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Augsburg Students Chosen for National Interfaith Fellowship

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A group of students and mentors are gathered together and smiling in front of the entrance to a building with white pillars and a white front door. Augsburg students Theo Coval and Augusta Nepor Sowa traveled to Utah for the first annual gathering of the Interfaith BRAID (Bridgebuilders Relating Across Interfaith Differences) Fellowship at the end of February. 

The BRAID Fellowship is an Interfaith America initiative designed in response to increasing prejudice and polarization. This program equips student fellows with skills, training, education, and experiences to collaborate effectively with communities close to home and across the country. 

“It is so meaningful to have the opportunity to work with Interfaith America and meet so many passionate campus leaders,” said Coval. “It was a genuine honor to be included amongst the peers I met in Salt Lake City, and I am very excited to be working on a campus project as part of the fellowship.”

Coval and Sowa were selected from a national pool of applicants. The program is designed to help students become interfaith bridgebuilders on their campuses and in their communities. Najeeba Syeed, El-Hibri Endowed chair and executive director of the Interfaith Institute, serves as a BRAID Fellowship mentor and works closely with these students as well. 

“Being part of this opportunity means stepping beyond conversation and into connection, where diversity isn’t just acknowledged but engaged with, where differences aren’t just tolerated but honored,” said Sowa. “It’s about choosing pluralism, embracing the richness of perspectives, and discovering unity in diversity. In a world where everyone wants to be heard, this experience has taught me the true power of listening with an open heart.”Learn more about the Interfaith Institute at Augsburg University.

Augsburg’s Interfaith Institute receives grant to develop Muslim interfaith leadership cohort

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"AVD initials with text 'The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations' in gold."Augsburg University’s Interfaith Institute was recently awarded a grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations. Funding will be used to create a Muslim-led cohort of students from colleges throughout the Midwest; these students will offer interfaith leadership opportunities for their campuses. Cohort members will receive skill-building around topics like best practices for interfaith engagement in higher education and how to address campus conflicts involving religion. 

“We are excited for this opportunity to share Augsburg’s interfaith learnings with other campus communities,” says Najeeba Syeed, El-Hibri Endowed Chair and executive director of the Interfaith Institute at Augsburg. “These students will become interfaith leaders who are equipped to facilitate dialogue and build bridges within their communities and throughout their professional lives.”  

The project aims to build capacity on college campuses for Muslim students to lead interfaith engagement among their peers. Located in the culturally diverse Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, Augsburg is uniquely equipped to carry out this work, with 66% of undergraduate students identifying as Black, Indigenous, or as People of Color, and over 12% as Muslim. Interfaith engagement is a core aspect of Augsburg’s academic mission and strategic plan. The university launched the Interfaith Institute in 2018 and appointed Najeeba Syeed as the inaugural El-Hibri Endowed Chair and executive director in 2022. 

The $189,630 grant will be distributed between August 2024 and July 2026. The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations’ Interfaith Leadership and Religious Literacy program area supports organizations that invest in courageous multi-faith conversations and collaborations.

‘Humble Listening’: Najeeba Syeed Featured on Interfaith America Podcast

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Najeeba Syeed is wearing a pink heaadscarf, round gold earrings, and a purple shirt while posing against a blue and purple background.Najeeba Syeed, El-Hibri Endowed Chair and executive director of the Interfaith Institute at Augsburg University, was a recent guest on the Interfaith America Podcast with I’m Eboo Patel. The conversation explored the ethics and future of interfaith work amid deep divides across religious communities, the impact of global wars and crises on religious communities, and the role of institutions in promoting interfaith understanding through open-mindedness and deep listening. 

Towards the end of the podcast, Professor Syeed reflected on fostering constructive interfaith conversations in the classroom and on campus:

“To me, the confidence that I have in being Muslim and the teachings and the capacity is not impinged upon by being present for people of other faiths,” she said. “I can walk into a space and I have a deep belief that I’m there because of the calling of being a Muslim. It isn’t a threat to me to show up and exhibit rahma or which is compassion. It comes from the root word Rahmah, the same in Hebrew around the idea of the womb to express compassion for others because it isn’t a threat to my own interpretation of who I am. … It’s a position of strength and not a position of deficiency.”

“That to me is a spiritual lesson that interfaith can bring to so many of the dialogues that we’re trying to have on our campus, is that maybe the position of strength is actually doing this humble listening.”

“The position of strength doesn’t mean that we move to a diluted, common understanding of the world where we all accept one interpretation, a universal theology, or one diluted version. Maybe the strength is that we listen to each other.” 

Listen to the podcast via Interfaith America: “How Can We Engage in “Sacred Witness” Amid Deep Conflict?”