When we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion on campus, religion isn’t always a part of the conversation. But with its inaugural international conference, Convergence, a nonprofit focused on campus religious diversity, worked to change that.
Convergence’s International Conference on Religious, Secular, and Spiritual Identities in Higher Education gathered scholars and campus faith leaders online during the first week of August to discuss religion’s place in campus diversity work and what supports students of all faiths – and no faith – need to explore those identities in college.
In three days of live sessions on Zoom, panelists and keynote speakers delved into topics like inequities in campus religious life, new data and literature on student faith experiences, the concept of White Christian privilege and campus anti-Semitism.
The conference also included Ted Talk-style lectures, selected from among a set of proposals, which included research on how faculty can address students’ religious identities in curricula, the role of food in religious communities, the educational and social value of interfaith friendships, models for interfaith engagement and how to involve religious students in diversity, equity and inclusion work.
One of the key themes was higher education’s hesitance to address religion as a formative part of students’ lives.
“I was continually surprised by some of my colleagues’ reluctance and fear to discuss religion and how it intersects with gender, sexuality, race and class in their classrooms,” said Marcella Clinard, a Ph.D. candidate in multicultural women’s & and gender studies at Texas Women’s University. She spoke about her qualitative research on how women’s studies faculty of introductory courses teach or don’t teach about religion as it relates to gender.
“In spite of our field’s stated commitment to analyzing all aspects of the social world intersectionally, I saw a huge disconnect between the needs of our students and our pedagogy,” she said.
