President Obama's Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge
President Obama's Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge
In response to President Obama’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge, the Office for Religious Life and the Haas Center for Public Service—in collabration with campus departments, faculty, student organizations, and student leaders—are launching the Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge. The 2011–12 theme is Hospitality and Welcoming the Stranger: Immigration in the Bay Area Through the Lens of Hunger and Homelessness.
Through this program, students partner with community organizations that focus on the issues of hunger, homelessness, and immigration. Students will regularly convene to reflect on their practical service experiences and discuss complex civic and religious issues associated with immigration and welcoming the stranger. Throughout the year, students get the opportunity to grow and learn in their own personal beliefs within an interfaith community.
In addition to fostering a diverse community of students, faculty, and administrators, we believe the President’s Challenge will connect service-minded Stanford community members to opportunities that will encourage and empower immigrants. Our initiative will be led by students of diverse backgrounds. Our goal is to diminish the estrangement of the immigrants’ experience in the Bay Area and increase tolerance for different belief systems through respectful dialogue. By establishing the common ground of service to immigrants, we hope to enable participants to feel more comfortable discussing controversial religious issues, specifically how different faiths evaluate and address topics concerning immigration and hospitality.
Individuals from all backgrounds—religious and nonreligious—are invited to participate.
Join the Challenge
If you are interested in participating in the inaugural program year, please complete this webform. The program begins with an introductory session on Thursday, November 17 from noon - 1:30 or Sunday, December 4 from 5:00 - 6:30 pm at the Haas Center for Public Service.
If you are interested in joining, please consider making the following commitments:
- Commit to a retreat in winter quarter and capstone activity in spring quarter.
- Commit to a sustained, two-quarter service activity with a community partner.
- Commit to participating in a class winter quarter - Religious Studies 28SI (meets Wednesdays at noon)
- Commit to participating in at least five reflection gatherings in spring quarter.
Complete your Service Plan to let us know what service activity you plan to be involved in during the winter and spring quarters.
Schedule and Deadlines
Autumn Quarter 2011
- President’s Challenge introductory session: Thursday, November 17, noon-1:30 or Sunday, December 4, 5:00-6:30 pm
Winter Quarter 2012
- 1-unit
course: "Interfaith at Noon" RELIGST 28SI Many religious traditions make a distinction between believers and
non-believers but many also pose a sense of responsibility to those
outside the community, to strangers, the poor and others on the margins
or beyond the boundaries of the community.
This course is an attempt to explore how different religious traditions conceive of one's obligation to the stranger-of how to treat the stranger, the foreigner, the outsider--and to relate their perspectives to the issue of how immigrants are treated in contemporary society. A companion course for Stanford's response to President Obama's Interfaith Challenge, the course will explore these issues in the light of a series of guest lectures from scholars of religion, law, sociology, cultural studies, education, and social justice and will aim to help students draw connections between their religious beliefs (or non-beliefs) and their role as global citizens. - Retreat: Thursday, January 12 from 6:00-10:00 pm
- Regular service activity
- Reflection and social gatherings
Spring Break 2012 (optional)
- Alternative Spring Break (ASB) applications due November 3.
- Trips include: Immigration Issues at the Border
Spring Quarter 2012
- Regular service projects
- Reflection gatherings on faith in action
- Capstone activity
Summer 2012 (optional)
- Public Service Fellowships
- Community Service Work-Study
- Undergraduate Research Grants
For more information, please contact Rabbi Patricia Karlin Neumann.
