Faith in Diversity Newsletter - 5.25.25 - Remembering the UNF Interfaith Center

I was the Director of the University of North Florida Interfaith Center in Jacksonville, Florida, from May 2018 until November 2023, when I made an early exit before Florida laws led to its ultimate closure in April 2024. No one remained employed by the Center when I left, so for all intents and purposes it was closed from then. 

I presided over the second half of the Center’s lifespan. It had been born at the inception of the 2010s, following the model of the national organization Interfaith Youth Core, which has evolved into a broader mission and rebranded as Interfaith America. I’m grateful for their support as I have undertaken a project to record the history of UNF’s contribution to institutionalizing religious diversity and empowering students to lead the way. 

Over the next several months, I will be sharing this journey through the Faith in Diversity newsletter. Some of it will be original writing but it will also include interviews with the dramatis personae, the cast of characters, students, faculty, staff and clergy, who helped shape the impact of the Interfaith Center on UNF’s campus. 

As an entry point for the next two weeks, I will share with you today my experience with the Interfaith Center, as well as my own undergraduate experience when it did not exist. 

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In the Fall of 2001, I started as a freshman. One day several weeks in, I was walking across campus for my Noon class and everyone was walking the wrong direction. It seemed everyone was headed away from classes. They were. We did not have smartphones and I had not seen the news. It was September 11. 

I had always taken great interest in my own religion, the nerdy kid sitting in the front row of church, taking notes in the sermon. In my teen years, my parents had given me the opportunity to learn about Judaism. After 9/11, it was clear I had much to learn about Islam. I saw how the religious claims of the terrorists were quickly extrapolated onto the whole religion and all Muslims, and though I instinctively knew that was wrong, I did not yet have the knowledge or tools to counter. 

UNF had a campus ministry office which almost completely consisted of Christian ministries. Though my own radar for religious diversity was just developing, none of the initiatives which would form later were present. After I graduated in 2005, an Interfaith Club would form, led by a Palestinian Christian student and a Jewish student. This was one step, alongside support from Christian campus ministers to support more religious diversity, which helped lead to the founding of the UNF Interfaith Center. 

For my part, where I knew to look was the Religion courses. I enrolled in World Religions, which was a survey of religions across the world, with the most energy given to the big 5 of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, as well as Chinese traditions like Confucianism and Daoism. Some limited attention was given to smaller and “indigenous” traditions. 

One of the more frustrating aspects of the course was that the professor seemed befuddled by the aggressive stance of some students in support of their viewpoint on religion and their viewpoint only, whether it was a post-9/11 demonization of Islam or an insistence on the infallibility of the Bible. I got the idea that she was not from the South and did not know what she had gotten herself into in the Bible Belt. She knew a lot about religion but did not have the tools to navigate religious diversity in her own classes, nor did the students who spar with her have the opportunity to see how they could dialogue across difference with curiosity. To be fair, even with my curiosity about other religions, I did not follow this to seek out people of other religions on campus. 

What was missing across campus, among professors and students, and I am sure among staff too, was a radar for religious diversity.  

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I never strayed far from UNF. I remained in the orchestra for several years after I left and heard through the grapevine about campus ministries. But it was not until 8 years later that I learned about the Interfaith Center, then in its 3rd or 4th year. I sat down at the UNF Starbucks, tucked under the library (an addition since I had graduated), and met Rachael McNeal. Long story short, when I met her, I was a Presbyterian youth minister and she was an Interfaith Center employee, and by 5 years later we had switched, very nearly starting the same week in our new flipped roles. On that day in 2013, Rachael shared with me about her work as the Coordinator of the Center, under the supervision of Director Tarah Trueblood. They were essentially a student affairs office, providing students with co-curricular opportunities to engage religious diversity and become campus leaders in doing so, and collaborating with other staff and faculty. 

Within the next year, Rachael had extended to me the offer to serve as a facilitator and Christian voice for the Center’s Interfaith text study, which compared sacred scriptures or sources on particular topics, like caring for the Earth or human rights. I got my first dip into these programs and I loved it. I was in the mix with college students, witnessing and encouraging their mutual curiosity. Intellect and spirit played together. Questions and disagreement were welcome. I made new friends like my Muslim counterpart, Kanybek, who remains a close friend a decade later. And I got to know students who I have stayed in touch with, who represented such a variety of religion, race, and various other aspects of diversity. 

After this first taste, I knew that I wanted to stay involved with the Center. I continued to be a Text Study Facilitator, and then came a big offer from Tarah, the Director of the Center - to join the larger work of Interfaith in the community. In short order, I would take up that project, pick up another to submit (and win) a $100,000 grant, and by spring of 2018, apply for the role Tarah had vacated. 

Next week: the Atlantic Institute, Pilgrim Bridge, and when you almost miss your dream job.  

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For any feedback, reach out to me by email at: faithindiversityproject@gmail.com

Thank you for subscribing and see you next time! ~ Matt