BY EMILY GAUDETTE
PC: Stonehill College
First-year student, Douaa Soltany, struggles to fulfill her spiritual needs as a Muslim student on campus, particularly finding Halal foods, which include the ingredients permitted under Islamic law.
As a result, her meal plan money “just ends up going to waste.”
“I don’t really eat on campus,” she said.
This is just one of the issues students of other faiths face at Stonehill College and other Catholic higher education institutions. The Higher Education Research Institution, in a 2019 report of college freshmen, found that 47 percent of first years at Catholic institutions identified as Roman Catholic.
At Stonehill, there are efforts to try to address the needs of those who are not not Catholic.
Jessika Crockett-Murphy, an intern at the Campus Ministry Office, said that while Campus Ministry tries to support students with their dietary needs, they also encourage students to seek support with on-campus dietician Kimberly Pierce, plan ahead of time for holidays such as Ramadan or Passover, use the 24/7 food pantry on campus, or rent the Campus Ministry vans to travel to nearby grocery stores.
First-year Daniel Hassan said he wants other Muslim students to still be able to get food when they are fasting even though he does not n’t have a meal plan on campus as a commuter.
During Ramadan, Muslims wake up around 3 a.m. to eat before the first prayer call and do not eat again until after sunset, around 7 p.m. This poses a problem for on-campus Muslim students, as most dining areas close either by 7 p.m. or earlier.
However, other students find Campus Ministry’s programs spiritually fulfilling.
Senior Colton Varholak, a member of the Congregational Church, became involved with Campus Ministry his freshman year as a way to continue living out his faith. He is a Moreau student minister, a retreat leader, a H.O.P.E trip leader, a Light leader, and a liturgical reader at Mass.
“I go to Mass here. It’s cool to see another way of practicing my faith,” Varholak said.
Stonehill College has two interfaith groups on campus: the Men’s Interfaith Club and the Interfaith Women’s Spirituality Group. Unfortunately, not many students know they exist; the Men’s Interfaith Club has all Christian members as of this semester.
Campus Minister for Community Engagement, Brittany Lorgeree, said that an interfaith program called Pathfinders has struggled to find its footing since it began a few years ago. The program is in need of student leadership. The program’s goal is to “create a physical, emotional, and spiritual space” for non-Catholics on campus.
The school also has multiple interfaith rooms in different dorm buildings such as Boland, Du Lac, and Corr that students can go to pray, reflect, or just relax. Again, these are not well advertised nor are they usually accessible for students who do not live in those residence halls.
Soltany prefers to take the Campus Ministry van to the local mosque rather than pray in the interfaith rooms.
“I can’t pray in a room with a cross. I feel very uncomfortable with crosses,” she said.
Hassan echoes that sentiment. He prefers to keep his faith and his school separate, and said that he has a community at a mosque outside of Stonehill.
Soltany described her experience as a Muslim woman at a predominantly white, suburban institution as “an identity crisis.” She thought about leaving the school last semester.
“It was a little bit rough for me [to acclimate to Stonehill]. I didn’t realize how difficult it would be,” she said.
Longtime faculty member, Gregory Shaw, said he had a tough transition period, too. He came to the school in 1987 as a non-Catholic religion professor. He was also the former chair of the religion department.
Shaw believes in Platonism, which he describes as an abstract model of religion.
“[When I got here,] I was seen as some strange curiosity,” he said, “being non-Catholic is something I am acutely aware of.”
Religious studies and theology professor, Shari Lowin, said she has dealt with her fair share of antisemitism since starting at Stonehill in 2002. She often got antisemitic comments in her course evaluations.
“Once those antisemitic comments came in, I got protective,” Lowin said.
Stonehill saw an uptick in antisemitism a few years ago when some students scratched the Nazi swastika into desks and wrote antisemitic comments on the bathroom walls of the library and Duffy.
A Jewish student who graduated in 2019, said she felt unsafe for the next few weeks on campus.
At the time, Lowin was asked to speak at an event following the antisemitic occurrence. She said she felt lobbied to be the token Jewish representative on campus. Other students who are a part of affinity groups on campus have felt similarly about being “token representatives.”
Some minorities on campus said they feel Campus Ministry and Stonehill have good intentions but often shoot themselves in the foot.
For instance, @scdiversity’s Instagram made a post about Yom Kippur. Within that post, there was an Islamic symbol, stars of Bethlehem, and random flora on a poster meant to represent a Jewish high holiday.
Lowin said mistakes like these come from an emotional and intellectual lack of understanding.
“They only did half the work,” Lowin said.
Fortunately, Lowin and Shaw both have a good relationship with the Religious Studies and Theology department. The department celebrates everyone’s differences.
Campus Ministry is very supportive of students wanting to convert to Catholicism or continuing their Catholic faith. Crockett-Murphy is one of nine students this academic year receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation, the third sacrament of initiation which serves to “confirm” a person in the faith.
"Campus ministry is here to help find God in whatever capacity here," Crockett-Murphy said.
Campus Ministry is still interfaith in name and not action, some said, but they are trying to change that. The group is making a nature-based prayer space on campus, trying to bring more access to religious spaces off-campus for students who do not have a car, and trying to bring interfaith prayer rooms into academic buildings.
“We embrace and celebrate all interfaith backgrounds,” Lorgeree said.
Soltany is also creating MENA—a Middle Eastern/North African club that creates a safe space for anyone who identifies as Middle Eastern/Northern African. She hopes to host cultural nights, have a banquet for Ramadan, cater local Middle Eastern and North African food, and grow her club into a larger society by her senior year.
“People believe my faith is a terrorist culture. I want to shed actual truth on our religion and our culture,” Soltany said.