Interfaith Cooperation

Mission Statement

Advance Dominican University’s mission by engaging diverse religious, spiritual, and value-based worldviews through study, contemplation, dialogue, and cooperation in order to create a supportive interfaith environment and prepare our community for global citizenship.

The Dominican University Interfaith Cooperation Committee is a group of university faculty, staff and student leaders.

Study
  • Dominican University’s undergraduate interdisciplinary Enduring Questions Seminars program centers on universal questions and incorporates religious and philosophical common texts into each course. The common texts are: Living Buddha, Living Christ by Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh; Pope Francis, On Care for Our Common Home (Laudato Si’); and Nichomachaen Ethics by Aristotle. 
  • The interfaith studies minor is designed to help students to explore, through dialogue, their own and others’ religious, spiritual, and value-based worldviews and traditions; to develop religious literacy involving multiple traditions; to identify within these traditions the bases for dialogue and cooperation; to explore the history of that dialogue and cooperation; and to engage persons and communities with diverse faith perspectives and worldviews to address contemporary social concerns.
  • We work closely with Interfaith America (formerly IFYC) to train student leaders who are prepared to engage with religious diversity on our campus and beyond. Interfaith America promotes the idea that “a less divided and more pluralistic future requires new leaders at its core. When they leave college equipped with the vision, knowledge, and skills to positively engage difference, our religiously diverse democracy can and will flourish.”
Contemplation
  • The interfaith prayer room is located on the second floor of Mazzuchelli Hall, and can be accessed through the east end of the Noonan Reading Room. 
  • The labyrinth is an ancient circular symbol dating back to 200 B.C.E. It is found in various forms and in many cultures around the world, including Greece, Egypt, Tibet, and the Celtic Isles.  It is a spiritual tool for prayer and meditation similar to practices from a variety of religious traditions, such as a rosary, Buddhist walking meditation, indigenous walkabouts, or the way of the cross.  Dedicated in 2015, the labyrinth at Dominican University is located on the west campus and was a gift from Dianne Costanza and Mary Komperda.
  • Interfaith prayer space is also available within the University Ministry Suite, Mazzuchelli 298.
Dialogue
  • The University Ministry-sponsored programs in Interfaith Relationship include guest speakers, speed-faithing, coffee houses, visits to different places of worship, service trips, and interfaith prayer experiences. 
  • The Interfaith Biennial Exhibition is a juried exhibition that represents works of art from multiple disciplines that comment on the theme of Love and Truth: an Expression of Interfaith Diversity (pdf) The first exhibit opened in 2012 and was dedicated to representing a welcoming environment on campus for a diverse array of faith and value-based beliefs in many aspects, including that of the visual arts. The most recent exhibit closed in August 2020.
  • Soul Stories is a gathering of storytellers who share the ways in which they incorporate faith as a lived experience, calling on their encounters of the sacred in themselves and in each other. Storytellers share their stories of personal and spiritual awakenings that have transformed the tellers’ everyday lives.
Cooperation
  • Dominican University is a member of our local Community of Congregations.
  • Dominican University is named by the Interfaith Youth Core as a national leader (pdf; Source: Association of American Colleges & Universities) in “practices for interfaith excellence in higher education” and works actively with our colleague institutions across the country to advance interfaith cooperation as a strategic priority.
  • Dominican University is participating in “Faith in the Vaccine,” a collaboration with the Interfaith Youth Core to mobilize Dominican University students over the summer 2021 months to be ambassadors who impact the health and welfare of communities that have suffered unjustly from widespread COVID-19 infections.