Co-Founder
of the Tufts Social Justice Arts Initiative, a Citizenship and
Public Service Scholar, and an undergraduate representative to the Board of Trustees. As an undergraduate, Bailey
conducted research on affirmative action policies in higher education and the idea of “preference” in college admissions. Bailey is a Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellow
at Congressional Hunger Center, where she is currently
completing a field placement at the Food Security Partners of Middle Tennessee in Nashville. Her work is focused
on organizing religious communities to advocate for greater food access in three of Nashville’s identified “food deserts” — areas with little or no access to healthy food options. Specifically, she is working on an interfaith
curriculum to train young people of faith to be effective
food justice organizers in their communities.
Dr. Jody Kretzmann is co-founder
and co-director of the Asset-Based
Community Development (ABCD) Institute of the School of Education and
Social Policy at Northwestern University. The ABCD Institute works with
leaders across North America as well
as on five other continents to conduct research, produce
materials and otherwise support community-based efforts
to rediscover local capacities and to mobilize citizens’ resources to solve problems. The Institute continues to build
on the stories and strategies for successful community
building reported in his popular book Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets, written with John McKnight.
Before founding the ABCD Institute, he worked as a community organizer and community development leader in
Chicago neighborhoods, and as a consultant to a wide
range of neighborhood groups. He has worked to develop
community-friendly policies in the city, and at the regional,
state, national and international levels. In addition to his
work at Northwestern, he has taught with the Associated
Colleges of the Midwest Urban Studies Program (which he
co-founded), Valparaiso University, the Lutheran School of
Theology at Chicago, and McCormack Seminary. His B.A.
is from Princeton University; his Masters degree from the
University of Virginia; and his Ph.D. from Northwestern
University.
Geri Mannion serves as director of
Carnegie Corporation’s U.S. Democracy Program, bringing to the table a
wealth of experience about the role
of philanthropy in challenging, improving and deepening the civic dialogue. She has directed the division
since 1998, after staffing the Corporation’s program of
Special Projects for almost ten years. Separately, Mannion
continues to direct the Corporation’s Special Opportunities Fund, which is housed within the Office of the President. The fund allows the Corporation to respond to proposals that are important but not related to the foundation’s
primary foci. Active in professional organizations that
work to advance and strengthen the philanthropic and
nonprofit world, Mannion co-chaired the Funders’ Committee for Citizen Participation from 1993 to 1995, an affinity group of funders that encourages foundations to fund
voter registration, voting rights, civic education and campaign finance reform. She remains an active leader in this
organization and just completed a second term as co-chair. She also serves on the boards of the Grantmakers Concerned for Immigrants and Refugees, the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars and the Center
for Development and Population Activities.
Joshua Stanton is a Founding Editorin-Chief of The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™ and a rabbinical
student at Hebrew Union College. He
is also a founding co-Director of Lessons of a Lifetime™, a nursing homebased project designed to improve
intergenerational relations and convey leadership skills to
youth. A graduate of Amherst College with degrees in history, economics, and Spanish, he is the recipient of numerous leadership awards, including the Volunteer Hero
Award from the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington,
the Hyman P. Moldover Scholarship for Communal Service,
and a place within the Fellows Alliance of the Interfaith
Youth Core.
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p 16
Plenary Sessions
Closing Plenary Session —
Interfaith Leadership and Service
Tuesday, October 27, 1:00 pm
Louis Room
Joshua DuBois, Director, White House Office of
Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships; Rami
Nashashibi, Executive Director, Inner-city Muslim Action Network
Reverend Joshua DuBois is head of
the White House Office of Faith-Based
and Neighborhood Partnerships under President Obama. Joshua graduated from Boston University with a
degree in political science and
earned a master’s degree in public
affairs at Princeton. He then enrolled at Georgetown University Law School, but suspended his pursuit of a J.D. to
join then Senator Obama’s presidential campaign. Obama
hired Joshua in 2005 to spearhead a religious outreach
program in his Senate office. He now consults Joshua on all
faith-related issues. As part of his job, the former associate
pastor has daily conversations with directors in over 20
federal agencies on strategy. The office seeks to promote
partnerships with faith groups on social service issues and
helps advise them on applying for federal funding.
Rami Nashashibi serves as the Executive Director of the Inner-City
Muslim Action Network. He is currently a Sociology PhD candidate at
the University of Chicago. Rami has
been an adjunct professor at various
colleges and universities across the
Chicagoland area, where he has taught a range of Sociology, Anthropology and other Social Science courses. He
has worked with several leading scholars in the area of
globalization, African American studies and urban sociology and has contributed chapters to edited volumes by
Manning Marabel and Saskia Sassen. Nashashibi has lectured across the United States and Europe on a range of
topics related to American Muslim identity, community activism and social justice issues and is a recipient of several
prestigious community service and organizing honors, including the Norman R. Bobbins Fellowship. Nashashibi
and his work with IMAN has been featured in many national and international media outlets including the BBC,
PBS and a front page story in the Chicago Tribune. In 2007
Islamica Magazine profiled Nashashibi as among the 10
Young Muslim Visionaries Shaping Islam in America and
most recently Chicago Public Radio has selected him has
one of the city’s Top Ten Chicago Global Visionaries.
p 18
Workshops: Sunday, October 25
1:45 pm - 2:45 pm
Student Leadership and the “4 Ways
of Interfaith Dialogue”
continuously for faith-based organizations for almost 20
years, except for taking a brief hiatus to serve with the
Peace Corps in Costa Rica.
Katie Brick and F. Javier Orozco, SFO, DePaul
University
Felicia Pulliam has been engaged in community development in distressed neighborhoods for over 15 years. She
has been the Economic Development Coordinator of the
City of Kinloch for over 8 years. Felicia currently teaches
law at St. Louis Community College and is the Development
Director for Interfaith Partnership/Faith Beyond Walls.
Room: Rock - 207
This session will explore how “the 4 Ways of Interfaith
Dialogue” provides a philosophical and methodological
framework for building successful interfaith student leadership on campus, including how it becomes a strategy to
focus student-led programming and garner broader university support (including financial contributions and administrative buy-in).
Katie Brick is the Interfaith Chaplain at DePaul University. She oversees the Student Interfaith Scholars program
across two campuses and works with adult, graduate and
professional students at DePaul’s Loop campus. She has
an MDiv from Catholic Theological Union and an MBA
from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
F. Javier Orozco, SFO provides pastoral leadership in interreligious and ecumenical ministry to the religious life
at DePaul. His ministry has embraced retreat work, residential ministry, faith-formation and pastoral care ministry.
Orozco has a Ph.D. (Theology), a B.A./M.A. (Philosophy),
and an S.T.B (Systematic Theology), and is a professed
brother in the Secular Franciscan Order.
Sustainable Faith in Action: Case Study
of the City of Kinloch and Faith Beyond
Walls
Beth Damsgaard-Rodriguez and Felicia Pulliam,
Interfaith Partnership/Faith Beyond Walls
Room: Wildcat B - 101B
Learn how Kinloch, MO, an underserved community on
the brink of demise, was revitalized and empowered by
interfaith volunteers over the course of six years. Presenters will share how residents shifted from being disenfranchised to becoming to leaders in the community because
of the interfaith model of faith in action.
Beth Damsgaard-Rodriguez is the Executive Director of
Interfaith Partnership/Faith Beyond Walls. Before her current position, she was the Director of Service Projects and
Learning for Faith Beyond Walls. She has been working
Talking Across Difference:
Why Do We Serve?
Kelli Covey and Adam Davis, Project on Civic
Reflection
Room: Evans - 102
This session will get you thinking deeply and talking intensively about why you serve — and it will use a Rabindranath
Tagore poem and a Martin Luther King, Jr. sermon to help
you do so. The session will also introduce you to a practice
called ‘civic reflection’ and resources that will help you get
it going. This session is limited to 20 participants, and will be
offered again on Monday from 10:30-11:30.
Kelli Covey is Director of Programs and Development for
the Project on Civic Reflection. Before joining PCR, she
was the senior development officer at the Illinois Coalition
for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. Covey also has experience as a resource development director, web site and
marketing strategist and writer.
Adam Davis is Senior Research and Teaching Associate with the Project on Civic Reflection. He is the editor
of Hearing the Call across Traditions and co-editor of The
Civically Engaged Reader and Talking Service. He received
his PhD from the University of Chicago, his MA from Boston
College, and his BA from Kenyon College.
Speed Faithing: Sikhism
Karamjit Dhaliwal, University of California, Davis
Room: Arch - 206
Karamjit Dhaliwal is a member of the Student Leadership
Team at the Cal Aggie Christian Association, home of the
Multifaith Living Community in Davis, CA. A third-year
student in Biological Sciences, Dhaliwal has lived in the
MLC for over a year. On staff, she helps organize multifaith
programs, publicity, and outreach.
Workshops: Sunday, October 25
1:45 pm - 2:45 pm
A Survey Look at Religious
Peacemaking in Seminary Education
Heather DuBois, Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious
Understanding
The Idealist’s Journey: City Year’s
Innovative Leadership Development
Experience
Marc Morgan, City Year
Room: Chicago - 103
Room: Wildcat A - 101A
How can or should peacemaking be incorporated into
education for religious leadership? The presenter will
share the unpublished results of interviews with 22 educators from 12 institutions, conducted by Tanenbaum in
the summer of 2009. Participants will be invited to discuss
interfaith, conflict resolution and social justice training in
seminaries.
The presenter will provide an introduction and overview of
the Idealist’s Journey, City Year’s leadership development
curriculum. Participants will have a chance to engage in
guided reflection, and will be introduced to the leadership
development theory, reflection questions, and guiding essays that make up the Journey.
Heather DuBois is the Assistant Director of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding’s Religion
and Conflict Resolution program, which identifies, studies,
and supports the work of religious peacemakers in conflict zones. DuBois oversees efforts to reach seminarians,
diplomats, conflict resolution practitioners and the general public with research and case studies.
Netpeace: Multifaith Movements
and Common Security
Anna Halafoff, Monash University (Melbourne,
Australia)
Room: Northwestern Room B - 202B
Drawing on data gathered from interviews conducted with
50 leading multifaith actors and scholars in the US, UK and
Australia, the presenter will argue that multifaith movements can effectively counter global risks, such as terrorism and climate change, and advance common security in
our ultramodern world.
Anna Halafoff is a researcher for the UNESCO Chair in Interreligious and Intercultural Relations - Asia Pacific, Monash University. Prior to joining Monash, Anna coordinated
the Religion & Peace Program at the International Conflict
Resolution Centre, University of Melbourne. Anna is currently a PhD candidate at Monash, researching Multifaith
Movements in Ultramodernity.
Marc Morgan joined City Year in August 2002 to be a
corps member and complete a year of service in Philadelphia. Morgan is now National Director of High School
Initiatives. He received his BA in Sociology, BS in Administration of Justice, and Minor in Information Systems and
Statistical Analysis from Penn State University.
Starting an Interfaith Student Council
on Your Campus
Tucker Plumlee, University of Denver and Hafsa Arain,
Faiths Act Fellowship
Room: Big Ten - 104
The presenters will lead participants in a discussion of the
“how-to’s” of creating sustainable, student-run interfaith
groups in high schools, colleges and seminaries, taking
you through the very first steps of wondering “Where do
I start?” to making sure that the group keeps going long
after you’re gone!
Tucker Plumlee is a senior at the University of Denver majoring in Religious Studies and Philosophy with a minor in
Sociology; he has studied at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford. He
is president and co-founder of the University of Denver Interfaith Student Alliance and a member of the Interfaith
Youth Core Fellows Alliance.
Hafsa Arain has a Bachelor’s degree in English literature
and religious studies from DePaul University in Chicago,
where she served as an Interfaith Scholar on her campus,
assisting in running the campus Interfaith Council. Currently, she is one of thirty Faiths Act Fellows.
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p 20
Workshops: Sunday, October 25
1:45 pm - 2:45 pm
International Perspectives:
Tools for Promoting Religious
Pluralism in Diverse Communities
for the Melbourne Interfaith Youth Pilgrimage. Freeman
also started InterAction: Multifaith Youth Network, which
engages young people in common action for the common
good.
Esti Durahsanti, Petra Christian University (Surabaya,
Indonesia); Tobias Jere, Center for Social Concern
(Lilongwe City, Malawi); Willy Kasanga, Mangochi
Interfaith Dialogue Project (Mangochi, Malawi); Freeman Trebilcock, InterAction: multifaith youth network
(Melbourne, Australia)
Sarah Talcott is currently serving as the Youth Programs
Director for the United Religions Initiative and the coordinator of the URI’s Global Youth Cooperation Circle. Through
her work with young people in the interfaith movement,
Sarah has designed, organized and facilitated inter-faith
and inter-cultural youth retreats, workshops and projects
in the US and abroad.
Moderator: Sarah Talcott, United Religions Initiative
Room: McCormick Auditorium
This panel will explore what young leaders are doing to
actively promote religious pluralism in three different regional contexts – Australia, Malawi and Indonesia. Panelists will share about successes they have achieved and
challenges they face, and explore how this work could
be replicated and connected across the global interfaith
movement.
Esti Durahsanti is teaching Media Relations and International Public Relations at the Petra Christian University.
Durahsanti has had over 6 years working in the public relations field for both foreign private and government institutions. She also co-founded a media consultant “INDOKOM”
to provide journalism trainings, in-house publication and
media consultancy services in Semarang.
Tobias Bagala Jere, is a Ngoni by tribe from the Northern Province of Malawi. He graduated from the Pontifical
Urubanian University of Rome in 1996 in Religious Studies
and Education. He is also an expert in Non-Violent Conflict
Transformation and Mediation. Before joining the Centre
for Social Concern in 2003, Tobias taught in several secondary schools.
Willy Kasanga is Project Officer for the Mangochi Interfaith Dialogue project, a project aimed at promoting tolerance and peaceful co- existence between Muslims and
Christians. He has been involved in the formation of interfaith dialogue committees at both the district and village
levels. He also initiated a youth sporting project called
“Playing together without praying together”.
Freeman Trebilcock has collaborated on numerous interfaith initiatives including organising and participating
in the ‘Dialogue with the Dalai Lama: Multifaith Forum for
Schools’ as well as coordinating the Buddhist community
De-Polarizing the “Clash:” New Film
and Dialogue Initiative Makes MuslimWest Clash Accessible
Daniel Tutt, 20,000 Dialogues
Room: Northwestern A - 202A
The presenter will introduce the 20,000 Dialogues practical dialogue strategy for social change through film and
grassroots interfaith dialogue. Participants will engage in
actual dialogue after watching clips of UPF films, followed
by a large group discussion about incorporating 20,000
Dialogues into participants existing programs, service
projects, and grassroots work.
Daniel Tutt is Outreach Manager for Unity Productions
Foundation, a media foundation dedicated to creating films
for worldwide broadcast that tell stories about Muslims in
history and contemporary society. Tutt also developed
20,000 Dialogues, which builds greater understanding of
Islam by promoting civic engagement and social action
around different film and dialogue models.
The Language of Religious Pluralism
Hind Makki, Interfaith Youth Core and Noah Silverman, New York University
Room: Lake - 203
Have you ever struggled with finding the right words to
inspire others to join you in working toward interfaith
cooperation? This workshop will help you articulate why
religious pluralism is important in the world today. Participants will learn the basic language to define religious pluralism as developed by the Interfaith Youth Core.
Workshops: Sunday, October 25
1:45 pm - 2:45 pm
Hind Makki is a Program Associate in IFYC’s Outreach
Education & Training department. She travels to college
campuses, congregations and conferences in the United
States and Western Europe, offering trainings on religious
pluralism, interfaith service-learning and meaningful interfaith dialogues. Hind received her BA in International
Relations from Brown University.
Noah Silverman has been a leading practitioner and
trainer in the interfaith movement for over ten years, during which time he has worked for several national and international interfaith organizations in Chicago, New York,
and Jerusalem. Noah is the author of the Interfaith Leader’s
Toolkit and is currently a graduate student studying religion at New York University.
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
The 5 C’s of Awareness
Jesse Blom and Imroz, Global Youth Leadership
Institute
Room: Big Ten - 104
When interfaith leaders work with diverse groups of individuals, we are dealing not only with differences in religion, but also with other aspects of identity. The 5 C’s of
Awareness - Color, Culture, Class, Character, and Context
– guide us to a deeper understanding of ourselves and the
identities of others.
Jesse Blom is the Assistant Director of Global Youth Leadership Institute (GYLI). Blom has worked with GYLI since
2006 as an administrator and as a coordinator for youth
leadership institutes in Wisconsin, New Mexico, and Costa
Rica and has extensive experience working in the realm of
experiential education in a variety of settings.
Imroz is an intern leadership facilitator and trainer for
GYLI. She comes to GYLI for a 6-month internship by special arrangement with Washington State University. Imroz
became involved with interfaith leadership through Play
for Peace, an International organization in India and has
been involved conducting trainings and facilitating diverse populations for the past nine years.
Social Media and Interfaith — Facebook,
Twitter, and Other Tools for Getting Your
Voice Heard
Tim Brauhn, Faiths Act Fellowship
Room: Lake - 203
Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and other “social media” or “social networking” sites provide today’s internet
users with unprecedented reach. We’ll investigate these
tools and how the interfaith youth movement can employ
them to find supporters and friends. We’ll also create basic social strategy documents for your student group or
organization.
Tim Brauhn is a Fellow with the Faiths Act Fellowship, a
partnership between the Interfaith Youth Core and the
Tony Blair Faith Foundation. The Fellows are constructing
an international interfaith coalition to end malaria deaths,
mobilizing faith communities across the globe. Tim was
the Fundraising Coordinator for The 1010 Project, a Denver-based humanitarian organization.
The Art of Building Bridges
Tim DeMay
Room: Evans - 102
How can our stories best connect us? In this presentation,
participants will learn to creatively tell their personal stories and listen to others’ by looking at examples of religious art. By examining religion-themed creative writing,
participants will use poetic and narrative techniques to
recreate their own stories artistically.
Tim DeMay is a writer and a recent graduate from Northwestern University. While at Northwestern, writing short
story about monks, birds, and a young Roman boy led DeMay to undertake a fellowship to travel through the Dakotas and write poems about opera houses. He plans to take
on another project discussing how the fellowship relates
to his initial assignment.
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Workshops: Sunday, October 25
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Muslims, Jews, Palestinians, and Israelis:
New Approaches to Conflict
Transformation Encounter Programs
Huda Abu Arqoub and Aaron Hahn-Tapper,
Abraham’s Vision
Room: Rock - 207
The Co-Executive Directors of Abraham’s Vision will discuss new approaches to encounter programs involving
Jews, Muslims, Israelis, and Palestinians, including the tenmonth Vision Program, which begins by taking Palestinian
and Jewish university programs to the Balkans for a monthlong experience to engage in comparative conflict analysis and transformation.
Huda Abu Arqoub has a Master’s degree in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University, where she
served as a Fulbright Scholar from 2004-06. Prior to joining Abraham’s Vision, Arqoub worked as an educational
consultant for the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Education.
Aaron Hahn-Tapper is an Assistant Professor in the Theology and Religious Studies Department of the University
of San Francisco and the founding Director of the Swig
Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice, the first academic program in the country formally linking these two
fields. He holds a PhD in Comparative Religions from UC
Santa Barbara.
Huda and Aaron are also Co-Executive Directors and CoFounders of the Center for Transformative Education.
Speed Faithing: Judaism
Rebecca Oyen, Faiths Act Fellowship and Nathan Render, Hillel, the Foundation for Jewish Campus Life
Room: Arch - 206
Rebecca Oyen graduated from Amherst College this past
spring with a joint degree in Anthropology and Women’s
and Gender Studies. While at Amherst, she served as the
President of Amherst College Hillel and the Multifaith
Council. This year, Rebecca is working for the Tony Blair
Faith Foundation and IFYC as a Faiths Act Fellow.
Nathan Render, a recent graduate of Tufts University, is
the co-founder of the Tufts Pathways Interfaith Initiative.
He is an IFYC Fellows Alliance Alumnus, a former IFYC
Summer Intern, and a former member of IFYC’s Chicago
Youth Council. He currently serves as the Bronfman Fellow
at Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life in Washington, DC.
Interfaith Education in Seminaries:
Training a New Generation of Moral
& Spiritual Leaders
Rabbi Dr. Nancy Fuchs Kreimer, Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College; Rev. Dr. Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook,
Claremont School of Theology; Dr. Jennifer Peace,
Center for Inter-Religious and Communal Leadership
Education; Rev. Dr. Mark Swanson, Lutheran School of
Theology at Chicago
Moderator: Rabbi Or Rose, Hebrew College
Room: McCormick Auditorium
How do we best train religious leaders for service in a
world of religious diversity? What are the key skills, experiences, and knowledge that rabbis, ministers, imams, and
priests need for their work as interfaith bridge-builders?
Explore these questions with leaders from institutions that
are pioneering this work at schools around the country.
Nancy Fuchs Kreimer is the Director of the Department
of Multifaith Studies and Initiatives at the Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College where she is also Associate Professor
of Religious Studies. She is on the board of Clergy Beyond
Borders, the Interfaith Center of Philadelphia and the advisory board of the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue.
Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook is professor of practical theology and religious education at the Claremont School of
Theology. She is the former academic dean and professor
of Feminist Pastoral Theology and Church History at the
Episcopal Divinity School. The author of numerous books
and articles, Kujawa-Holbrook has also written on interfaith education for Congregations magazine.
Dr. Jennifer Peace is the managing director of the Center
for Inter-Religious and Communal Leadership Education.
Dr. Peace is an adjunct faculty member at Andover-Newton Theological Seminary and a founding board member
of the United Religions Initiative, an international interfaith organization. She also helped found the Daughters
of Abraham, a book group model for Muslim, Jewish and
Christian women.
Workshops: Sunday, October 25
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Mark N. Swanson is the Harold S. Vogelaar Professor of
Christian-Muslim Studies and Interfaith Relations at the
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and the Associate
Director of its Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for
Peace and Justice. Previously he taught at Luther Seminary
in St. Paul, Minnesota and at the Evangelical Theological
Seminary in Cairo, Egypt.
Rabbi Or Rose is Associate Dean of the Hebrew College
Rabbinical School and Co-Director of the Center for Interreligious & Communal Leadership Education, a joint venture of Hebrew College and Andover-Newton Theological
School. Rabbi Rose is an author and contributing editor for
Tikkun and a member of the advisory committee of Sh’ma.
One Day, All Children: An Interfaith
Conversation on Educational Inequity
Josh Dickson, Zahreen Ghaznavi, Seth Lavin and
Brandon Sammut, Teach for America
Room: Northwestern B - 202B
What would happen if young people from all faith traditions worked together to solve our world’s greatest injustices? The answer to this question is the topic of this panel
discussion, featuring several young adults who’ve taught
in America’s lowest income communities with the nonprofit Teach For America. Plenty of Q&A time is included.
Session panelists hail from all corners of the United States
and represent a mosaic of religious traditions. What they do
hold in common, however, is a firm belief that all children deserve access to an excellent education – a belief that each
panelist developed while serving with Teach For America.
This interactive session will focus on the role civilians
play in conflict resolution regarding the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict. Using Palestinian and Israeli interviews, as well
as the unique perspectives of the participants, the session
will address how to implement productive steps towards
peace and understanding in our own communities.
Before joining Just Vision, Adam Sitte worked as a writer
and analyst for the Gallup Organization’s Center for Muslim
Studies. While there, he wrote articles on and contributed
to various reports about the Muslim world. Adam has previously served as an English teacher for refugees in Cairo,
Egypt and worked in camps throughout the West Bank.
Spicing Up Dialogue: Broaching
the Tough Issues That Really Count
Joshua Stanton, Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue
Room: Northwestern A - 202A
The most difficult topics in interfaith dialogue are often the
most important. Yet we tend to shy away from them and
leave interchanges feeling unsatisfied or with lingering
concerns. This interactive session will explore ways to dialogue about challenging issues in order to provide a strong
basis for interfaith collaboration and problem-solving.
Joshua Stanton is a Founding Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™ and a rabbinical student
at Hebrew Union College. A former IFYC fellow, Stanton is
a founding co-Director of Lessons of a Lifetime™, a nursing home-based project designed to improve intergenerational relations and convey leadership skills to youth.
Brandon Sammut works with the Faith Community Relations Team of Teach For America. Teach For America’s Faith
Community Relations Team brings together the brightest
young minds from all faith backgrounds to expand educational opportunity for under-resourced children in 35
urban and rural communities.
Interfaith Living and Learning in the
Residence Halls at Northwestern
University
Voices from the Field: an Interactive
Workshop around Palestinian and
Israeli Nonviolent Civilian Efforts
Room: Wildcat A - 101A
Adam Sitte, Just Vision
Room: Wildcat B - 101B
Dr. Rev. Timothy Stevens and Jason Hanson, Northwestern University
Leaders live it. That sentiment permeates the halls of
Northwestern’s Interfaith Living Learning Community. In
this session, the advisors will discuss their approach to
creating and sustaining this thematic residential community and a student panel will then describe their experiences in this Interfaith Living Learning Community.
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Workshops: Sunday, October 25
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Dr. Rev. Timothy Stevens is the primary advisor for the
Northwestern’s Interfaith Living Learning Community, which he launched during the fall of 2005. University
Chaplain at Northwestern since 1986, Reverend Stevens
conducts university chapel services each Sunday of the
academic year in Millar Chapel.
Jason Hanson is the Area Coordinator that oversees the
residential component of Northwestern University’s Interfaith Living Learning Community. Hanson serves as an advisor for the student government, as the supervisor of the
Community Assistant in NU’s Interfaith-themed residence
hall and in the Office of Residential Life in the Division of
Student Affairs.
4:15 pm - 5:15 pm
Going Deeper Together, Through
Questions That Matter
Rabbi Dr. Josh Feigelson and Allison Gross, Northwestern University and AskBigQuestions
Room: Wildcat B - 101B
and educator and has worked with Doctors without Borders, Habitat for Humanity and the United Nations. He is
Creative Director at the New York City-based Listen Up!
Youth Media Network, which supports 150 youth media
organizations around the globe, providing youth and their
allies funding, training and institutional support.
The presenters will show how you can bring the AskBigQuestions initiative to your campus to create spaces for
diverse groups of people from different religious and
cultural backgrounds, across ages and nationalities, to
engage in meaningful conversations about their common
questions of ultimate concern.
Tools for Dialogue: New Approaches to
Interfaith Education
Rabbi Josh Feigelson is the Campus Rabbi & Senior Director for Educational Initiatives at Fiedler Hillel at Northwestern University. Josh advises the Hillel Leadership Council
and works with students and staff to create meaningful
Jewish experiences and learning opportunities, developing academic and co-curricular partnerships between
Fiedler Hillel and the university.
The Three Faiths Forum works for greater understanding
between faiths and cultures. Through their programs they
actively challenge prejudices and build new relationships
between communities. The workshop will give you insight
into their work in the interfaith movement and the tools to
engage in constructive dialogue and action.
Allison Gross is a senior in the Medill School of Journalism
at Northwestern University.
Listen Up! Building a Better World with
Web-Based Video
Austin Haeberle, Listen Up!
Room: Evans - 102
Want to learn the basics to produce and shoot powerful
web-based videos? Take a crash course on how to shoot
video, conduct interviews and tell stories about how people of all faiths are coming together, bridging differences
and working towards the common purpose of building a
more peaceful world. This is a closed session.
Austin Haeberle is a Peabody award-winning filmmaker
Rachel Heilbron, Three Faiths Forum
Room: Northwestern A - 202A
Rachel Heilbron seeks ways of seeing the world and being active in making change happen through her career.
At the Three Faiths Forum, she oversees the interfaith education program. Their activities help young people learn
about faiths, identities and diversity through dialogue and
communication.
Connecting Faith and Earth
Allison Fisher, Sarah Jawaid, Ryan Strom, DC Green
Muslims and Greater Washington Interfaith Power and
Light
Room: WildcatA - 101A
Many faith traditions provide its followers guidance on
how to connect and protect the external world, establishing a direct relationship between environmentalism and
faith. This panel will discuss the Jewish and Islamic per-
Workshops: Sunday, October 25
4:15 pm - 5:15 pm
spectives on environmental stewardship while giving real
world examples that highlight the nexus between faith
and environmental advocacy.
Allison Fisher is the Program Director of Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light, one the 29 Interfaith Power
and Light campaigns across the country, mobilizing a national religious response to global warming. She previously was an AmeriCorps* VISTA in New York City, where
she engaged in a variety of projects.
Sarah Jawaid works as a Research Associate at Urban
Land Institute, researching national transportation and infrastructure policy. She is also an organizer for DC Green
Muslims, a group of eco-conscious Muslims working to understand the connections between the environment, religion and holistic living. Ryan Strom has been involved with numerous environmentally focused organizations both in Michigan and most recently at the League of Conservation Voters in Washington,
DC. Ryan at present serves as an organizer of DC Green
Muslims, a Washington DC based group, which seeks to
bridge understanding between Muslims, Islam and the environmental movement.
From Obama’s Cairo Speech to Action:
A Discussion of Interfaith Initiatives in
the Obama Administration
John Kelly, Corporation for National and Community
Service; Mara Vanderslice, Office of Faith-Based and
Neighborhood Partnerships
Moderator: Zeenat Rahman, Interfaith Youth Core
Room: McCormick Auditorium
In Cairo, President Obama stated the importance of interfaith
cooperation in the form of concrete service projects. Mara
will discuss the many ways that the Obama administration is
implementing interfaith service programs and John will talk
about the interfaith service initiatives that the Corporation is
implementing through their domestic programs.
John Kelly is the Strategic Adviser from the Office of FaithBased and Neighborhood Partnerships at the Corporation
for National and Community Service. Formerly the Democratic National Committee’s Catholic outreach director,
Kelly also supports interfaith service in Washington, D.C.,
Minneapolis/St. Paul and the Bay Area.
Mara Vanderslice is the founder of Common Good Strategies, which advises Democratic officials, candidates and
advocacy groups on how to connect with America’s diverse religious communities; she currently works in the
White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood
Partnerships. The former director of religious outreach for
the Kerry-Edwards campaign, she launched the Matthew
25 Network to support Democratic candidates with a religious background.
Zeenat Rahman is the Director for Strategic Partnerships
at the Interfaith Youth Core, where she oversees policy initiatives and international programs for the organization. She frequently travels abroad to speak about the importance of interfaith youth work in promoting civic engagement and healthy integration amongst youth. Interfaith Leadership for International
Religious Freedom
John Musselman, Institute for Global Engagement
Room: Big Ten - 104
This session will present an insider look at NGO work in the
field of international religious freedom advocacy, why interfaith partnership is essential, and what strategies individuals and organizations can use to advance this fundamental
human right. Participants will be encouraged to interact
and share concepts through small group discussions.
John Musselman is a Graduate Fellow at the Institute for
Global Engagement. He supports IGE’s Muslim-Majority
World Engagement Program, including country programs
in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. Previous to his
work at IGE, John supported the U.S.-Muslim Engagement
Project, a senior, bipartisan, multi-faith initiative to forge a
new direction for U.S. relations with the Muslim world.
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Workshops: Sunday, October 25
4:15 pm - 5:15 pm
The Truth about Truth: How to Engage
Exclusive Truth Claims in Interfaith
Work
Prerna Abbi and C. Nikole Saulsberry
Room: Lake - 203
Many faith traditions have foundational beliefs that separate them from others, but this does not have to mean that
members of such faiths cannot participate in common action toward a common good. Attendees to this session will
participate in discussion and an interactive experiment to
explore this balance.
Prerna Abbi is a recent graduate of Syracuse University,
where she was involved with the Alpha Phi Omega co-ed
service fraternity and SU’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity.
A former IFYC fellow, Prerna currently serves as an AmeriCorps National Direct volunteer working on Community
Relations, Faith Outreach, and Volunteer Services at Habitat for Humanity of Suffolk.
C. Nikole Saulsberry is a recent graduate of Syracuse University, where she was involved in the Protestant Campus
Ministry and Alpha Phi Omega, a co-ed service fraternity. A former IFYC Fellow, Saulsberry recently engaged
in an interfaith study travel experience to Jerusalem and
will serve the AmeriCorps National Community Civilian
Corps beginning in October.
Religious Pluralism: What Do College
Students Think? A Study at Amherst
College
Paul V. Sorrentino, Amherst College and Intervarsity
Christian Fellowship
Room: Rock - 207
How can we serve a community in a way that is respectful of different traditions and meaningful to adherents? To
answer this question, we must understand what religiously
involved students think about coming together with people of other faiths. The presenter will discuss his research
on this topic with Amherst College students and discuss
the implications for religious life work.
Paul V. Sorrentino is director of Religious Life at Amherst
College and adjunct professor at Bethel Seminary of the
East. A regional coordinator for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and on the Board of Scholars for the Journal of InterReligious Dialogue, author Sorrentino recently published
Religious Pluralism: What Do College Students Think?
Speed Faithing: Jainism
Hemang Srikishan
Room: Northwestern B - 202B
Hemang Srikishan is an active member of the Jain Society
of Metropolitan Chicago. He began doing interfaith work
at the University of Illinois as an undergraduate student
and continues to look for ways to spread pluralism to youth. Currently Hemang is earning a master’s in Urban Education at University of Chicago.
Speed Faithing: Buddhism
Freeman Trebilcock, Interaction: Multifaith Youth
Network
Room: Arch - 206
Freeman Trebilcock has collaborated in numerous interfaith initiatives including organising and participating
in the ‘Dialogue with the Dalai Lama: Multifaith Forum for
Schools’ as well as coordinating the Buddhist community
for the Melbourne Interfaith Youth Pilgrimage. Freeman
also started InterAction: Multifaith Youth Network, which
engages young people in common action for the common
good.
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Workshops: Monday, October 26
10:30 am - 11:30 am
Inter-Action: Beyond the Usual Suspects
John Anderson, London Youth
Room: Rock - 207
Which type of young person benefits the most from interfaith work? One who recognizes its importance and is already motivated to take part, or one whose only interaction
with other faiths, if it exists at all, is based on prejudice and
intolerance? This participative session will introduce you
to the methodologies used by London Youth to specifically
work with the second type of young person with the aim of
turning them into the first.
John Anderson is Youth Action Manager for London Youth,
a vibrant network of more than 400 community organizations serving 75,000 young people and the families. Anderson previously worked for the Sheffield Hallam Students’
Union’s Equal Opportunities Executive, where he helped
prevent potential backlash against Muslim and International students after London’s 2005 suicide bombings.
Talking Across Difference:
Why Do We Serve?
Kelli Covey and Adam Davis, Project on Civic
Reflection
Room: Evans - 102
This session will get you thinking deeply and talking intensively about why you serve — and it will use a Rabindranath Tagore poem and a Martin Luther King, Jr. sermon
to help you do so. The session will also introduce you to
a practice called ‘civic reflection’ and resources that will
help you get it going. This session is limited to 20 participants, and is also offered Sunday 1:45-2:45.
Kelli Covey is Director of Programs and Development for
the Project on Civic Reflection. Before joining PCR, she
was the senior development officer at the Illinois Coalition
for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. Covey also has experience as a resource development director, web site and
marketing strategist and writer.
Adam Davis is Senior Research and Teaching Associate with the Project on Civic Reflection. He is the editor
of Hearing the Call across Traditions and co-editor of The
Civically Engaged Reader and Talking Service. He received
his PhD from the University of Chicago, his MA from Boston
College, and his BA from Kenyon College.
Finding a Common Language:
Case Studies on Campus Activism
and Coalition Building
Wayne Firestone and Nathan Render, Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life
Room: Big Ten - 104
As leaders in a diverse world, we often have a shared vision for the future yet lack the language with which to articulate and implement that vision together. Join us for an
interactive workshop to explore how we can work to find
that common language and build essential relationships,
through personal stories and case studies from college
campuses in America. Bring your stories! Wayne L. Firestone is the President and CEO for Hillel: the
Foundation for Jewish Campus Life. He has directed Hillel’s strategic planning committee and previously served
as the director of the Israel Regional Office of the AntiDefamation League and founded a consulting company,
Silicon Wadinet, to support Israeli start-up companies.
Nathan Render, a recent graduate of Tufts University, is
the co-founder of the Tufts Pathways Interfaith Initiative.
He is an IFYC Fellows Alliance Alumnus, a former IFYC
Summer Intern, and a former member of IFYC’s Chicago
Youth Council. He currently serves as the Bronfman Fellow
at Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life in Washington, D.C.
I’m Your Leader? 6 Questions,
Leadership & You
Adam Goodman, Northwestern University Center for
Leadership
Room: Wildcat B - 101B
Based on extensive research by the Director of Northwestern’s Center for Leadership, this session offers a roadmap
for participants to diagnose and solve their own leadership challenges through an engaging and authentic question-based model. This session includes time for participants to discuss their current leadership challenges.
Dr. Adam Goodman is an award-winning educator, researcher, and trusted advisor to leaders of companies,
non-profit groups and other organizations. Currently, he
directs Northwestern University’s Center for Leadership.
Workshops: Monday, October 26
10:30 am - 11:30 am
He is also a co-founder and Partner with the NorthStone
Group, a management consulting firm that focuses on
leadership development and decision making.
Clergy Beyond Borders: A Model
for Dialogue and Conflict Resolution
Imam Yahya Hendi and Rabbi Gerald Serotta, Clergy
Without Borders
Room: McCormick Auditorium
Imam Hendi and Rabbi Serotta will present a model for interfaith cooperation and conflict resolution that moves beyond dialogue in order to turn confrontation into collaboration. The panelists are leaders of a new organization, Clergy
Beyond Borders, whose mission is to empower religious
leaders to explore and utilize the resources of their diverse
religious traditions in the advancement of world peace. Imam Yahya Hendi is the Muslim chaplain at Georgetown
University, the first American University to hire a full-time
Muslim chaplain. He is the Imam of the Islamic Society of
Frederick, and the Muslim Chaplain at the National Naval
Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. He serves as adjunct faculty member at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD.
Rabbi Gerald Serotta is the Executive Director of Clergy
Beyond Borders and served as a university chaplain and
Hillel Rabbi for 28 years at The George Washington University. He is a spiritual leader for Shirat HaNefesh, a Jewish community in Southern Maryland. He was the founder
of Rabbis for Human Rights, North America.
Enagaging Media: Using Film to Build
Bridges and Effect Change
Maikiko James, Active Voice
Room: Northwestern A - 202A
This session, designed by the media strategists at Active
Voice, will engage participants in a lively discussion of
how film and other media tools can support and heighten
efforts for change, dialogue and bridge-building. Featuring short film clips, simulated dialogue and a presentation
of best practices, participants will leave the session with
good ideas of how to jumpstart their community efforts.
Maikiko James is Program Coordinator at Active Voice,
focusing on cultural, immigration, and faith-based issues.
She has worked for ten years in the non-profit sector, with
experience ranging from teaching performance workshops to development for public interest law and immigrant integration agencies. She holds a BFA in screenwriting and Asian American Studies from NYU.
Speed Faithing: Christianity
Tim Brauhn and Amy McNair, Faiths Act Fellowship
Room: Wildcat A - 101A
Tim Brauhn is a fellow with the Faiths Act Fellowship, a
partnership between the Interfaith Youth Core and the
Tony Blair Faith Foundation. The Fellows are constructing
an international interfaith coalition to end malaria deaths,
mobilizing faith communities across the globe. Tim was
the Fundraising Coordinator for The 1010 Project, a Denver-based humanitarian organization.
Amy McNair graduated from Seattle Pacific University this
spring with a degree in Public Policy and Law. While in college, she was heavily involved in leading interfaith work in
the AIDS community, as well as development work in various countries in Africa. She is currently working as a Faiths
Act Fellow with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and IFYC.
Teaching Religious Diversity in Public Schools: Why, What, When — and
Whether?
Dr. Gregory Meyjes, Kennesaw State University
Room: Northwestern B - 202B
This interactive presentation offers all interested professionals whether for, against, or undecided about including religious subject matter in public school curricula, a
practical yet comprehensive overview of the limits, possibilities, and underlying issues — and a non-threatening
platform for the exchange of views.
Dr. Gregory P. Meyjes is Chair of the Department of Inclusive Education at Kennesaw State University in the Atlanta
region, and CEO of Solidaris Intercultural Services LLC, an
intercultural consulting and recruitment firm. He is an applied sociolinguist specialized in attitudes, policies, and
practices involving cultural minority groups, with a rightsbased approach to social justice.
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Title Here Monday, October 26
Workshops:
10:30 am - 11:30 am
Social Innovation as Collaboration:
Leveraging the Best of What’s Around
Nillofur Jasani and Jordan Robinson, One Nation and
Maureen Fife, Habitat for Humanity
Room: Arch - 206
Many associate social innovation with the creation of new
organizations rather than the creative and innovative alignment of existing organizations, networks and ideas. Staff
from One Nation, a national philanthropic initiative, and
Habitat for Humanity, will discuss how they are collaborating to more effectively leverage their existing strengths,
resources and ideas to best address our most pressing social issues.
Nillofur Jasani is a program officer at One Nation and one
of the lead organizers of One Nation and Habitat for Humanity’s joint interfaith home build. She is a native of India,
who has practiced both Islam and Christianity. She served
His Highness the Aga Khan as a member of the National
Council of the Ismaili Muslim community.
Maureen Fife is CEO of Habitat for Humanity’s Tacoma/
Pierce County affiliate and a lead organizer of One Nation and Habitat for Humanity’s joint interfaith home build.
Before her leadership at Habitat for Humanity, she was
the Deputy Director of Associated Ministries of Tacoma/
Pierce County.
Jordan Robinson is a Media Associate at One Nation, a
national philanthropic initiative dedicated to promoting
inclusion and pluralism in America. One Nation is launching a broad-based civic engagement initiative in Chicago
led by IFYC, the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN)
and the Chicago Community Trust to help diverse religious and cultural communities build relationships.
Interfaith Cooperation on Campus:
Six Hallmarks
Jenan Mohajir, Interfaith Youth Core and Noah Silverman, New York University
Room: Lake - 203
College campuses have been an engine of social change
in countries around the globe. In this workshop, learn
about IFYC’s “campus hallmarks” which can help you measure when a college or university campus has successfully
engaged religious identity and strategize ways for building sustainable religious pluralism on campus. Jenan Mohajir is a Program Associate in IFYC’s Outreach
Education & Training department. As a senior member of
the OET team, she travels to college campuses, community
organizations and conferences throughout the world offering skills-based trainings on religious. Jenan is a committed Muslim, and received her B.S. from DePaul University
in Elementary Education and Islamic Studies.
Noah Silverman has been a leading practitioner and
trainer in the interfaith movement for over ten years, during which time he has worked for several national and international interfaith organizations in Chicago, New York,
and Jerusalem. Noah is the author of the Interfaith Leader’s
Toolkit and is currently a graduate student studying religion at New York University.
11:45 am - 12:45 pm
Minga’s Let’s Get Real Campaign
Ben Chesler, Minga
Room: Chicago - 163
Minga, a non-profit founded by high-school freshmen three
years ago, mobilizes students to take action against child
prostitution and child sex trafficking. Two million kids are
exploited in the child sex trade every year, so Minga is
mobilizing two million kids to speak out against this exploitation. Find out how you can be part of the solution.
Ben Chesler is a 17-year-old senior at Newton South High
School in Massachusetts. He joined Minga, a youth-run
nonprofit fighting the child sex trade, when he was 14
years old. He registered Minga as a nonprofit and successfully filed for 501(c)3 tax-exempt status for Minga when he
was 15….without the help of adults.
Preparing Students for a Religiously
Diverse Global Society
Maha ElGenaidi, and Cyndee Goldstien, Islamic Networks Group
Room: Lake - 203
Workshops: Monday, October 26
11:45 am - 12:45 pm
The Interfaith Speakers Bureau was introduced in 2008 to
promote religious literacy and mutual respect. In addition
to the Islamic Speakers Bureau, ING offers onsite educational panels where students and adults alike can learn
about five major world religions through guest panelists.
Come hear about the program’s impact and what it takes
to develop a regional Interfaith Speakers Bureau.
Maha ElGenaidi is President & Chief Executive of Islamic
Networks Group. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, ING
is a national educational outreach organization with affiliates and partners throughout the United States. Maha has
spoken to hundreds of schools, churches, synagogues, police departments, corporations and other public agencies.
Cyndee Goldstein, is Program Administrator for Islamic
Networks Group. Cyndee has spent more than 10 years
in the high-tech industry. Now she runs the Interfaith and
Islamic Speakers Bureaus for ING. Cyndee received her
B.A. from San Francisco State University in Organizational
Communications. She is a student of Chinese martial arts
and owns a vegan bakery.
Creating Your Own Movement
Leadership Toolkit
Adria Goodson and Caitlin Wagner, Hunt Alternatives
Fund
Room: Big Ten - 104
What is your highest contribution to the interfaith youth
movement? Based on their work with movement leaders, or
“Prime Movers,” like Eboo Patel, Daisy Khan, and Jim Wallis,
the presenters will create a dynamic session in which you
will learn and practice skills today’s top national leaders
are using to bolster their movements.
Dr. Adria D. Goodson is the director of domestic programs
for Hunt Alternatives Fund. She is responsible for the
Prime Movers: Cultivating Social Capital program. Over
the course of her career, she has worked with organizations to help them focus their funding efforts on issues related to social justice.
Caitlin Wagner holds a BA from Fairfield University in
Communication and Marketing. Upon graduation she pursued a career in the non-profit sector and began working
as Senior Administrative Assistant to Ambassador Swanee
Hunt and travelled to Liberia to assist in civil society trainings. In August 2008, she joined Hunt Alternatives Fund as
the a program assistant.
Speed Faithing: Islam
Razi Hashmi, CAIR Oklahoma
Room: Wildcat A - 101A
Razi Hashmi, is the Executive Director of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations in Oklahoma. Since 2007, he
has developed relations with the media, interfaith leaders,
governmental officials, educators, law enforcement, and
civic leaders to further the mission of CAIR. Hashmi graduated from Dickinson College in 2006 with a BA in International Studies.
From Crisis to Opportunity: Conflict
Resolution & Mediation on Campus
Samuel Klein, The Coexistence Trust
Room: Northwestern B - 202B
In this workshop, students will gain a broad picture of some
key issues and challenges facing those involved in conflict
resolution work on university campuses from a variety of
theoretical perspectives. Through role-play and discussion, we will identify constructive responses to conflict
within a campus context as well as practical techniques to
enhance leadership skills in this area.
Samuel Klein is the Executive Director of The Coexistence
Trust and Community Director of The Saatchi Synagogue.
Samuel holds degrees in Theology and Religious Studies
(Cambridge University) Psychotherapy & Counselling
Psychology (Regents College London) and is currently
studying Conflict Resolution & Mediation (MSc) at Birkbeck College, London.
Vocalo.org/89.5 FM Make-Your-OwnRadio Workshop — Part 1
Sarah Lu and Eric Roldan, Vocalo.org
Room: Evans - 102
Producers will teach participants how to record, edit and
share their own audio pieces for possible broadcast over
the airwaves on 89.5 FM and online at Vocalo.org. Required
stuff: a laptop with the free open-source program Audacity
installed (downloads for Macs or PCs available at audacity.sourceforge.net), headphones, stories to tell. This is a
closed session.
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Title Here Monday, October 26
Workshops:
11:45 am - 12:45 pm
Sarah Lu is a Chicago-based audio producer. She makes
radio and teaches other people how to make radio for Vocalo.org/89.5 FM. Vocalo aims to make public media truly
public by giving everyone access to the airwaves, and
seeking out voices that are traditionally underrepresented
in mainstream media.
A Chicago native, Erik Roldan co-founded and co-hosted
WLUW 88.7 FM’s Think Pink Radio, a weekly program that
focused on music made by the GLBT community and has
kept the TPR name as a queer arts and politics blog at
www.thinkpinkradio.com. Erik works at Vocalo.org: vocalo.
org/explore/users/Erik
Interfaith Work and Higher Education
Rev. Scotty McLennan, J.D., Stanford University; Dr. Barbara McGraw, J.D., St. Mary’s College of California; Dr.
Alan Ray, Elmhurst College
Moderator, Dr. Eboo Patel, Interfaith Youth Core
Room: McCormick Auditorium
Campuses have been on the vanguard of making many
social movements mainstream. They’ve also been a place
where diversity — racial, ethnic, gender — has been taken
seriously. What would it look like for campuses to take religious diversity seriously and pave the way for the interfaith movement? Join leaders from diverse schools around
the country for a conversation facilitated by IFYC’s Eboo
Patel.
Scotty McLennan has been the Dean for Religious Life at
Stanford since 2001. He was the University Chaplain at
Tufts University from 1984-2000. Scotty is a graduate of
Yale (B.A, 1970) and the Harvard Divinity and Law Schools
(M.Div., J.D., 1975). He is now an ordained minister and
attorney.
Dr. Barbara A. McGraw, J.D., is Director of the Center for
Engaged Religious Pluralism, Professor of Social Ethics,
Law, and Public Life, and Chair of the Interfaith Initiatives
Working Group at Saint Mary’s College of California. She
is author of Rediscovering America’s Sacred Ground: Public Religion and Pursuit of the Good in a Pluralistic America
(2003).
Dr. S. Alan Ray is the thirteenth president of Elmhurst College and began his presidency on July 1, 2008. As President
and Professor of Religion and Society, he holds joint appointments in the departments of political science and religion.
Dr. Ray is an Oklahoma native and citizen of the Cherokee
Nation. He received his Ph.D. in The Study of Religion from
the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Eboo Patel, Founder and Executive Director of IFYC, is
a member of President Obama’s Advisory Council of the
White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Eboo holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship, and is author of Acts of Faith.
Sacred Song: A Model for Starting
Meaningful Interfaith Worship
Whittney Barth, Annum Gulamali, Aaron Meyer and
C. Nikole Saulsberry, Chautauqua Institution — Abrahamic Program for Young Adults
Room: Arch - 206
Interfaith worship services can be a long-term goal towards
which congregations aspire, providing a venue for shared
practice within the sacred spaces of our religious traditions. Coordinators from the Chautauqua Institution’s Abrahamic Program for Young Adults will present a model for
meaningful interfaith worship in a Christian environment.
Whittney Barth is a second-year Master of Divinity candidate at Harvard Divinity School and member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). She is a former Christian Coordinator of the Chautauqua Institution’s
Abrahamic Program for Young Adults and a former IFYC
Development Intern.
Annum Gulamali was born in Miami, Florida, and raised
as a Shia Ismaili Muslim. She was actively involved as a
student in her congregation’s Religious Education center.
Annum firmly believes that understanding another’s faith
is quintessential to building better relations, and as such
she is pursuing a degree in International Relations at Boston University
Aaron Meyer is a fourth-year rabbinical student at the Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio. His upbringing as the son of an interfaith
couple instilled in him the value of interfaith relationships
at an early age, as did leading interfaith services in Sandusky, Ohio and participating in the Army’s Chaplain Candidate Program.
C. Nikole Saulsberry is a recent graduate of Syracuse University where she received a B.S. in Communications and
Workshops: Monday, October 26
11:45 am - 12:45 pm
Rhetorical Studies with minors in Religion and Strategic
Management. Starting in October, Nikole will be serving
the western part of her country with the AmeriCorps National Community Civilian Corps.
of Theology at Chicago Theological Seminary and was its
president between 1998 and 2008. An ordained minister of
the United Church of Christ since 1974, she is the author or
editor of 13 books and has been a translator for two different translations of the Bible.
Speed Faithing: Hinduism
Katherine Schofield is a third-year student at Chicago
Theological Seminary. She has been actively involved with
IFYC, organizing a Day of Interfaith Youth Service in April
’09 and focusing much of her studies on interfaith dialogue
and action in the world.
Rahul Subramaniam, Princeton University
Room: Northwestern A - 202A
Rahul Subramaniam is a junior at Princeton University.
He studies politics with an emphasis in global development. From a very young age, Rahul attended classes with
Chinmaya Mission, a worldwide Hindu organization dedicated to fostering cultural and religious values. At Princeton, Rahul is a member of the Religious Life Council and
an assistant Tai Chi instructor.
Bringing Youth Into the Interfaith Just
Peacemaking Paradigm
Dr. Susan Brooks-Thistlethwaite and Katherine Schofield, Interfaith Just Peacemaking
Room: Rock - 207
The Just Peacemaking paradigm is a list of 10 practices that
have been successful in developing peace globally. In this
session participants will be given some background information and will then engage in interfaith dialogue focused
on the 10 practices and how they are encouraged by our
various faith traditions.
Rev. Dr. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite is a Senior Fellow
at the Center for American Progress. She is also Professor
What’s Fair Trade Got to Do With It?
Connecting Interfaith Leadership
to a More Just Economy
Jenais Zarlin, Thanksgiving Coffee
Room: Wildcat B - 101B
Fair trade seeks to transform historically exploitative relationships between producers and consumers and has
sparked a movement inspired by a vision of a new global
economy built on values of social justice. Join us for a discussion of a unique interfaith coffee cooperative in Uganda
that brings together Jewish, Christian, and Muslim farmers,
and to talk about how we, as people of faith, can put our
shared values into action to promote a more just economy.
Jenais Zarlin is the Mirembe Kawomera Project Director at
Thanksgiving Coffee Company. Her background in social
justice legal work and commercial food production give
her a unique perspective on fair trade in the global food
market. Jenais holds a BA in American Studies from Stanford University.
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
The Role of High School Students as
Leaders in the Interfaith Movement
Aaron Birnbaum, Alina Cheema, Aayushi Mehta, Ali
Pirello, Lauren Warshaw, Interfaith Action
Room: Wildcat A - 101A
High school students facilitate this interactive workshop,
sharing their successes in leading interfaith dialogues,
running conferences, and planning major community cel-
ebrations. Experience Interfaith Action’s youth empowerment model in action as their teen leaders inspire you to
start a high school program or expand and improve upon
an existing one.
Aaron, Ali, Alina, Aayushi and Lauren are juniors and
seniors at Sharon High School and members of Interfaith
Action’s Youth Leadership Program. They have served as
facilitators, co-chairs and interns for the program, helping
to host community events, run dialogue sessions and present at conferences like this one. They have been trained in
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Title Here Monday, October 26
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3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
anti-bias work, facilitation skills, dialogue skills and project management.
Talking Across Difference:
Why Do We Serve?
Kelli Covey and Adam Davis, Project on Civic
Reflection
Room: Evans - 102
This session will get you thinking deeply and talking intensively about why you serve — and it will use a Rabindranath Tagore poem and a Martin Luther King, Jr. sermon
to help you do so. The session will also introduce you to
a practice called ‘civic reflection’ and resources that will
help you get it going. This is a closed session.
Kelli Covey is Director of Programs and Development for
the Project on Civic Reflection. Before joining PCR, she
was the senior development officer at the Illinois Coalition
for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. Covey also has experience as a resource development director, web site and
marketing strategist and writer.
Adam Davis is Senior Research and Teaching Associate with the Project on Civic Reflection. He is the editor
of Hearing the Call across Traditions and co-editor of The
Civically Engaged Reader and Talking Service. He received
his PhD from the University of Chicago, his MA from Boston
College, and his BA from Kenyon College.
“Walking the Walk”: A Model to Play
With
Reverend Nicole Diroff and Margie Scharf, Interfaith
Center of Greater Philadelphia
Room: Arch - 206
Experience core components of Walking the Walk, a yearlong model for interfaith service-learning that has been
developed and field-tested for 4 years by the Interfaith
Center of Greater Philadelphia. Presenters will engage
you in replicable activities, provide concrete tools and
techniques that they have found successful, and share
stories written by teen participants. Featured in NY Times,
11/11/08.
Nicole Diroff is an ordained pastor in the United Church of
Christ and an employee of the Interfaith Center of Greater
Philadelphia. She serves on her denomination’s Committee for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations and is one of
two representatives of the United Church of Christ on the
National Council of Churches (USA) Interfaith Relations
Commission.
Marjorie Scharf is Project Director of Walking the Walk: Values in Action. Marjorie joined the staff of the Interfaith Center in the spring of 2005 to create this Interfaith Youth Service-Learning Initiative. She earned her Master’s degree in
Public Health from the University of California at Berkeley
and her undergraduate degree from Penn State University.
Humanism, Atheism and Agnosticism:
Non-Religious Communities
and Interfaith Work
Greg Epstein, Humanist Chaplaincy, Harvard
University
Room: Lake - 203
Over 1 in 5 Americans aged 18-25 are non-religious. And
many of the millions of Humanists, atheists, and agnostics
strongly support the concept of interfaith cooperation.
Epstein, author of the new book Good Without God, will
introduce the richly diverse traditions of Humanism and
atheism, then lead a discussion on how Humanists and the
religious can find common ground rather than just grounds
for endless debate.
Greg M. Epstein serves as the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University. In 2005 he received ordination as a Humanist Rabbi from the International Institute for Secular
Humanistic Judaism, where he studied in Jerusalem and
Michigan for five years. In late fall 2009 he will publish his
first book, Good Without God: What a Billion Non-Religious
People Do Believe, for William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
“The Other Peace Process”:
The Role of Interreligious Dialogue
in Israel and the Middle East —
New Models for Dialogue and Action
Rabbi Dr. Ron Kronish, Interreligious Coordinating
Council in Israel
Room: Wildcat B - 101B
Workshops: Monday, October 26
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
The presenter will talk about “The Other Peace Process”:
The Role of Interreligious Dialogue in Israel and the Middle
East — implications for interreligious dialogue and action
in the U.S. and other places. He will also engage participants in a discussion of models for successful interreligious dialogue in the service of peace and coexistence.
Director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel since 1992, Ron Kronish is a noted rabbi, educator,
author, lecturer and speaker. He has served as Director
of the Israel Office of the American Jewish Committee, CoDirector for the Melitz Centers for Jewish Zionist Education,
and lecturer at Tel Aviv University and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Models for Interfaith Encounter and
Exchange Programs
Meg Chuckran, International Partners in Mission;
Huda Abu Arqoub and Aaron Hahn Tapper, Abraham’s Vision; Julie Hooks Davis, Institute for Training
and Development; Julie Kanak, Hands of Peace
Moderator: Zeenat Rahman, Interfaith Youth Core
Room: Northwestern A - 202A
This session will highlight different models of international interfaith encounter and exchange programs. Panelists
will discuss learnings from the field, with particular attention to similarities and differences in engagement models. The discussion will also focus on identifying best practices
for sustainability.
Meg Chuckran has worked for IPM (International Partners
in Mission) since July 2007, with the Immersion Experience
Program, both internationally and from IPM’s Cleveland office, and currently serves as IPM’s Publications & Research
Fellow. Meg graduated from Holy Cross (Worcester, MA)
with a B.A. in Spanish in May 2007.
Huda Abu Arqoub has a Master’s degree in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University, where she
served as a Fulbright Scholar from 2004-06. Prior to joining
Abraham’s Vision, Arqoub worked as an educational consultant for the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Education.
Aaron Hahn-Tapper is an Assistant Professor in the Theology and Religious Studies Department of the University
of San Francisco and the founding Director of the Swig
Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice, the first aca-
demic program in the country formally linking these two
fields. He holds a PhD in Comparative Religions from UC
Santa Barbara.
Huda and Aaron are also Co-Executive Directors and CoFounders of the Center for Transformative Education.
Julie Hooks Davis is Co-Executive Director of the Institute
for Training and Development in Amherst, Massachusetts.
She serves as Director for the SUN-Youth Project and many
other US Department of State-funded grants. She received
her MA from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Julie has followed the issues generated by Muslim immigration in the Netherlands since she lived there in 2003-4.
Julie Kanak is the Executive Director of Hands of Peace.
She received her B.A. from Saint Mary’s College, her Master’s of Liberal Studies from Lake Forest College, and holds
a Certificate in Mediation from Saint Xavier College. She
has worked for a number of different non-profit organizations, including a hospice and several social service agencies, and has worked in the field of Restorative Justice.
Zeenat Rahman is the Director for Strategic Partnerships
at the Interfaith Youth Core, where she oversees policy initiatives and international programs for the organization. She frequently travels abroad to speak about the importance of interfaith youth work in promoting civic engagement and healthy integration amongst youth. Next Steps: Turning a Passion for
Interfaith into the Career of a Lifetime
Rev. Alexander Levering Kern, Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries and Brandeis University; Rabbi Or
Rose, Hebrew College; Noam Shore, Idealogue, Inc.;
Naazish YarKhan
Moderator: Joshua Stanton, Journal of Inter-Religious
Dialogue
Room: McCormick Auditorium
You have been engaged in meaningful interfaith programming and you want to pursue a career in the field. What
are the options? Where might you put your interfaith leadership skills to work as a professional? Join our diverse
group of panelists for insight into the growth and development of the field of interfaith leadership.
Alexander Levering Kern is Executive Director of Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries, Boston’s oldest interfaith
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Title Here Monday, October 26
Workshops:
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
social justice network and home to the Interfaith Youth
Initiative. Alex also works as a Chaplain at Brandeis and
Director of the Brandeis University Interfaith Leadership
Development Fellows Program. A Quaker educator, poet,
and writer, he is editor of Becoming Fire: Spiritual Writing
from Rising Generations.
Cricket White is the National Director of Training and
Program Development for Initiatives of Change, a diverse,
global network committed to building trust across the
world’s divides. She designs dialogue curricula, training
for facilitators and has led trainings in South Africa, the UK,
Switzerland, India and cities across the US.
Noam Shore founded Idealogue, Inc. to empower people
and organizations to solve today’s challenges through online dialogue and collaboration, and brings together extensive business experience and a passion for utilizing
technology to address social challenges. Noam has a BA
from Wesleyan University and an MBA from Babson College and is a trained mediator.
Anjum Ashraf Ali was born in the United States and is
of Pakistani heritage and spent her childhood in Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia. She has a BA in International Relations and
French Cultural Studies at Wellesley College and an MA
in Islamic Studies, concentrating on Islamic Law and the
rights of women and children.
Rabbi Or Rose is Associate Dean of the Hebrew College
Rabbinical School and Co-Director of the Center for Interreligious & Communal Leadership Education (CIRCLE),
a joint venture of Hebrew College and Andover-Newton
Theological School. Rabbi Rose is an author and contributing editor for Tikkun and a member of the advisory committee of Sh’ma.
Leadership Beyond Boundaries:
A Transformative Journey
Naazish YarKhan, a writer, editor, and NPR commentator,
is an expert in interracial and interfaith initiatives. Founder of Refugee Assistance Programs, recipient of the MWA
Inspiring Woman Award, she is on the Advisory Board of
Poetry Pals. Most recently, she was on “Speaking of Faith”
and PBS’s “Chicago Tonight”.
Who we are on the inside and who we are on the outside
is often at odds with how we lead in the world. How do we
live in alignment the change we wish to see? This session
will help participants will explore what the world is calling
them to do.
Joshua Stanton is a Founding Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™ and a rabbinical student
at Hebrew Union College. A former IFYC fellow, Stanton is
a founding co-Director of Lessons of a Lifetime™, a nursing home-based project designed to improve intergenerational relations and convey leadership skills to youth.
Honest Conversation: An Essential
Leadership Tool for Building Trust
Anjum Ali and Cricket White, Initiatives of Change
Room: Chicago - 103
The presenters will begin with an overview of the concepts
of trust and honest conversation. Participants will engage
in activities that include journaling, interactive questioning
and listening. This session explores the concept of intentional transparency as a way to model leadership and trustworthiness while fostering dialogue and connections between
faith groups through an experiential learning mode.
TZiPi Radonsky and Joel Wright, Center for Creative
Leadership
Room: Rock - 207
For the past 3 years, Joel Wright has worked with the Center for Creative Leadership on projects aimed at “democratizing” leadership development by making leadership
affordable and accessible for all (www.leadbeyon.org). As
part of this initiative Joel has conducted training for young
people from all over the world.
TZiPi Radonsky has been the feedback coach at the
Center for Creative Leadership for eighteen years. TZiPi
received a Master of Health Science in Occupational Therapy - University of Florida, a doctorate in Counselor Education - University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and in
2005 she became an ordained rabbi.
Workshops: Monday, October 26
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Storytelling
David Fraccaro, Interfaith Youth Core and Noah Silverman, New York University
Room: Big Ten - 104
A core part of IFYC’s methodology, storytelling is a necessary component of building religious pluralism in communities. This workshop explores the importance of stories to
human communication in general and religious pluralism
in particular. Participants will begin to craft their stories
of interfaith cooperation, and also explore the relationship
between stories and identify formation.
David Fracarro is the new Trainer on Issues of Immigration at the IFYC. He previously coordinated New York
City’s Sojourners Visitation Program, which visits immigrants and asylum seekers in detention. Additionally, David has worked with the National Council of Churches-USA
and World Council of Churches in young adult ecumenical
formation.
Noah Silverman has been a leading practitioner and
trainer in the interfaith movement for over ten years, during which time he has worked for several national and international interfaith organizations in Chicago, New York,
and Jerusalem. Noah is the author of the Interfaith Leader’s
Toolkit and is currently a graduate student studying religion at New York University.
Local Action for Global Change:
Mobilizing Interfaith Action for the
Millennium Development Goals
Karem Issa, Hilary Keachie, Katie Myers, Ushna Mughal, Danny Richmond and Erin Toolis, Faiths Act Fellowship
Room: Northwestern B - 202B
Six young social entrepreneurs will discuss strategies to
connect local communities to global issues through interfaith action. Learn what faith communities are doing to
eradicate deaths due to malaria and work toward other
MDGs, and find out how you can get your community involved in the Faiths Act Campaign.
Karem Issa, 25, is an Egyptian-born British Muslim from
Birmingham who works in Blackburn. He graduated with
an MA in International Studies, and is passionate about
researching and campaigning for global issues. Karem
was given the status of honorary imam of a village mosque
while living in Ghana.
Hilary Keachie is a 22 year old Christian from Toronto,
Canada. Hilary recently graduated from U of T’s Teacher’s
College and is particularly interested in the issues surrounding access to education. In 2002, Hilary volunteered
in a peace building and reconciliation interfaith school in
Hyderabad, India.
Katie Myers, a Christian, grew up in Europe, Africa, and
North America. She calls St. Louis “home” and is working
in Portland. Katie hopes to build God’s kingdom on Earth
by living justly and showing mercy and is excited to learn
what motivates others to fight global poverty. Ushna Mughal is a 22 year old Pakistani Catholic from
Bradford who lives in Blackburn, England. Ushna set up
UK’s first regional interfaith youth forum while she doing
her BSc Psychology degree at Leeds Met. She has been
involved in other interfaith programs such as Faith Matters
and Project Safe Space.
Danny Richmond, 23, has worked and volunteered on 5
different continents. He has spoken to over 15, 000 people
about social activism and global citizenship. Danny has
also served as National Program Director of Canadian
Young Judaea (CYJ). Danny is Jewish and lives in Toronto.
Erin Toolis is a 23-year-old Buddhist from Ohio. She graduated from Denison University with a B.S. in psychology
and worked at an art center for homeless youth in Seattle
last year. She now works in Portland where she is excited
to spread the light and love of interfaith action.
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Workshops: Tuesday, October 27
10:15 am - 11:15 am
Wrestling with the Elephant:
Crafting Constructive Conversations
on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict
with religious communities in local, national, and international settings for the past 10 years. Megan received her
Master’s in Public Health from the University of Michigan
and a B.S. in Zoology from Oregon State University.
Malka Haya Fenyvesi and Aziza Hasan, NewGround: A
Muslim Jewish Partnership for Change, a joint venture
of Progressive Jewish Alliance and The Muslim Public
Affairs Council
Sara Reef is a Project Manager at Intersections focusing on
intercultural dialogue and action. For the past 5 years, Sara
worked in strategic planning and international affairs. She
earned her Master of Arts degree from the City University
of New York in August 2009. She speaks varying levels of
French, Hebrew and Italian.
Room: Big Ten - 104
This presentation will share the experience of working
with Muslims and Jews in Los Angeles and wrestling with
one of the most contentious issues of our time - the Israeli
Palestinian Conflict. It will offer innovative ways to wrestle
with the elephant in the spirit of building authentic relationships and sparking transformational dialogue.
Malka Haya Fenyvesi is the Co-Director and Director of
Interfaith Programming at NewGround. She has a M.S. in
Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason
University’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) and is a trained mediator and facilitator. Prior
to working for PJA, she worked at Search for Common
Ground in Washington, DC.
Aziza Hasan is the Co-Director of NewGround: A Muslim
Jewish Partnership for Change, she also is the Director of
Government Relations for the Muslim Public Affairs Council. She has worked with religious and government leadership in Southern California in the areas of social justice,
community education, and youth engagement.
Empowering Young Leaders with Tools
to Combat Islamaphobia
Megan Hoelle and Sara Reef, Intersections International
Room: Northwestern B - 202B
This session will train religious leaders and youth to
use new, emerging technologies to combat negative
stereotypes about Muslims. This workshop will feature
ChangeTheStory.net, a well-known tool that works to build
bridges of understanding between different faith traditions. Participants will meet their neighbors, change the
story, and change the world.
Megan Hoelle works as Director of Communication and
Program Development for Intersections. She has worked
Multifaith Intentional Living Communities
Meredith Jackson and Karamjit Dhaliwal, Cal Aggie
Christian Association, University of California, Davis
Room: Northwestern A - 202A
This seminar will examine intentional multifaith communities on college and university campuses. Drawing from
the experience of the Multifaith Living Community at UC
Davis, the presenters will explain models of community
living, the vision and journey of opening a community, and
how such communities have an impact in the world.
Meredith Jackson is the Community Coordinator at the
Cal Aggie Christian Association, home of the Multifaith
Living Community in Davis, CA. Meredith was part of the
visioning process for the community as an undergraduate.
She oversees the day-to-day running of the community
and works with students and staff on long range visioning,
planning, and programming.
Karamjit Dhaliwal is a member of the Student Leadership
Team at the Cal Aggie Christian Association, home of the
Multifaith Living Community in Davis, CA. A third-year
student in Biological Sciences, Dhaliwal has lived in the
MLC for over a year. On staff, she helps organize multifaith
programs, publicity, and outreach.
Global Connections: Developing Partnerships to Promote Interfaith Cooperation
Imane Karich, Belgian Association of Muslim Professionals; Erwan Floch, Initiatives of Change — France; Atefeh
Sadeghi, Middle East Youth Network Cooperation Circle
of United Religions Initiative; Rohanjit Chaudhry, Youth
Parliament Foundation, India
Moderator: Hind Makki, Interfaith Youth Core.
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Workshops: Tuesday, October 27
10:15 am - 11:15 am
Room: McCormick Auditorium
This panel brings together advocates from Belgium, France,
India and Iran to discuss pluralism in their societies and
their experiences developing multi-sector partnerships to
build social cohesion. They will explore the impact that local, regional and international networks have on the global
interfaith movement at large.
Imane Karich is founder of the ABPM (Belgian Association
of Muslim Professionals), a Muslim networking platform
aiming at inspiring the ethics of success among Muslim
professionals in Belgium. She has published two books on
Islamic Finance, and currently manages the Business Area
Financial Markets at FINALYSE, a Brussels-based consultancy company.
Erwan Floch is Executive Director of Initiatives of Change
(IofC) and project manager of the French intercultural
program “Initiative Dialogue.” The aim of this program,
which gathers mainly Christians and Muslims, is to bring
together people who are not used to meeting each other
and work on commonalities to build trust before addressing bigger issues.
Atefeh Sadeghi is a pharmacist who got involved in interfaith and intercultural activities in late 2003 working as an
executive of international affairs for Institute for Interreligious Dialogue, an NGO in Iran. To pursue her ambitions
for a peaceful and diverse world, Atefeh is now doing her
MA in Peace studies and International Conflict Transformation at the University of Innsbruck (Austria).
Rohanjit Chaudhry represents the Youth Parliament Foundation (YP), a non-profit organization led and run by young
leaders in New Delhi, India. Rohanjit manages the Youth
Parliament’s Blending Spectrum initiative which works
with street and slum children with different religious understandings on issues of education, healthcare, and life
skills development.
Hind Makki is a Program Associate in IFYC’s Outreach
Education and Training department. She travels to college
campuses, congregations and conferences in the United
States and Western Europe, offering trainings on religious
pluralism, interfaith service-learning and meaningful interfaith dialogues. Hind received her BA in International
Relations from Brown University.
The Need for Voices of Faith in
Immigration Reform
Geri Mannion, Carnegie Corporation of New York
Room: Lake - 203
Come for a discussion on how young people of faith can
become more engaged in issues of immigration and immigrant integration. We’ll discuss a need for comprehensive
immigration reform, and the need for faith voices in efforts
to help the undocumented come out of the shadows and
become American citizens. Geri Mannion is director of Carnegie Corporation’s U.S.
Democracy Program. Mannion has also co-chaired the
Funders’ Committee for Citizen Participation, an affinity group of funders that encourages foundations to fund
voter registration, voting rights, civic education and campaign finance reform. Dialogue and Respectful Contestation
Over Truth: Building Trust Between
Religious Opponents
Charles Randall Paul, Ph.D., Foundation for Interreligious Diplomacy
Room: Wildcat A - 101A
Can we trust someone who is wrong about the ultimate
truth? The presenter will show how to face challenges to
religious beliefs with good will. By sharing our stories of
how we came to our beliefs, we learn to build trust based
on our openness and integrity without agreeing on ultimate truth.
Charles Randall Paul is the founder and president of the
Foundation for Intercultural Diplomacy (NY and UT, USA)
that aims to decrease ill will and build trust between people who advocate different religious and ideological beliefs and practices. His foundation is developing a network
of interreligious diplomats to engage in full-bodied cooperative and contestational intercultural diplomacy.
Workshops: Tuesday, October 27
10:15 am - 11:15 am
Putting High School Students in the
Driver’s Seat: Creating a Teen-Led
Interfaith Program
Hyphenated Religious Identity
in America
Janet Penn, Interfaith Action
Room: Rock - 207
Room: Arch - 206
We are different than our grandparents’ generation in that
we often describe ourselves in a hyphenated way —“My
mom is Jewish, and my dad is Christian; I’ve been raised
in both traditions.” What do we bring, with these rich and
varied biographies, to interfaith action and dialogue?
The presenter will share the core principles, methodology,
and training of Interfaith Action’s Youth Leadership Program, to complement the teen-run interactive workshop.
Learn how high school-aged teens in your community can
lead interfaith dialogue and vision, plan, and implement
community celebrations and programs that foster understanding and mutual respect.
Janet Penn is the Founder and Executive Director of Interfaith Action (IFA) in Sharon, MA and the creator of IFA’s
Youth Leadership Program and the Sharon Pluralism Network. She has worked to build bridges of understanding
among different religious and ethnic groups for over a decade and has developed local, national, and international
partnerships.
Engaging Evangelical Christians
in Interfaith Work
Nick Price, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, University of Illinois at Chicago
Room: Wildcat B - 101B
Professor Karla Suomala, Luther College
Karla Suomala is a professor of religion at Luther College,
where she teaches courses in sacred scriptures and Jewish Studies. Suomala has worked with a number of groups
in Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations.
She recently published an article entitled “Healing the
World and Mending the Soul” in a text for Christian clergy
and lay leaders.
Listen UP! Follow-up
Erin Williams and Chris Stedman, Interfaith Youth
Core
Room: Evans - 102
Time to share your film with the world! In this follow up
session, you’ll work with IFYC to upload the videos you
created during the Conference to various online forums
to help shape the public narrative of religion from one of
conflict to one of common service! This is a closed session.
Maybe you are an interfaith organizer concerned about
inviting evangelicals to the table. Or perhaps you are an
evangelical Christian encountering resistance from your
community as you try to engage in interfaith work. This
session is designed to help equip interfaith organizers
from a variety of backgrounds engage the evangelical
community in interfaith work. Chris Stedman is an intern at IFYC, where he focuses on
the conference, media, and outreach, education and training. He is currently working on a Master of Arts in Religion
thesis on storytelling at Meadville Lombard Theological
School. Chris worked as a journalist and community organizer before moving to Chicago.
Nick Price is a staff worker for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, an interdenominational evangelical organization that develops young Christian leaders on college
campuses around the country. He served as co-chair of a
student-led interfaith organization. He has written for interfaith periodicals like CrossCurrents and Interreligious
Insight magazines.
At IFYC, Erin Williams is involved in civic programming
and media. She’s spoken about religion, politics, and media for the McCormick Freedom Museum, the Inner-City
Muslim Action Network, and University of Chicago. She’s
also speaking about media at the Parliament of the World’s
Religions in Melbourne. Erin’s short documentary, “Exchange,” appeared on CNN.
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Workshops: Tuesday, October 27
11:45 am - 12:45 pm
Embracing Pluralism, Respecting
Heritage: Making Interfaith “Work”
at a Christian Institution
Katie Basham and Courtney Brooks, Berea College
Room: Lake - 203
Working within the context of a Christian institution presents unique challenges and opportunities for interfaith
programming. After sharing the specific context of Berea
College and its interfaith initiatives, the presenters will
share strategies for creating successful, sustainable interfaith programs at Christian institutions, and elicit best
practices from the session’s participants.
Katie Basham serves as Coordinator of Interfaith Programming and Assistant Director of Berea College’s Willis D. Weatherford, Jr. Campus Christian Center, where she
creates successful and sustainable interfaith programming
for the college community. She has collaborated with fellow presenter Courtney Brooks on many interfaith initiatives, focusing on the college’s Residence Life.
Courtney Brooks is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Kentucky. As a Student Life Collegium and Violence Prevention and Education Coordinator, she works closely with many campus constituents to
address issues of violence, including domestic violence,
dating violence, sexual assault, and hate crimes.
Relational Meetings: Fostering
Pluralism in a Democratic Society
Mustafa Abdullah, The Wake Forest University Muslim
Students Association and Interfaith Council
Room: Rock - 207
This workshop will expose attendees to the importance of
relational power. The presenter will prelude the workshop with a brief examination of the fundamental building
block of relational power: the relational meeting. The presenter will then proceed by leading attendees in practicing the art of the relational meeting.
Mustafa Abdullah is a senior majoring in Philosophy
and Religion at Wake Forest University. He is founder and
president of Winston-Salem for World Faith, a multi-faith
organization using community service to demonstrate how
religion can promote the common good. He has organiz-
ing experience as an intern at CHANGE (Communities
Helping All Neighbors Gain Empowerment).
“A Different Conversation:” A Documentary Film on Religious Pluralism
Presenter: Jonathan Cross and Lindsay Emery, Duke
University
Room: Wildcat A - 101A
In May 2008, a religiously diverse group of Duke University
students and faculty traveled to Jerusalem to explore how
people of different religious backgrounds come to know
one another. “A Different Conversation” is a documentary
film about their story of religious pluralism and the relationships that extend beyond mere tolerance and coexistence.
Lindsay Emery is majoring in Linguistics at Duke University. She is actively involved in Passport Magazine, an internationally themed magazine at Duke. Lindsay spent her
final undergraduate summer working with DukeEngage to
a low-income community in Salta, Argentina. Here, Lindsay facilitated the creation of a hand-painted mural that
depicts the experience of the community members.
Jonathan Cross is pursuing a double major in Religion and
Arabic at Duke University, as well as a certificate in Islamic
Studies. While at Duke, his summer research projects in
Egypt and Ethiopia have influenced his perception of religion as an experience that contends with, and thrives on,
both historic and contemporary realities.
Detention Center Visitation Program:
A Model for Interfaith Action
David Fraccaro, Interfaith Youth Core
Room: Big Ten - 104
There are currently over 30,000 undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers detained in some 400 detention centers and county jails across the United States who
desperately need a friend and advocate, a visitor. This session will explore the ethical issues surrounding immigration and detention, and will educate and train a core group
of interfaith volunteers to begin visiting and befriending
those suffering in detention.
David Fracarro is the new Trainer on Issues of Immigration at the IFYC. He previously coordinated New York
Workshops: Tuesday, October 27
11:45 am - 12:45 pm
City’s Sojourners Visitation Program, which visits immigrants and asylum seekers in detention. Additionally, David has worked with the National Council of Churches-USA
and World Council of Churches in young adult ecumenical
formation.
Leveraging Web 2.0 for Social
Movements: Clear Tactics for the
Greater Strategy
Frank Fredericks, World Faith
Room: Northwestern A - 202A
Frank Fredericks of World Faith will share how to maximize web exposure by utilizing the newest web technologies, including search engine technologies, blogs, viral
video, and social networks. These technologies can best
be utilized by using two frameworks; marketing research
and execution, and the media teachings of Marshall McCluhan.
Frank Fredericks started World Faith in 2001, an interfaith
community service non-profit now active in five countries.
Fredericks also currently works as an Online Marketing
Consultant, and contributes to several blogs, including
TheWebUncovered.com, and the Journal of Inter-Religious
Dialogue.
Small Steps to Greater Understanding:
A First Hand Look at the Ibrahim
Leadership and Dialogue Project
in the Middle East
Julie Gutowski, Winston Ibrahim, Ibrahim Kareem
and Roxana Moussavian, the Ibrahim Leadership and
Dialogue Project
Room: Northwestern B - 202B
In June 2009 the Ibrahim Leadership and Dialogue Project
had its inaugural trip. Eight students were selected to travel across the Middle East to foster a deeper understanding
of faith and culture through dialogue and personal interaction. Hear how participants were impacted and inspired to
carry on ongoing interfaith dialogue.
Winston Ibrahim, co-founder of the Ibrahim Leadership and Dialogue Program, graduated with honors from
Johns Hopkins University in May of 2009. While at Hopkins,
Winston Ibrahim was the first Muslim in the history of the
school to sit on the Executive Board of Jewish Fraternity
AEPI. He will be starting in finance in Manhattan in 2010.
Julie Gutowski is a senior at the University of Pennsylvania
majoring in Communications. She is studying the effects of
interfaith dialogue on conflict resolution processes. Julie is
also Co-Chair of the Undergraduate Communication Society, a member of Student Government, and a mentor to an
elementary school student in West Philadelphia.
Roxana Moussavian is a Junior at the University of Pennsylvania pursuing a major in Middle East Studies, and is
very interested in the politics and religions of the region.
She also studies Arabic. She is actively involved in interfaith dialogue at Penn, holding a minority seat on the University Council.
Ibrahim Kareem is a senior at Florida State University,
double majoring in International Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies. Ibrahim is actively involved in Middle East
Peace Association, the Arab Cultural Association, Muslim
Student Association, and Hillel in order to help promote
greater interfaith understanding.
Making the Case for Faith-Based
Service Learning
Mara Kassoff, Jewish Service Learning Project at the
Bureau of Jewish Education
Room: Arch - 206
Join Mara Kassoff of the San Francisco Jewish Service
Learning Project for a conversation about service-learning as an effective teaching method for faith-based service initiatives. Learn how to connect faith-based values
to relevant community issues using the triad of education,
meaningful service, and reflection to engage youth in creating social change.
Mara Kassoff serves as the Director of the Jewish Service
Learning Project at the Bureau of Jewish Education in San
Francisco. Kassoff has worked in the nonprofit sector as
an educator, leader and manager for local and national
organizations, including Jewish Vocational Service in San
Francisco, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and
the American Jewish University.
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Workshops: Tuesday, October 27
11:45 am - 12:45 pm
Speed Faithing: Bahá’í Faith
Jeremy Lambshead and Carmel Kleinhenz, Bahá’í
National Center / Bahá’í House of Worship
Vocalo.org/89.5 FM Make-Your-OwnRadio Workshop — Part 2
Sarah Lu and Eric Roldan, Vocalo.org
Room: Wildcat B - 101B
Room: Evans - 102
Carmel Kleinhenz is a recent graduate of Northwestern
University, where she was a resident of Interfaith Hall and
a member of the Northwestern University Council of Religions. In this capacity, she had opportunities to participate
in IFYC events and help plan days of service. Kleinhenz
currently works at the Baha’i House of Worship.
Producers will teach participants how to record, edit and
share their own audio pieces for possible broadcast over
the airwaves on 89.5 FM and online at Vocalo.org. Required
stuff: a laptop with the free open-source program Audacity
installed (downloads for Macs or PCs available at audacity.sourceforge.net), headphones, stories to tell. This is a
closed session.
Jeremy Lambshead has been active with IFYC since the
spring of 2005. After graduating from Carleton College,
Jeremy worked with an environmental organization promoting energy-efficiency. He also at this time began rigorously examining the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, resulting in
his embrace of the Bahá’í Faith in the fall of 2005. A year
later he began serving as a writer at the Bahá’í National
Center in Evanston, IL, where he has remained until now.
Developing the Spirit of a Servant Leader
Barbara Linek, University of Illinois Extension and
Gerald Bouey, TBG Leadership & Consulting, LLC
Room: Chicago - 103
In a lively, interactive presentation including examples
drawn from sources as diverse as Stephen Covey, Dorothy Day, and Mother Teresa, the presenters will discuss the
philosophy of servant leadership, the qualities of a servant
leader and how to develop your leadership skills through
reflection.
Barbara Linek is the County Director for University of Illinois Extension in DuPage County where she focuses on
increasing programming for the local immigrant and refugee communities. She holds a Master’s in Organizational
Leadership from Lewis University. Linek currently serves
her multicultural church as the chair of the pastoral council.
Gerald Bouey held several impressive roles during his
37 years working in the financial services industry. Bouey currently operates a consulting practice allowing him
to ignite human potential, compassion, and greatness in
communities and individuals. His work centers on transformational leadership, positive psychology, and the engagement of the whole person.
Sarah Lu is a Chicago-based audio producer. She makes
radio and teaches other people how to make radio for Vocalo.org/89.5 FM. Vocalo aims to make public media truly
public by giving everyone access to the airwaves, and
seeking out voices that are traditionally underrepresented
in mainstream media.
Erik Roldan co-founded and co-hosted WLUW 88.7 FM’s
Think Pink Radio, a weekly program that focused on music
made by the GLBT community. Roldan has kept the TPR
name as a queer arts and politics blog at www.thinkpinkradio.com. Erik works at Vocalo.org, and you can find him
at vocalo.org/explore/users/Erik.
Having Faith in Youth: Models for Working with Teens and Younger Children
Asaf Bar-Tura, Jewish Council on Urban Affairs; Louise Sheehy, Multifaith Education Project; Paula Weiss,
Children at the Well; Donna Yates, Poetry Pals
Moderator: Hind Makki, Interfaith Youth Core.
Room: McCormick Auditorium
Four distinguished interfaith workers will discuss the programs they each founded and direct, involving children or
pre-college teens in service-learning, poetry writing, storytelling, and asset-based youth development to promote
interfaith awareness in their communities. They will also
address how to partner with parents, teachers and local
interfaith networks.
Asaf Bar-Tura coordinates the Jewish-Muslim Community
Building Initiative, and is working on his PhD in political
philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. Bar-Tura previ-
Workshops: Tuesday, October 27
11:45 am - 12:45 pm
ously worked as the director of an educational program
serving 300 children in the underserved Bedford Park
community of the north Bronx, in New York City.
Louise Sheehy is the founder/director of the Multifaith
Education Project in Central Florida. She coordinates activities and keeps hope alive when students and faculty at
the three participating schools get burned out or skeptical. She will present tangible projects and photos of the
students working together to experience a new definition
of community.
Paula Weiss is co-creator and co-director of the Children
at the Well Youth interfaith storytelling project. Weiss has
served as publicist for the Interfaith Story Circle of the TriCity Area, and as secretary of its board. She is a classroom
presenter for the Scotia-Glenville Traveling Museum’s
“Culture Box” program.
Donna Yates is the founder of and a poet-educator at Poetry Pals, an organization that creates opportunities for partnership, expression, and friendship through poetry and art.
Yates previously worked in the Philadelphia Jewish community for over 25 years, focusing on informal education
and interfaith cultural programming.
Hind Makki is a Program Associate in IFYC’s Outreach
Education & Training department. She travels to college
campuses, congregations and conferences in the United
States and Western Europe, offering trainings on religious
pluralism, interfaith service-learning and meaningful interfaith dialogues. Hind received her BA in International
Relations from Brown University.
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Thank You to Our Donors
IFYC proudly thanks the following foundations for their generous support
of the Conference:
The Nathan Cummings
Foundation is rooted in the
THE
NATHAN
Jewish tradition and committed to democratic values
FOUNDATION
and social justice, including
fairness, diversity, and community. We seek to build a socially and economically just
society that values and protects the ecological balance for
future generations; promotes humane health care; and fosters arts and culture that enriches communities.
CUMMINGS
The mission of the Walter & Elise Haas Fund is to help
build a healthy, just, and vibrant society in which people
feel connected to and responsible for their community.
The Henry Luce Foundation was established
in 1936 by Henry R. Luce, the co-founder and
editor-in-chief of Time Inc., to honor his parents who were missionary educators in China.
The Foundation builds upon the vision and
values of four generations of the Luce family:
broadening knowledge and encouraging the
highest standards of service and leadership.
The Henry Luce Foundation seeks to bring
important ideas to the center of American life,
strengthen international understanding, and foster innovation and leadership in academic, policy, religious and art
communities.
The McCormick
Foundation is a
nonprofit organization committed to strengthening our free, democratic
society by investing in children, communities and country. Through its grantmaking programs, Cantigny Park and
Golf, museums, and civic outreach program the Foundation
helps build a more active and engaged citizenry. It was
established as a charitable trust in 1955, upon the death
of Colonel Robert R. McCormick, the longtime editor and
publisher of the Chicago Tribune. The McCormick Foundation is one of the nation’s largest charities, with more
than $1 billion in assets. For more information, please visit
www.McCormickFoundation.org.
The Righteous Persons Foundation is dedicated to supporting efforts that build a diverse and vibrant Jewish community in the United States and to supporting coexistence
efforts that foster common ground and understanding.
The Wicklander Foundation, Inc.
The Wicklander Foundation was established to provide financial assistance to organizations and institutions that are
engaged in religious, educational, charitable and/or medical research projects in the Chicago metropolitan area.
Thank You To Our NGO Sponsors
Stop by and visit our NGO Sponsors at their booths on the second floor
of the Norris Center.
www.ctu.edu
berkleycenter.georgetown.edu
www.rrc.edu
www.cst.edu
www.teachforamerica.org
www.parliamentofreligions.org
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Conference Schedule
Day One, Sunday, October 25th
10:00 am Registration
12:00 pm Opening Plenary Session: “A Vision for Interfaith Leadership”
Opening Remarks: Dr. Eboo Patel, Interfaith Youth Core
Keynote Speaker: Farah Pandith, US Department of State
Louis Room, Norris Center, Northwestern University
1:30 pm Break
1:45 pm Concurrent Workshops (60 minutes)
2:45 pm Break
3:00 pm Concurrent Workshops (60 minutes)
4:00 pm Break
4:15 pm Concurrent Workshops (60 minutes)
5:15 pm Networking Dinner
6:30 pm Break
7:00 pm Evening Plenary Session: “A Conversation on Interfaith Leadership”
Reverend Jim Wallis, Sojourners Magazine
Dr. Eboo Patel, Interfaith Youth Core
Pick-Staiger Auditorium, Northwestern University
8:30 pm Break
9:00 pm Sneak-Preview of “The Calling” PBS Documentary Series
Q&A with the Filmmakers
McCormick Auditorium, Norris Center, Northwestern University
Day Two, Monday, October 26th
8:00 am Registration
9:00 am Morning Plenary Session: “Interfaith Leadership, Social Entrepreneurship and Movement Building”
Keith Ellison, US House of Representatives
Wayne Firestone, Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life
Adria Goodson, Hunt Alternatives Fund
Ruth Turner, Tony Blair Faith Foundation
Moderator: Adam Goodman, Center for Leadership, Northwestern University
Louis Room, Norris Center, Northwestern University
10:15 am Break
10:30 am Concurrent Workshops (60 minutes)
11:30 am Break
11:45 am Concurrent Workshops (60 minutes)
12:45 pm Break
1:00 pm Networking Lunch
Conference Schedule
2:00 pm Afternoon Plenary Session: “Interfaith Leadership and Religious Identity”
Anju Bhargava, Hindu American Seva Charities
Maha Elgenaidi, Islamic Networks Group
Greg Epstein, Harvard University
Skye Jethani, Christianity Today
Rabbi Or Rose, Hebrew College
Moderator: Erin Toolis, Faiths Act Fellowship
Louis Room, Norris Center, Northwestern University
3:15 pm Break
3:30 pm Concurrent Workshops (90 minutes)
5:00 pm
Break
5:15 pm Bridge-Builders Awards Reception, Louis Lobby
6:00 pm Bridge-Builders Awards Ceremony and Keynote
Keynote Speaker: Rabbi David Saperstein, Religious Action Center, Union for Reform Judaism
Louis Room, Norris Center, Northwestern University
7:30 pm Break
8:00 pm Film Screening: “Pray the Devil Back to Hell”
Q&A with Filmmaker Gini Reticker
McCormick Auditorium, Norris Center, Northwestern University
Day Three, Tuesday, October 27th
9:00 am Morning Plenary Session: “Interfaith Leadership and Critical Issues”
Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, Malaria No More
Jennifer Bailey, Food Security Partners of Middle Tennessee
Geri Mannion, The Carnegie Corporation
Moderator: Joshua Stanton, Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue
Louis Room, Norris Center, Northwestern University
10:00 am Break
10:15 am Concurrent Workshops (60 minutes)
11:15 am Break and grab lunch
11:45 am Concurrent Workshops (60 minutes)
12:45 pm Break
1:00 pm Closing Plenary: “Interfaith Leadership and Service”
Joshua DuBois, White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
Rami Nashashibi, Inner-City Muslim Action Network
Louis Room, Norris Center, Northwestern University
2:30 pm Break
3:00 pm Interfaith Service Projects around Evanston
7:00 pm Interfaith Dialogue and Celebration
Louis Room, Norris Center, Northwestern University
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Map of Norris
Printed on partially recycled paper