STUDENT ENGAGEMENT Learning to Communicate Across Faiths

When Arsha Sharma, T ’23, first arrived at Duke, she quickly found a place to belong in the Hindu Students Association (HSA), but soon she was curious about meeting students of other faiths.

“I really felt welcomed into my own community, but one incredible thing about Duke is that other people were really gracious in explaining their own faith,” says Sharma, a senior from Charlotte, North Carolina.

With her burgeoning interest in inter-religious dialogue, she took on the role of interfaith co-chair for HSA. She partnered with three other groups on campus—Jewish Life, Muslim Life, and the Sikh Society—to create a student interfaith lunch series.

“That’s where my journey with interfaith really started,” Sharma says.

It is a journey Sharma says has complemented her studies as a neuroscience major and her aspiration to work in healthcare. In classes such as “The History of Mental Illness” and “Drugs, Brain, and Perception,” she has sought to understand what lies behind people’s behaviors.

“Whether it was mental illness, whether it was pharmaceutical drugs or addiction, I felt like if I could understand the reasoning behind it that would make me somebody who is a better fit for healthcare,” she says. “I’ve realized through the interfaith journey that with people’s personal behaviors, they have a lot of reasoning behind it, so I can translate that [understanding of people’s motivations] into being openminded and understanding [people’s] reasoning in other spaces.”

In her junior year, Sharma expanded her interfaith efforts. She was elected to Duke Student Government (DSG) and created an Interfaith Caucus. The group held an Interfaith Week that highlighted Religious Life events and services on campus. They also worked with the Chapel’s director of Religious Life, the Rev. Kathryn Lester-Bacon, to share social media posts that marked religious holidays, including the Sikh holiday of Guru Gobind Singh Jayanti.

“I remember the Duke Sikh Society really felt welcomed at Duke at that moment because representatives of Duke were taking the initiative to showcase their students,” Sharma says.

Throughout her time at Duke, Sharma cites the value of having a Hindu chaplain to provide support and guidance. Chaplain Priya Amaresh leads weekly HSA meetings on Thursday evenings and also organizes trips to a local Hindu temple, hosts yoga sessions, and takes students to an international grocery store.

“She has really been vital to helping to create a community here,” Sharma says. “I know a lot of students, both undergrad and grad, go to her to seek advice or support.”

As she nears graduation, Sharma says her experience with Duke’s religious groups has shaped how she relates to people who are different from herself:

“One big thing I learned from my interfaith journey . . is ways that we can communicate with each other that don’t highlight the differences in our identities—but acknowledge them —and use that to form closer relationships with other people.”

Watch a video version of this profile at chapel.duke.edu/FaithAndLearning.