October
24, 2003
MHC
and Hampshire Share Spiritual Life Program
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Photo: Jennifer Adams
Eliot
House, the center for spiritual life at MHC
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Mount Holyoke is renowned among New England colleges
for its thriving spiritual life program. This year the College
is taking its program on the road, having agreed to expand its
spiritual life work to the Hampshire College campus.
Andrea Ayvazian, dean of religious and spiritual
life and Protestant chaplain at Mount Holyoke, is pleased with
the arrangement, which is the culmination of three years of planning
with Hampshire president Gregory S. Prince Jr.
Hampshire will underwrite the services of the
Mount Holyoke personnel. "This is enlarging and strengthening
a bond that's already there," said Ayvazian. "Eliot
House is well known and well loved on this campus. But it is very
exciting that the Hampshire community has a strong sense of who
we are right away. It's given our staff a real sense of pride
and delight. People at Hampshire greet us warmly. They say, ‘We've
heard about you. We're so thrilled you're here.'"
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Photo: Ellen Augarten
Andrea
Ayvazian, MHC's dean of religious and spiritual life and
Protestant chaplain
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As part of the Two-College Spiritual Life Program,
Mount Holyoke chaplains and spiritual advisers will staff the
spiritual life office in Merrill House at Hampshire and provide
pastoral care and counseling there. In addition, they will arrange
programs for different religious groups each weekday.
Participating chaplains are Rabbi Lisa Freitag-Keshet,
Jewish chaplain; Anita Magovern, Catholic chaplain; Sister Shamshad
Sheikh, Muslim chaplain; and Ayvazian. Volunteer advisers who
are Buddhist, Hindu, Baha'i, Unitarian-Universalist, and Pagan-Wiccan
will also participate. Hampshire students can attend services
and gatherings at MHC's Abbey Memorial Chapel, Interfaith Sanctuary,
and Eliot House.
The spiritual life program helps students not
only practice their own religion, but also experience others.
"What we do is both unique and paradoxical," Ayvazian
said. "We help students go very deep into their own faith
traditions, and we also help the same students explore other faiths.
Some students who are Jewish attend our Protestant services, some
Christians enjoy going to Buddhist meditation. Students go with
roommates and friends to services new to them, not in their own
faith tradition. It's not just theory."
Ayvazian said she is already seeing Hampshire
students in services and gatherings. In a recent Daily Hampshire
Gazette interview, she said she believes both schools will
benefit. "We will bring Hampshire students here," she
noted, "which means there will be young men on campus."
She looks forward to working with the Hampshire community. "It's
a very different campus from ours," Ayvazian said. "We're
having a productive and rewarding time over there."
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