A Fellowship of Friendships
Students in the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life find connection and community
Since her first year at Colby, Isabelle Harrison Bregman ’24 has been attending the Wednesday Multifaith Dinners in Lorimer Chapel, one of the many offerings of the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life. She enjoys the weekly dinner because it gives her a chance to socialize with students of varied backgrounds and practices.
“We all have our differences,” she said, “but we also all have traditions that are based in similar values when you get to the root of them. And that brings us together.”
The Office of Religious and Spiritual Life offers students the opportunity to explore and enrich the spiritual or religious parts of their lives and learn about the experiences of others. Its clubs, campus events, spiritual-wellness programs, support groups, community engagements, Monday Night Friends Community Dinners, and Wednesday Multifaith Dinners celebrate and sustain the eclectic mix of belief systems and worldviews at Colby.
In the office’s Fellowship Program, each of 10 work-study students helps run the center and takes on a different fellow role throughout the academic year. The students are the heartbeat of the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, or ORSL, leading and collaborating on projects and events. The students come from a variety of places with different ethnicities, religions, spiritualities, and values.
“What’s most remarkable to me is how much they enjoy being together,” said Kate Smanik, dean of religious and spiritual life. “And they’re not an existing friends’ group, though some of them knew each other before I hired them. But they are now a really lovely social support for one another. They’re honest and open about who they are, and they clearly care about each other and the work they’re doing for the success of our office.”
“When you interact with people of different backgrounds, it helps you be more understanding of them and more accessible to them.”
Haadi Khan ’26
When Smanik came to Colby in fall 2019 to lead the office, she benefited from three work-study students who were familiar with ORSL and proved to be a great sounding board. They gathered faculty, staff, and students for an assessment of the office, and they identified what was missing and the ways it could grow.
A full complement of fellows
In 2022 more work-study fellows arrived, bringing the number to 10. That fall Smanik, her wife, the Rev. Kate Kozinski, their then-9-year-old son, Zach, and all the fellows went to Colby’s Island Campus for an overnight retreat. In what became an annual event, they cooked, hiked, biked, and hung out.
They also convened more formally using a restorative practice called the Circle Process, to share their values and beliefs about the world around them and their own lives, in general, and spiritually. That process, which promotes trust, has become a key element of the office in the years since.
The office is predicated on friendship, support, and faith—in one another and in something larger. “We encourage each other to go to each other’s events,” said Furqan Qureshi ’24, the Muslim fellow, who was born and raised on Long Island, N.Y. “Sometimes you’re doing something all on your own, so it’s good to have people you’re friends with who are also supporting what you’re doing. You’re not alone in your position. That’s the main thing.”
He and other Muslim students aren’t alone in their Islamic faith, thanks to ORSL. Every Friday, Qureshi leads about 20 Muslim students and others at Rose Chapel for Jumu’ah, or Friday Prayer, where Qureshi gives the sermon. “I feel very fulfilled, personally and spiritually, because I’m able to give back in some way,” said Qureshi.
With the nearest Mosque in Augusta, being able to congregate on campus is something for which Haadi Khan ’26 is grateful. “Back home there’d be a call to prayer at the mosque, and I took it for granted until I came here and realized what I was missing,” said Khan, who is from Pakistan and is majoring in psychology, minoring in philosophy, and considering a career as a hospice therapist.
Meetings at Rose Chapel
Every two weeks, the fellows discuss their goals and brainstorm ideas. They gather as a group for an hour every other Friday in the lounge outside Rose Chapel. Again, in a circle, they offer updates on their current and upcoming projects and events they’re working on, and afterward, they sit around and talk.
The meetings are casual, fun, and “very chill. It doesn’t feel like work, just something we love doing,” said Qureshi, who is double majoring in psychology with a concentration in neuroscience and in religious studies and wants to pursue a career in clinical psychology.
Harrison Bregman said she has learned a lot about Islam through her involvement with the office. Raised by a Christian mother and Jewish father, she was converted to Judaism as an infant. When the office’s work-study position of multifaith fellow opened to lead the Wednesday Multifaith Dinners, it was a natural fit. She shares the duties with Audrey Palmer ’25, who will take over the role when Harrison Bregman graduates.
“It’s important to know people of other traditions because there’s so much division, especially now around religion.”
Isabelle Harrison Bregman ’24
Makda Tadess ’26, the Black and Latinx spiritual wellness fellow, is from Ethiopia and came to the United States at age 7. “I grew up Orthodox Christian, but I’m not a part of any religion now. But I love going to the Multifaith Dinners every week. It’s a pretty tight-knit group,” said Tadess, who is majoring in environmental studies and minoring in cinema studies. Being in the Black and Latinx community at Colby “makes me perfect for this fellow job. Everybody in the office has their own area working with different groups on campus, but we’re all working together toward the same goals.”
“Every dinner has a different topic, and it’s not always about spirituality and religion. We’ll also talk about such things as competition, the afterlife, and animals and souls,” said Harrison Bregman, an English major with a concentration in creative writing.
Many of the fellows associate with each other elsewhere on campus, strengthening their ties while raising the office’s profile. Nico Flota Sanchez ’25, ORSL student office assistant, and Harrison Bregman work together in the costume shop at the Gordon Center for Creative and Performing Arts. She and Rachel Hatheway ’24, lives of purpose and restorative practices fellow, are both on the Colby woodsman’s team.
Last November Harrison Bregman and Tadess partnered with Flota Sanchez and the Spanish Club for Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), the traditional Mexican holiday honoring and celebrating deceased loved ones. “Collaborations with the other fellows happen naturally. We’re interested in what people are doing,” Tadess said. “I enjoyed being a part of people getting in touch with their tradition. That’s spiritual wellness in itself.”
So was the chai and cookies evening in Rose Chapel’s lounge last fall. Planned in response to the Israel-Hamas war, it provided community support following the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine. The fellows organized the impromptu, drop-in gathering, attended by about 30 students.
“They’re learning how to take their own gifts, whatever they are, and use them in a way that benefits the people around them,” said Smanik. “And they’re learning what it might be like to be in a community where you can be fully honest about who you are in the world and be with others like that, even though your beliefs conflict sometimes.”
It means a lot to Khan to get to know such a diverse group of people and be a part of their lives in any capacity. “When you interact with people of different backgrounds, it helps you be more understanding of them and more accessible to them,” said Khan, the media and advertising fellow, who is responsible for photographing events and maintaining the office’s Instagram posts. “These opportunities at ORSL are helping me grow in ways I never would have, and friendships have formed with people I might never have met otherwise.”
