Warwick Chaplin to present a paper at Yale

Warwick Chaplain, Rev Dr Stuart Jennings, is travelling to Yale for the 2012 Global Conference of Chaplains in Higher Education to present a paper on multi-faith spaces in universities to delegates from across the world.

He has served as Chaplain of the University since 2006 and will be exploring how universities may pursue a ‘model’ space for religious provisions.

Speaking to the _Boar_, Dr. Jennings explained that his paper, ‘Creating multi-faith space on university campuses’ would discuss the ethos behind multi-faith spaces: “It’s about what you call these facility spaces, it’s about social space, gender space, dietary requirements, where people can prepare food”.

The chaplain further highlighted the importance of having multi-faith spaces in university campuses such as Warwick which do not have easy access to places of worship. In the last International Student Barometer Warwick was voted first for faith provisions, topping the table for institutions in the UK, across Europe and the rest of the world.

Nevertheless, Dr Jennings was by no means complacent: “we still need to have the right processes in place, having the right ethos and the right commitment to do that – and the facilities and resources”. His paper builds on 15 years of experience, including acting as a Trustee at Coventry Multi-faith Forum and membership of Leicester Council of Faiths. He has provided advice to companies and schools in his various positions of responsibility.

On finding the balance between inclusion and segregation, the chaplain judged that the issue was making the right provisions for different needs: “You wouldn’t expect a vegetarian to prepare their lunch in the middle of a butcher’s shop”.

Dr Jennings commented that the interesting issue is about gender space: “in the UK we have had to fight for 70 years against institutionalism or sexism which have prevented women from entering places”. He believes that the ethos across the UK has been about creating equal access.

He argues that because of Britain’s history, when we hear about separation, automatically the hackles go up and we’re concerned. Yet many of our international students seem much more comfortable with having separate areas: “Certainly for people with dress requirements, sometimes it’s nice for women to have a place where they can remove their head scarves and not be concerned about men being around. The dynamic is about how we actually facilitate people who come from different cultures, whilst enjoying the huge range of things that are available at Warwick. It’s not about either or – it’s about facilitating both.”

The chaplain feels that it is our attitude towards multi-faith spaces which is important: “We in the West tend to separate faith and culture, and somehow we tend to accept culture but not faith – we are a secular society. But for much of the world, faith and culture are intricately bound together.”

Dr Jennings looks forward to sharing ‘the Warwick experience’ in Yale where there will be delegates from all around the world: “so I hope it will enable Warwick to continue in the dialogue” but he is equally interested in hearing how the experience is being addressed elsewhere.