Are you interested in cultivating a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world while working at the intersection of religious and cultural difference? According to the Academy for Cultural Diplomacy, interfaith dialogue:
plays a vital role in [advancing] world peace by uniting faiths and by fostering reciprocal understanding, acceptance and tolerance amongst disparate religious communities. Inter-faith dialogue can in this way break down walls of division and the barriers that stand at the center of numerous wars, with the objective of achieving peace.1
In October 2022, two Grinnell College alumni—Jeetander Dulani ’98 and Robert Gehorsam ’76—established the Harold Kasimow Internship for Interfaith Dialogue Endowed Fund. This particular fund was established to celebrate and honor Professor Emeritus Harold Kasimow’s lifelong contributions to interfaith dialogue and to support practical summer internship experiences for Grinnell College students in the areas of interfaith education, peace, and justice.
For students for whom this is an area of sincere interest, the following sampling of organizations may have either a standing summer internship program or may be sites where a summer internship could be proposed.
- Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies
- Interfaith Alliance
- Interfaith America
- Interfaith Center of New York
- Interfaith Philadelphia
- Parliament of the World’s Religions
- The Pluralism Project at Harvard University
- The Temple of Understanding
- United Religions Initiative
If you need coaching or assistance in applying for an internship or on how to propose an internship to an organization that does not have an existing program, please schedule an appointment with a CLS adviser.
The summer 2024 internship funding application process opens on February 1, 2024, and will close on April 9, 2024, at 11:59pm CDT. Proceeds of all endowed internship funds, including this one, are awarded through this process.
1 https://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/academy/index.php?en_historical-examples
