General
Group Name:
Interfaith@MIT
President's Name:
Leanna Morinishi
President's Username:
leanna
Treasurer's Name:
Nina Sinatra
Treasurer's Username:
nina
Initial Membership: (usernames of at least 5 MIT students who will join the group)
nsinatra
deeni
fsafir
arfa
bmm515
afrah
Statement of Purpose
Why are you, the founders, starting the group?
The purpose of Interfaith@MIT is to catalyze relationships between religious groups on campus and to invite the MIT community to take notice and take part in activities that reach across cultural, intellectual and religious bounds. Specifically, Interfaith strives towards the following goals:
- Interfaith Catalyst
*: To bring religious or belief groups on campus together, two at a time, to deepen understanding and cultivate respect at both the religious and personal level; to involve the MIT community in interfaith activities on campus; to promote interfaith and faith-specific events on campus and encourage attendance from all belief groups.
- Common Action
*: To organize interfaith cooperation through projects such as service-learning and social action that will influence both personal attitudes and the bonds of a community through a common goal and a positive collective experience.
- Faith Focus
*: To celebrate the diverse and remarkable people on campus, showcasing one belief group at a time through a brief cultural or intellectual presentation to foster understanding between peoples.
How is this group unique? Could the ASA find similarities with other groups? If so, why should this group obtain recognition? What are the differences?
This group is very unique. There is no other interfaith-focused group on campus. The one program that the ASA might see as similar to Interfaith@MIT is the "Addir Fellows Program" organized through the Division of Student Life and run by Ora Gladstone. Throughout the application and starting-up process, Interfaith has worked very closely with Ora for insight and advice, and not only has she agreed that our methodology of fostering interfaith understanding and relationships is fundamentally different, but she has been the biggest advocate of us founding this group so far.
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.