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Under the leadership of University Chaplain Amy Fisher, the Interfaith Center hosts more than 200 programs every year, including regular gatherings for multiple different faith groups. Photograph: Michael J. Clarke
Fall 2024
For the past 25 years, Suffolk’s Interfaith Center has been waging a peaceful revolution: the successful creation and maintenance of a gathering spot where students, faculty, and staff of all faiths—as well as those who reject religion entirely—exchange ideas, break bread, and establish enduring friendships.
Division and hostility between religions, ethnicities, and worldviews are not welcome guests in the Interfaith Center’s small suite of offices on the eighth floor of the Sawyer Building, but every Suffolk-affiliated human being emphatically is, says University Chaplain Amy L. Fisher, the center’s director and a member of the Philosophy Department.
When considering how to celebrate the Interfaith Center’s anniversary this fall, Fisher requested a specific word be added to its logo, the better to reflect the center’s ethos, which is firmly rooted in Suffolk’s core values.
The word? Belonging.
As an urban campus, Suffolk doesn’t have the physical space to accommodate a range of different worship spaces. But even if it did, says Fisher—who holds a Master of Divinity degree from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Theology from Emory University—Suffolk believes “there should always be communication, and there should be dialogue. So, we make spaces where that can occur.”
Last year, the Interfaith Center organized 230 total programs, including observations of most holy days, and convened 12 weekly interest groups, including regular gatherings of Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, witches, and meditators. Last year, an estimated 700 Suffolk attendees took part in at least one Interfaith Center activity, which Fisher coordinates with assistance from student leaders and graduate students from Harvard Divinity School who serve as assistant chaplains. Highly attended groups include the Muslim Student Association, the Hillel Jewish Community, and Mystics & Witches.
“It’s really a beautiful community,” says Trishala Shinde, MSMKT ’24, an active member of the Interfaith Center who graduated from Sawyer Business School in May with a master’s degree in marketing.
Shinde, a Hindu raised in India, says it is all too easy to lose touch with faith and ritual in a new city while carrying a challenging graduate school course load.
“The center helped me reconnect, and really grow my respect and understanding for other religions,” she says. “There are so many people sitting around talking about their ideas and beliefs—but no negative judgment, just coexisting.”
By Erica Noonan
Suffolk has long had a broad and diverse population to serve. It has provided a Muslim prayer space as part of its campus offerings for at least 50 years. Today, the Interfaith Center’s ablution space is state-of-the-art: Instead of communal, gender-segregated areas for wudu (the ritual washing of hands, face, and feet before prayer), it offers privacy and equity for all genders, including nonbinary and queer Muslims, as well as private prayer spaces, Fisher says.
Fisher, a United Methodist Church clergy member who describes herself as “on special loan to New England from Tennessee,” arrived at Suffolk in 1999. Following a series of mostly Protestant campus religious leaders, University leadership embraced Fisher’s vision of a progressive and comprehensive interfaith center.
She recalls then-Dean Nancy Stoll inviting her to campus for an interview, where Fisher outlined her plans: “I said, ‘We’re not going to serve just one religion—we’re going to serve all religions that come into this college.’”
Dean Stoll’s response was unequivocally supportive: “She said, ‘Tell me what you need,’” Fisher says.
Because of the recent societal and political focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, people often forget that DEI social-justice concepts have been popular with progressive religious communities going back to the mid-1900s.
"Religion has always been a huge piece of DEI, although it’s the one people are hesitant to talk about,” Fisher says. “But true inclusion has to include the whole person.”
That usually means a mélange of faiths mingling daily, she says. Yogis mix with Muslims fasting for Ramadan. Jews study biblical history alongside devout Catholics. Weekly tarot card readings mix with “music and meaning” discussion groups. The center’s crowded bookcases are bursting with texts on every conceivable faith and spiritual outlook.
The small suite of rooms hold “big opportunities” for the entire Suffolk community, says Zoya Quraishi, healthcare data and systems manager for the Counseling, Health & Wellness Center.
Last year, Fisher invited Quraishi to teach a weekly hourlong yoga class at the center, open to all students, faculty, and staff. Quraishi’s approach is nonsecular, focused on breath, movement, and relaxation, but the center also acknowledges yoga’s spiritual roots for participants interested in that aspect of the practice, she says.
Students typically leave the class more relaxed—even pleasantly drowsy. “The center offers them a way to step away from what they are going through in school,” she says.
Student initiative drives most of what happens at the Interfaith Center, with Fisher serving as the sounding board, she says. And the real world most certainly can intrude. Catastrophic events where religion and violence have intermingled—such as the September 11 attacks, the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, and the current war in Gaza—have presented challenging moments for the center.
Open dialogue and trust have been key, Fisher says, to keeping the atmosphere safe for everyone who walks in the door. Asma Akbar, Class of 2025, has been involved with the Interfaith Center since her first year at Suffolk, and became the center’s first Interfaith Scholar in 2023, helping to plan lectures, forums, and other events.
The role allowed her to combine her spiritual needs with her academic interests. The Interfaith Center has really changed “the trajectory of my involvement at Suffolk,” says Akbar. “Working at the Interfaith Center has allowed me to meet so many people from all different backgrounds, as well as lifelong friends and mentors.”
‘We’re not going to serve just one religion’
