The Ripple Effect: How Elon Students are Making Interfaith Happen
The Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life student-organized Ripple Conference kicked off the weekend on Friday, February 19th.
The conference began with a virtual Shabbat celebration and keynote speaker Blair Imani. Saturday featured a variety of breakout sessions hosted by students and community members, and a panel discussion featuring Preeta Banerjee, Kailtin Curtice, Olivia Elder, and Sensei Alex Kakuyo.
With the theme of “Intersectional Interfaith,” Ripple offered the opportunity to explore “privilege, discrimination, and how to make interfaith an anti-racist, intersectional movement while striving for civic pluralism and equity for all” while learning about different religious, spiritual, and secular world views, explains the conference’s website.
Intersectionality is a framework coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw to better understand how one’s social and political identities integrate to create unique and varying models of both privilege and discrimination. Though the conference theme was decided in February of last year, many members of the Ripple Planning Team felt the theme was applicable to events that took place last summer and according to their website, believe “the interfaith movement has a responsibility to include intersectionality in its framework.”
“There was this desire to look at interfaith in connection to all of our other identities, and in particular in connection to race and anti-racism,” says Joel Harter, Co-Advisor of Ripple and Director of the Truitt Center, reflecting on feedback from participants in past Ripple Conferences. “There has been much more awareness of how one’s religious, spiritual, or secular identity connects with race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.”
Hosted virtually, the two-day event was the first time the conference was not held in-person on Elon’s campus. The conference originated as an idea from a student intern with the Truitt Center seven years ago after she attended the Coming Together conference. The idea was to create a regional conference that provided similar resources to the Elon community and schools in the area who may not have the resources or opportunity to attend conferences like Coming Together.
The first Ripple conference had around 50 attendees; this past conference had over 200 individuals register and connected with individuals from across the United States.
“It grew pretty quickly,” Harter says, “and we got people this year from places we’ve never had before.”
“I watched Ripple happen from afar when I was an undergraduate student,” said Allison Pelyhes, Co-Advisor for Ripple and Multifaith Coordinator at the Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life. “I learned a lot from Interfaith Youth Core about Elon and about the work they were doing in the south while I was up in Michigan and really admired Ripple. I’ve known about it a long time.”
This year, the Ripple Planning Team also included members from outside institutions like Guilford College, Hope College, and Warren Wilson College. This collaboration offered unique perspectives from students outside of Elon.
Members of the Ripple Planning Team and Truitt Center Student Staff come together to “make interfaith happen.” Catch me on the far left.
“My favorite thing about working on Ripple is the passionate team of students, advisors, guest speakers, and attendees that make the conference what it is,” says Caroline Penfield, Executive Director of the Ripple Conference. “Everyone bringing their full selves to the weekend, especially the leadership team who plans for months, is my favorite thing about the conference,” Penfield feels bringing ideas of intersectionality into interfaith work is important, particularly on a college campus.
“I was sitting in Kaitlin Curtis’s breakout session this year listening to people very honestly and vulnerably examine white supremacy, Christian supremacy, colonization, and capitalism, and I just remember thinking that in all the planning we had done, I hadn’t even let myself imagine that people would be having these incredible conversations,” she remembers.
“Interfaith cooperation gives space for bringing your full self to something, and having that be respected, valued, and heard. I think that one of the most valuable parts of college is the growth that happens through questioning things you had previously taken for granted and expanding your worldview through people and experiences, and I think intentional interfaith work, at its best, does exactly that while pushing us towards deeper understanding and a more just and caring world,” says Penfield.
Interfaith work, particularly on a college campus, involves engaging and learning from those with different experiences and world views. You may find more similarity than difference.