Week 6:

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to interview a Muslim undergraduate student.  When I received an invitation to MSA’s Muslim awareness week, I was disappointed that I could not fit any of the events into my schedule (they were all in the late evening at the lake shore campus).  I emailed back and forth with an SBA student who is active in the MSA, and he arranged to introduce me to VN, a female Muslim undergrad here at Loyola.  In our initial conversation, I was struck by how open and approachable she was, so I asked her if she would be willing to meet me for a more personal conversation.  She was excited to hear about the Voice project, and agreed to talk with me the following week.

The first thing we discussed was the veil that VN proudly wears.  She commented that it was the first thing people see when they meet her, and is therefore a significant part of her identity.  She confessed, however, that she often forgets that it is there, and wonders why people look at her with an inquisitive expression.  She told me the story of how the veil came into her life: although her mother began wearing a veil when her brother was born, she discouraged her daughters from doing the same.  In post September 11th America, her mother felt that it was an unnecessarily dangerous expression of their faith.  Despite this objection, VN began wearing the veil when she was 16.  The family was moving from the South to Chicago, and she felt that this dramatic life change was a good time to make a dramatic declaration of her faith’s importance in her life.  The morning of her first day at her new school, she put on the veil before coming downstairs.  Her parents were anxious, and tried to change her mind, but she persisted. 

I asked if she got any negative reaction from her new peers, and she said that the response was mostly positive.  She has felt more strongly tied to her faith since wearing the veil, and has not regretted her choice.  I asked whether she had found the same acceptance at Loyola, and she said that she felt completely accepted, welcomed, and embraced here.

As we transitioned to talking directly about her Loyola experience, I asked my most pressing question.  Why, as a Muslim, did she choose a Catholic university?  She laughed, and told me that her family had moved to Chicago for her dad to take a position at Loyola’s medical school, so she had very few other options than to attend Loyola.  Additionally, she graduated from high school a year early, so her parents wanted her as close to home as possible.  VN shared that they did not look into any other schools when she applied to Loyola.  Had she not gotten in, she would have waited a year until she was the traditional college age before applying elsewhere. 

In hindsight, VN feels that she would choose Loyola again, even if given other options.  The values of the institution are important to her, and she feels that they correlate closely to her personal values.  She has also found herself to be pleased with the required exploration of other faith traditions.  She has enjoyed her theology classes, and has felt more closely tied to her Muslim faith due to the consideration of other ideas.  I asked if she thought she was the exception in this case, or if other Muslim students she knew felt differently, and she told me she thought that most students feel that they benefit from dialogue with students different from themselves.  She has not heard objections to the theology requirements from anyone in her social circle.

VN shared with me that all of the religious student groups have their offices on the same floor of the Mundelein Center.  She finds this to be a wonderful example of the phrase “a home for all faiths.”  There are regular opportunities for interaction among the student groups, and opportunities for casual encounters in the common areas around the offices.  VN feels that this allows for a greater awareness of the events and activities of the other groups, and places them all on the same level of importance. 

I learned so much from my conversation with VN, and I was thrilled to hear that the “Home for all faiths” slogan is true in her experience.  The only suggestion for improvement that she offered was the possible creation of a prayer space on the water tower campus.  VN prays 5 times daily, and needs a quiet space to do so.  The facility on the lake shore campus is perfectly suited to this, but water tower only has a study space in the library allocated for this use.  It is not widely publicized, and she told me that she only found it by accident.  It seems like this could be an easy fix with a great benefit, so I told her I would pass the feedback onto a colleague in the mission and ministry office.

After our visit, VN and I emailed back and forth several times.  We really got along well, and both enjoyed the conversation a great deal.  She told me that it was nice to explain core aspects of her faith to someone who was unfamiliar, and that she learned/remembered a lot from the exercise.  We plan to keep in touch!