Center for Religion, Spirituality, and Pluralism’s “Picturing Pluralism” Program Covered by Religion News Service

The Center for Religion, Spirituality, and Pluralism’s “Picturing Pluralism” program was covered in the Religion News Service (RNS) article, “At Maryland university, students use photos to build interfaith understanding” on October 27. The program is a partnership between UMBC’s Center for Religion, Spirituality and Pluralism and Interfaith Photovoice, an organization that combines amateur photography with structured dialogue across religious, spiritual and cultural differences. 

“Picturing Pluralism” is “a semester-long photography and dialogue project bringing together about 15 University of Maryland Baltimore County students and 10 faculty and staff. In a fraught national political climate for college students, the goal is to create an experience on a religiously diverse campus that leads to meaningful connections.”

Students, staff, and faculty were interviewed for the story: “Faculty interviewed by RNS described UMBC as one of the country’s ‘most religiously diverse campuses,’ pointing to a student culture spanning multiple branches of Christianity and Islam as well as Jewish, Sikh and Dharmic groups. For example, student groups have recently hosted a Muslim women’s fellowship, a Sikh festival, a queer Orthodox Jewish gathering and a South Asian Christian organization, according to photography project organizers and participants.”

“Fatima Hafeez, a second-year political science student, shared a photograph of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. She described admiring the devotion of Catholics who traveled there and connected their journeys to the Muslim pilgrimages of Hajj and Umrah, which she has undertaken herself. ‘I love to hear what people think, how they process things,’ Hafeez said. ‘It’s really easy to group people together,’ she added, but listening to personal stories offers a reminder that ‘everyone is a human with their own individual experience.’”

The story was also picked up by other media outlets, including the Associated Press, Newsday and NewsChannel Nebraska.

The “Picturing Pluralism” exhibition will be held on December 2 in the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery, where community members can view participants’ photos and stories. The event begins at 5 p.m. with a keynote address in the gallery. 

Read more about the Center for Religion, Spirituality, and Pluralism, launched this fall, and Director Matt Hoffman, in UMBC News.