...
The main difference between the well-established Addir and what Interfaith hopes to accomplish is that Addir fosters deeper intellectual understanding between individuals of different faiths through small group discussions, where Interfaith hopes to bring the established religious groups on campus together through community service and collaborative informative events for the greater MIT community. While our goals of fostering interfaith understanding and mutual respect are the same, our methods are completely different. Interfaith@MIT holds that interfaith cooperation such as service-learning and social action that facilitates meaningful encounters between peoples is the most effective way to transform negative stereotypes.
Why does the group need ASA recognition? What resources do you expect to use?
This group requires ASA recognition to exist as a legitimate platform for bringing religious groups on campus together. We plan on organizing many interfaith events throughout the academic year, and being an official club at MIT as opposed to a disorganized group of students would facilitate our communications with the chaplains as well as the belief groups on campus.
First, we would like ASA recognition in order to legitimately use MIT as part of our name. Our primary focus is on involving MIT students; thus, SynBUM is the most appropriate name for our group, and we would like to legitimize our use of this name by obtaining ASA recognition.
Second, the ability to attend the ASA Activities Midways during Orientation and Campus Preview Weekend would be very helpful. In addition for recruiting purposes, we would also try to improve the perception of synthetic biology in the public eye. People in general fear the idea of synthetic biology simply because they misunderstand the concepts and motivation behind the research. We would like the opportunity to work to change that bias in a larger audience.
Third, we would appreciate being able to reserve rooms, acquire a small lab space, and apply for money from the Fresh Fund for supplies and instruments as a legitimate organization.
Finally, we would like to exist as an entity under MIT that would give us a legitimate platform on which to contact professors, industry leaders and other sponsors outside of MIT to help us in promoting the idea of synthetic biology. We plan on working with many organizations such as Synberc, SBWG, Biobuilder.org, the SEED program, the COPUS group, and iGEM, and being an official club at MIT as opposed to a loosely tied group of undergraduates would facilitate our communications with them.
How do you plan to fund the group?
...