Vision
The Hassan Institute (HI) serves and enables meaningful, life-changing inter and intra-religious encounters across the city of Chicago and beyond. The scope of the Hassan Institute’s vision and activism includes research, teaching support, faculty fellowships, student internships, public lectures and workshops, community outreach, educational trips, and public programs all for the promotion of transformative encounters between diverse believers and faith communities.
Aims
- Explore the world’s diverse religious traditions by facilitating transformative encounters between the practitioners of those traditions
- Consider multiple, intersecting identities (e.g. culture, ethnicity, race, gender, geography)
- Acknowledge and evaluate one’s own biases, judgements, and limitations
- Cultivate personal and interpersonal awareness and growth
- Promote a culture of understanding and inclusivity
- Shape respectful critical thinking and conscientious global citizenship
- Encourage moral growth and center moral responsibility
- Promote interfaith collaboration for peacebuilding
- Amplify intellectual and spiritual development through experiential learning activities
Purpose
- Examine social, historical, and cultural factors that contribute to the “othering” of different peoples, approaches, and perspectives both in society and in individual perceptions.
- Center the value of assuming the best intentions and sincerity of the other (husn-al-dhann) by demonstrating moral reasoning to promote the dignity and humanity of diverse populations in one’s own professional and personal life.
- Nurture safe and inclusive environments for learning and growth.
- Mature in moral and ethical reasoning and action.
- Strengthen one’s own faith commitments.
- Foster relationships between and among different individuals and communities for peacebuilding.
- Create a foundation for cooperation on common social and moral issues.
- Articulate one’s own transformative encounter.
Principles
- Active Listening
- Empathy
- Positive Thinking of the “other”
- Safeguard the dignity of the “other”
- Respectful exchange
- Being Self-reflective of Our Own Prejudice and Biases
- Confront existing power/privilege
