Director’s Report

New Staff Members

Heidi Isaac

Heidi Isaac joined us as a part-time staff member. She graduated from Temple University with an M.A. in religion and is now pursuing a nursing degree. She is interested in the links between religion and health care and has provided research and organizational support for our public events. Additionally, she provides facilitation for the Citizen Diplomat Academies for young innovators in both the STEM fields and those interested in social innovations.

Miriam Fisher-Schaefer

Miriam Fisher-Schaefer took on the role as accountant in July. Miriam recently retired from serving as Chief Financial Officer of Friends Central School and has more than 40 years’ experience in the nonprofit world.

Interns and Volunteers

The DI hosted a summer intern, Peter He, from Temple University’s College of Liberal Arts Joyce Salzberg Center for Professional Development. Peter helped to develop assessment tools for our SUSI student program and consolidated information from Len Swidler’s contacts from China. 

Ivanessa Arostegui joined the DI team as a volunteer to assist research and the development of our historical tours program. She is a PhD student at Temple University’s Department of Religion and specializes in Latino/x religious communities and immigration in Philadelphia. Ivanessa is in training to become a Dialogue Institute tour guide. 

John Bright has served as a volunteer consultant to develop our tours program and has also generously assisted with grant writing. John is a historian of religion who has worked for years as a public historian at sites associated with Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, including Christ Church.

SUSI 2021 Virtual

Our Study of the United States Institute on Religious Pluralism was once again held virtually in 2021 in light of the ongoing global pandemic. The Dialogue Institute received a new cohort of 20 virtual participants from  Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, India, and Indonesia. Our participants spent five weeks learning about the foundations of American democracy and religious pluralism in the U.S. Students acquired dialogue skills, which they were able to practice with one another and various faith leaders around the U.S. 

Our program engaged students in synchronous lectures and asynchronous modules which included topics like minority religions, media literacy, dialogue tools, indigenous belief systems, and ecology. Students also learned from experts about religious traditions such as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and attended virtual tours of respective worship spaces, including Philadelphia’s Congregation Rodeph Shalom and Minnesota Hindu Milan Mandir. 

At the end of the program students produced a community action plan which will, for those who chose this option, advance religious pluralism in their own communities. The Dialogue Institute staff held monthly meetings with participants from August 2021 until January of 2022 to help support students complete their action plans. We also hosted various networking events for our students including the opportunity to meet with previous cohorts as well as attend DI virtual lecture series. 

Here is a sample of what three students worked on for their community action projects:

Lebanon - A psychology major is doing three workshops on aspects of how knowledge of differing religious traditions will help aspiring psychologists better serve their clients.  This participant has created a slide deck that summarizes well and accurately the lessons learned from the Institute on religious pluralism.  She is sharing that powerpoint with other members of the cohort who have struggled a bit with how to introduce religious pluralism in their contexts.

India - Working with a local NGO created to prevent violence in the workplace, this SUSI participant is planning an all-day workshop for 100 gas station attendants as a grassroots effort to prevent incidents of violent rhetoric or actions by teaching the dialogue principles and skills.

Egypt - This participant is interviewing select members of her campus community and her SUSI cohort with specific questions about “transformation” of thinking and behaving as a result of participation in the program.  Such experiential focus on “cognitive dissonance” and how to cope with it could be useful for future programming as well as for her own life and profession.

Virtual Dialogues on Zoom

Since the pandemic began, the Dialogue Institute has found new ways to connect people together for meaningful conversations in virtual formats. Our zoom events have brought interfaith and dialogue experts together with our various program alumni as well as our Dialogue Institute Network (DIN), consisting of volunteers, board, staff, and community members. The Dialogue Institute hosted events in which our DIN were respondents and discussants, and able to bring forward their own questions and ideas to the conversations.

In May, we hosted a Zoom conversation with Dr. Ziad Fahed from Notre Dame University–Louaize and Anna Maria Daou, Head of Research and Courses Unit at Adyan Foundation in Beirut. They discussed their recent co-authored article "Interreligious Dialogue as a Gateway to the Sustainable Development Goals: A Lebanese Case Study” published in issue 56.1 of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. Panelists discussed how interreligious dialogue can offer an important gateway to advancing the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

In November, we hosted a panel titled, “Religion and Medicine: a Dialogue with Health Care Providers on Navigating Religious Diversity” featuring three panelists: Dr. Devan Stahl, from Baylor University, Dr. Renee Fennell, RN, DMD, from Temple University’s Kornberg School of Dentistry, and Dr. Bijan Etemad, MD from the University of Pennsylvania. Our speakers emphasized the need for health care providers to become more familiar with religious diversity in order to avoid misperceptions and engage in meaningful dialogue with patients.

Our third public event, held in December, featured two recent authors of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies: former headmaster of Huntington School in the United Kingdom David Kibble and Professor of Islamic Studies Sobhi Rayan from Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education in Baqa-El-Gharbia. They have written about the importance of implementing curricula in schools and faith communities that teach a commitment to intergroup understanding. During the session, our panelists explored how interreligious education in public school systems fosters understanding and promotes enrichment for students.

Citizen Diplomat Academy

The Dialogue Institute was pleased to offer a free, virtual, international exchange program for high school and university students in Philadelphia and abroad. This program is a continuation of the Citizen Diplomat Academy run in 2020 and 2021 in which the Dialogue Institute provides training in dialogue basics, navigating cultural differences, confronting bias and stereotypes, and media literacy as a part of the Citizen Diplomat Academy. Program elements included: dialogue basics, navigating cultural differences, confronting bias and stereotypes, and media literacy. 

This program is managed by DI Program Manager, Andi Laudisio and Co- facilitated by Heidi Isaac. This year we also welcomed DI contractor, Sean Chambers, to facilitate some of our cohorts. Participants in the program network internationally with peers and meet with experienced entrepreneurs and innovators in their respective fields through the work of Citizen Diplomacy International, a local Non-profit partner in Philadelphia. 

Our Citizen Diplomat Academy students come from High Schools all over the world including Dubai, Lebanon, South Africa, China, Russia, and more. Participants are able to learn about what it’s like for their peers growing up across the world and hear their examples of their own experiences in STEM, innovation, culture, and dialogue.

Journal of Ecumenical Studies

In 2021, the Journal of Ecumenical Studies published four issues on time in each season:  

• The JES issue 56:1 treated themes to do with Jewish and Muslim dialogue in Israel. The Dialogue Institute staff hosted a virtual dialogue event between two of the authors discussing how to facilitate dialogue in the region, one author from JES 56:1 and the other from JES 56:4. 

• JES issue 56:2 included the papers presented at the North American Academy of Ecumenists, which reviewed cutting edge issues in the ecumenical dialogue. A former scholar/priest of our DI programs wrote an article on the Pope’s view of Islam from his perspective as a Catholic priest.  Given the death of Len’s colleague, Hans Küng in Germany, Len wrote on their colleagueship in developing the global ethic, adding his perspective on an Islamic contribution.  A member of the Kennedy Center trialogue added, as a Muslim scholar, a critique of the Swidler exploration. 

• The JES 56:3 issue focused on articles from a conference at the University of Haifa in 2018. These articles highlighted the engaging history and selected Jewish leaders’ views that led to the formation of the state of Israel. 

• JES issue 56:4 continued a discussion of Jewish-Muslim relations in other regions than Israel/Palestine. In addition, articles on Bahai prayers and Hindu sampranadas offered creative frameworks for interreligious dialogue. A discussion of Bonhoeffer in India offered an embodied theology for public engagement.

Youth Training in Arizona

In June, Rebecca Mays provided dialogue and leadership training for students at The Fran Park Center located at Pinnacle Presbyterian Church in Phoenix, Arizona. The Leadership and Dialogue Academy (LDA) offered high school students opportunities to communicate across differences in the interest of empowering leaders to advance reconciliation, intercultural conflict resolution, and bias awareness. Daily sessions also focused on developing digital skills with social media.

Len Swidler Travels to Iraq

This summer, Dialogue Institute founder Professor Leonard Swidler traveled to Kurdistan, Iraq to continue his cultivation of institutional partnerships in the region. While on his trip Prof. Swidler met with President Bruce Ferguson of the American University of Iraq - Sulaymaniyah and also with the President of Iraq, Barham Salih, to explore the development of educational and dialogue programming that built on earlier collaborations proposed prior to the global pandemic. Dialogue Institute staff continue to dialogue with Iraqi partners and are working to collaborate on upcoming programming within the country. 

Philadelphia Interfaith Peace Walk

The Dialogue Institute was asked to join Philadelphia's Annual Interfaith Peace Walk, which was held virtually in 2021. Executive Director David Krueger and SUSI program alumnus Bernard Naddaf from Lebanon both offered interfaith reflections. Bernard shared about the hospitality he experienced with Philadelphia host family member, Pamela Yaller. The SUSI host family experience is typically a formative one during our students’ academic residency in Philadelphia allowing students to get a chance to spend a weekend with an American family and see the country from their perspective.

Your donation supports programs that advance understanding and dialogue across religious and cultural differences.

With your help, we can continue to deliver meaningful learning experiences that foster an appreciation of religious pluralism and develop dialogue skills needed for social change.

We are excited to deepen our connection to diverse communities around the globe through continued programming, new collaborations, and increasing our digital presence. This year we are working to continue our zoom dialogue and lecture series to connect our larger national and international community as well as implement tours in our Philadelphia region. Your donation helps us continue this work and share new perspectives and tools with our network. Follow us on social media or sign up for our mailing list to receive information on our upcoming events.