Beyond Dialogue: US University Campuses Navigating Religious Pluralism, Challenges, and Building Resilient Communities

The Resurgence of Interfaith Engagement on U.S. University Campuses

Interfaith engagement is becoming a more deliberate part of campus life at American universities. A recent example is Interfaith Week 2025 at The George Washington University (GW), organized by the university’s Center for Interfaith and Spiritual Life. Held from November 2 to 8 under the theme “The ties that connect us: woven from many threads, stronger together,” the week aimed to encourage dialogue, collaboration and mutual respect among the religious, non-religious and spiritual members of the GW community.

The schedule included more than 40 programs: spiritual and cultural practices, art and meditation workshops, a pet blessing and the annual Interfaith Dinner. One of the sessions, “Meditate with a Monk,” was led by GW Buddhist Chaplain Amitha Khema in the University Student Center’s Grand Ballroom. The programs were built from proposals submitted by students and staff, student organizations, campus partners, the GW Council of Chaplains and the Interfaith Student Advisory Board, so the week reflected a wide range of campus voices rather than a single office’s plan.

GW’s week is part of a broader national effort. Interfaith America supports religious pluralism on college campuses through grants to institutions and through gatherings such as its Interfaith Leadership Summit, which brings together students and educators from more than a hundred campuses. The organization also highlights the United Nations’ World Interfaith Harmony Week as an occasion to promote interreligious dialogue as part of a “culture of peace.” The sections below look at how universities are approaching this work, how the role of campus chaplains is changing, and what these programs achieve.

Diverse Approaches to Fostering Pluralism and Understanding

Universities are moving beyond one-off events and building interfaith understanding into courses, hands-on learning and leadership training. On the curriculum side, Baylor University has trained faculty and chapel facilitators to bring an interfaith lens to their work, including weaving inter-religious perspectives into courses. Augsburg University in Minneapolis has formed a cohort of faculty from disciplines such as education, physics and nursing to integrate religious pluralism into their teaching.

Other campuses emphasize experiential learning. Washington University in St. Louis runs “Interfaith in Action,” a four-day immersion program of service and learning with faith communities in St. Louis. Wiley University in Texas held an Alternative Spring Break in Washington, D.C., where students visited worship communities of different traditions, in several cases for the first time: Christian services, a Sikh gurdwara, Jummah prayer at a mosque and a Jewish Shabbat dinner.

Leadership development is a third approach. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) has an Interfaith Fellows Program that trains students to design programs that shape UMBC’s interfaith community, and “Bridge Builders,” a cohort-based “difficult dialogue” program for campus conversations about religion and world events. Utah State University is revamping a course on religious difference, launching a new track on bridging religious difference within its SpaceMakers program, hosting religious literacy workshops and expanding partnerships with local religious leaders.

The same questions are being explored outside the United States. Georgetown University in Qatar offers a course titled “Religious Pluralism in the Middle East and the Islamic World,” which draws on history, theology, sociology, politics and anthropology, with case studies from Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe. Josef Meri, a historian on the faculty there, notes that universities in the Middle East and North Africa are adapting their approaches to local contexts rather than following a single model. He points to Saint Joseph University in Beirut, which offers postgraduate degrees in Christian-Muslim Relations that combine comparative methods with a conflict-transformation practicum and community-based research, and to the Institute for the Study of Religious Diversity in Baghdad, which is developing courses on minority faiths and drawing on Islamic sources that support pluralism.

Meri argues for context-sensitive teaching, observing that classrooms are themselves sites of pluralism; Georgetown’s Qatar campus enrolls students from more than seventy nationalities. He also supports team-taught interfaith courses led by faculty from different religious backgrounds, a format already used at universities in Palestine and Iraq. Taken together, these programs show institutions moving from tolerating difference toward sustained engagement with it.

The Evolving Role of University Chaplains in a Secularizing World

Campus chaplains are central to much of this work, and their role is changing. As The Atlantic has reported, students increasingly describe themselves as less religious, yet participation in spiritual-life programs on many campuses is growing.

Religion shaped American higher education from the start; many early colleges were founded to train clergy. As universities became research institutions, chaplains took on responsibility for students’ spiritual lives. William Sloane Coffin Jr., chaplain at Yale University from 1958 to 1976, became a national figure in the civil rights movement and was among the Freedom Riders in 1961. He also counseled Yale students on matters ranging from personal problems to the Vietnam War draft, and described that work as a privilege.

Today’s chaplains work in that tradition but with a wider brief. Alongside worship and conversations about faith, they help students facing housing insecurity and safety concerns, support communities during campus protests, and coordinate with other university services. The profession has also become more diverse, with more women, people of color and chaplains from many faith traditions, including some who do not identify with a religion or believe in God. Vanessa Gomez Brake of the University of Southern California, for example, was the first atheist-humanist to serve as a senior associate dean of religious life at a major American university.

The Office of the Chaplain at Carleton College shows what this looks like in practice. Its calendar includes daily Fajr prayers, “Time to Meditate” sessions, Taizé Evensong, Jummah prayers and Shabbat services, as well as observances of Diwali and the Day of the Dead.

At Syracuse University, Imam Amir Durić, Muslim chaplain at Hendricks Chapel since 2017, was appointed assistant dean for religious and spiritual life in July 2025. During his time as chaplain he built the Muslim chaplaincy and established the first Muslim Student Life endowment, and the university reports a 500% increase in student participation through new programs and resources. In the new role he leads work on interfaith engagement, spiritual wellness and ethical development. The Rev. Brian Konkol, vice president and dean of Hendricks Chapel, called him “an outstanding interfaith leader.” Durić, who grew up in Bosnia and Herzegovina amid conflict, co-founded the Jewish-Muslim Dialogue Fellowship at Syracuse with Rabbi Ethan Bair in 2023.

Chaplains are not therapists, and they work with campus mental health services when students need clinical care. What they offer is pastoral support and a place to talk about questions of faith, meaning, relationships and career. Chaz Lattimore Howard of the University of Pennsylvania has said that chaplains want students to “feel loved for who they are and not what they do.”

Impact and Benefits: Building Community, Resilience, and Global Citizenship

Interfaith programs aim to strengthen campus communities, reduce polarization and prepare students for a religiously diverse society. American University‘s Kay Spiritual Life Center, one of the oldest interfaith centers in American higher education, marked its 60th anniversary in October 2025. Barbara Kraft, a volunteer with the Soka Gakkai International Buddhist community who meets regularly with students there, described the center as “a community of communities.” Chaplain Eric Doolittle, who leads Kay’s interfaith work, focuses on keeping it a space where students of any faith, or none, can explore spirituality and purpose.

Inclusive spaces like these respond to what Josef Meri calls “othering.” He advocates “belonging without othering” as a framework for confronting antisemitism and Islamophobia, urging universities to go beyond tolerance and actively address prejudice by building community around shared purpose and care.

Interfaith cooperation can also produce practical results. The Tri-Faith Initiative in Omaha, Nebraska, placed a mosque, a synagogue and a church on a shared campus connected by a circular bridge, a project documented in the film “Abraham’s Bridge.” Its community garden has produced more than 5,000 pounds of food for local pantries, giving members a way to work together apart from theological debate.

In Morocco, Muslim-Jewish cooperation supports agricultural and human development projects, including clean drinking water, irrigation and women’s cooperatives. Many are built around community-managed fruit tree nurseries, some on land lent by the Moroccan Jewish community next to historic burial sites. Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir, who has led much of this work, describes how these partnerships help farming communities shift to more resilient and profitable agriculture.

Interfaith work also connects to civic life. Interfaith America’s 2024 annual report describes its efforts to counter rising prejudice and polarization on campuses after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, through its Interfaith Leadership Summit and “Advancing Campus Pluralism” events. Its “Faith in Elections Playbook,” developed with Protect Democracy, offers nonpartisan resources for faith, civic and campus communities, including recruiting poll workers and chaplains. With a grant from the playbook program, the Sikh Coalition ran a Civic Engagement Fellowship whose outreach reached more than 45,000 likely Sikh voters. For students, these programs build skills they will use well beyond campus: talking across difference, working with people who hold other beliefs and taking part in civic life.

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#American University #Baylor University #Carleton College #Higher Education #international students

The Resurgence of Interfaith Engagement on U.S. University Campuses

Diverse Approaches to Fostering Pluralism and Understanding

The Evolving Role of University Chaplains in a Secularizing World

Impact and Benefits: Building Community, Resilience, and Global Citizenship

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