# Video: In Conversation: The Bicentennial Gomes Honorees May 05, 2017 Alumni/Alumnae Council Chairperson Christopher J. Hanson, MDiv ’10, moderated a discussion with this year's Gomes Honorees about their time at HDS, their views on the importance of School, and their work in the world. The panel was part of HDS's bicentennial celebration and alumni reunion. This year, the council recognized the preacher and civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Charles Gilchrist Adams, B.D. ’64; the activist and educator Precious Rasheeda Muhammad, M.T.S. ’01; Mary E. Hunt, M.T.S. ’74, the feminist theologian and cofounder of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual; and the scholar David Little, Th.D. ’63, formerly the T.J. Dermot Dunphy Professor of the Practice in Religion, Ethnicity, and International Conflict at HDS. The AAC also recognizes two non-alumni who had an outsized impact on HDS: Constance Buchanan, founding director of the Women’s Studies in Religion Program, and the late Buddhist scholar Robert H.L. Slater, the first director of the Center for the Study of World Religions. ## Listen Harvard Divinity School · In Conversation: The Bicentennial Gomes Honorees ## In Conversation: The Bicentennial Gomes Honorees \[MUSIC PLAYING\] CHRISTOPHER J. HANSON: I'm glad to gather us all back together now and have a chance to hear from our wonderful Gomes honorees. I'd first like to take another moment to recognize our two nonalumni members of the honoree cohort this year. Those are Constance Buchanan and Robert Slater. Since the founding of the Gomes Honors, the Alumni/Alumnae Council has made a tradition of honoring one person each year who is not himself or herself a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and yet who has shown great love for the school and profound dedication to it. This year, because of the special nature of our bicentennial, we choose to honor Constance and Robert, two incredible figures from two beloved HDS institutions, the WSRP and CSWR. Chrissy and Peter, thank you for being here today and marking this occasion with us and accepting these awards on behalf of the honorees. I'd like to invite each of you to the podium now for remarks. Chrissy, we'll start with you. \[APPLAUSE\] CHRISSY ATKINSON: Hi. I'm sure all of you, as I do, wish that Connie were here herself to receive her award. But she told me what to say. So that's why I wrote it out because I didn't want to get it wrong. And this is basically coming from Connie. "My thanks to the HDS Alumnae Council for bestowing this honor on me and to the broader HDS community, staff, and faculty, who have supported WSRP through the decades. I'd like to express my deep gratitude. You see," and this quote is from Connie's book, Choosing to Lead, quote, "I never expected a divinity school to be the place in which my work would take shape." Perhaps a lot of us can say that. "But thanks to student, staff, and faculty allies across the decades, WSRP has been able to engage in work about profound change." I'm quoting again here. "The critical appropriation of the language of religion to give women what they have been denied by society, history, culture, and, paradoxically, by religious traditions themselves, giving women the tools to claim full moral agency in interpreting and shaping their own lives, the life of society, and human perceptions of ultimate truth. Leading WSRP was one of the great joys of my professional life. And I treasure the memories of what we accomplished together." And I sort of went over all that with Connie. She said, oh, but you must add how wonderful it is to see the work going forward. And I think we can all agree that the work is going forward beautifully. Thank you. \[APPLAUSE\] CHRISTOPHER J. HANSON: Robert? PETER SLATER: I just have 15 short things I want to say to you. My father was a graduate of Cambridge Emmanuel College, which was John Harvard's class, and also the one that Peter Gomes was. And my father, like Peter, was, first of all, a university chaplain and preacher. So I appreciate very much this honor to our family from the Gomes connection. One of the first visiting professors at the Center for Study of World Religions was TRV Murti, wrote The Central Philosophy of Buddhism. And he was so close to my father, he said, we must have been brothers in a previous life. And my father felt really good about that until I pointed out to him, that meant that my father was the evil brother because Murti was reborn a Brahmin. Seriously, the vote for my father's appointment was seven for and six against. It was that close. And the one who tipped the scales, as also in the Women's and the Jewish Studies part of this program, was Krister Stendahl, who was the faculty representative whose presence is here. \[APPLAUSE\] I came to Harvard because of Tillich. And I'm a past president of the North American Paul Tillich Society. Tillich was one of the ones who voted against, along with Paul Lehmann and all my theology professors. The reason they voted against was they had the German idea that a Protestant theological faculty should not be mixed up with other things. At the same year as the world religions came up, the Catholic Chair came up. Well, they wanted it in the university. The university wanted it in Divinity. And Dean Horton was the one who pushed it through. But for that support in the early days, by the end of it, my father had put them all on committees advising doctoral students. And they were all happily voting for the center. So when the first fundraising came up, they said, what makes Harvard different from Yale and Princeton? And they said, oh, it's that funny building across the street where the World Religion Center is. So thank you all for being here. Thank you. I, too, am a graduate of here. And we appreciate the support you've given. \[APPLAUSE\] CHRISTOPHER J. HANSON: Thank you so much, Chrissy and Peter. And congratulations to Connie and Robert. We are now going to have a conversation amongst the alumni honorees, including David, Precious, Mary, and Charles. Each person will start with a brief opening statement. And then we'll have some questions to engage upon. So first we'll start with David with your opening statement. DAVID LITTLE: Thank you very much. I have observed that when people receive awards, they usually give thanks to others. There is, I think, a religiously interesting point there. Whatever good we may do is never finally of our own making. I'm full of gratitude today to a whole variety of people, starting with my wife, Priscilla, who is here. I'd also like to acknowledge Peter Gomes, former friend and pastor, after whose name and in whose well-deserved honor these awards are given. I also want to thank the alumni committee for awarding me this honor. And I'd finally like to thank my colleagues, my fellow awardees. It's an honor to be a part of this distinguished group. I'm quite impressed by the accomplishments and contributions you all have made. I would like also to thank the administrations, faculty, and students that were here, were present in my two experiences at Harvard. I was a graduate student here from 1958 to 1963 and then came back 36 years later as a member of the faculty from '99 until 2009. My experience here as a graduate student was, as was quoted this morning, very formative for me, both spiritually and intellectually. The key point was the relation of religion to social transformation that was being discussed at that time. The focus in those days, particularly, was on the historical connection. And it happened that across the university in those days, there was a good deal of interest and attention given to Anglo-American Puritanism and to the important significant contributions made by that group of people to economics, to political life, to social change, et cetera. It was that vision that was so appealing to me in those days. It's at that time that I learned about Roger Williams and the Quakers and their vision of inclusiveness in respect to religious freedom, fair treatment for Jews, Catholics, Native Americans, eventually for African-Americans, and even in some declarations for gender equality and the dismantlement of the patriarchal family. It's that inclusive vision, to be sure parochial in some ways, but nevertheless, extremely open ended, it seemed to me, that I think foreshadowed the HDS I encountered when I came back here in 1999. I was confronted by an array of courses, faculty, students studying all kinds of religious traditions apart from the Christian tradition and engaging themselves very productively with the subjects of gender, race, and ethnicity. I, myself, found myself teaching courses in religion and international affairs, religion and human rights, religion and peace, sometimes with members of the faculty of the government department and of the Kennedy Center. I was also facing a wide variety of diverse students, diverse not only in the sense of point of view and identity, but also in respect to the schools in which they were studying. It's that vision of diversity that struck me as so different from the earlier experience I had at Yale, even though it was connected to that early vision. In summary, it seems to me that the connection between these two, in my case at least, is that the subject of religion and social transformation is of central importance. While the Puritan experience is still important and significant, nevertheless, the new voices that are represented in the new, more recent version of Harvard Divinity School seems to me a very important addition to a legacy at Harvard Divinity School that, in a way, bridges both of these experiences of mine. But the new experience, the experience, the pluralism and diversity, is extremely enriching, in my experience. Thanks. \[APPLAUSE\] PRECIOUS RASHEEDA MUHAMMAD: Peace be unto you all. Can you hear me? No? They said they can't hear me. CHRISTOPHER J. HANSON: Turn the volume. PRECIOUS RASHEEDA MUHAMMAD: Yes. Peace be unto you all. Can you hear me? AUDIENCE: Yes. PRECIOUS RASHEEDA MUHAMMAD: OK. I'm honored to be here. I'm thankful for this honor. And I'm thankful that my family is here with me over there. In the spirit of Reverend Gomes, he was here when I was still at Harvard in 2001. He was a master, really, at taking the historical and the personal and telling true stories well told. I want to share a story. I hope it's not too long. In our old house in Virginia, that state known for its fight for religious freedom and for being a place of disembarkation for some of my oldest ancestors brought here in chains, in our old house in Virginia, not too far from where the dogwood trees on our street would whip themselves up into a shedding frenzy and drop into the air around us every spring, a near blinding snowstorm of soft, white petals mesmerizing my daughters, Nyota, Mirembe, and me, in our old house, a terrible thing happened that reminded me of why I do the work that I do. I was standing at the washing machine loading clothes when it happened. I felt as if someone had punched me in the back of my head. My hand groped at the spot and then held itself there, as if it had the ability in its sheer caring of its touch to release the pain. Then seated for calm, I felt as if a strange explosion had happened in my stomach, suffering that radiated out like fireworks in the sky, as their brilliant light scatterers in every direction after the big boom. The next day, my entire body was swollen, every part of me, but that was not the worst of it. The worst of it was that my skin began to peel from my body from head to toe. It just kept peeling and peeling. And this would be just one of many times of severe allergic reactions of different kinds I experienced most horrifically through my skin since early childhood. I know what it is like to feel uncomfortable in your own skin. Do you? Now, I was an expert at managing my suffering. From childhood, I instinctively trained myself to sit very still and be real quiet, wrap a cool, cotton sheet around my skin, as if I-- as if I had to for the very soothing comfort, for the calm, for the invisibility. But always, always suffer in silence until the past. Be real quiet. Be real still, like nothing bad was happening. My seventh grade teacher, Mr. Boswell, would watch me sit in class day after day and lather creams on my face to moisturize unsuccessfully. My inflamed skin refused to hold moisture, you see. I think Mr Boswell took pity on me. And so one day, he made me recite Maya Angelou's "Phenomenal Woman" in front of a high school, his high school class, me, the kids, me, the person that kids picked on because of my skin in front of high school students who could be particularly cruel. Didn't he know all I wanted was to be perfectly quiet, perfectly still, and suffer in silence? But Mr. Boswell knew what he was doing. He made my physical uncomfortability bearable by getting me to tell the stories of others. He unlocked my voice. He made me embrace the idea, in his words, "You cannot not communicate." And soon I was talking about pretty women wonder, where my secret lies. And if we must die, let us nobly die so that our precious blood may not be shed in vain. And for my people, standing, staring, trying to fashion a better way, trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people, all the faces, all the Adams and Eves and their countless generations, and Willie was a man without fame, crippled and limping, always walking lame. He said, "But I keep on moving, moving just the same." Maya Angelou, Margaret Walker, Claude McKay, and on and on, I fell in love with being-- I fell in love with being empowered by the stories of others. I carry this empowerment through storytelling with me many places, myself now a purposeful storyteller. Like Mr. Boswell, I hate to see people uncomfortable in their own skin. Why should anyone suffer in silence, quiet, still, and secluded, mummified, really, in a cool sheet of invisibility? I do the work I do to keep others and myself from suffering in silence, from being erased. I carry this empowerment with me, especially to my Muslim community. I tell my little girls, Mirembe and Nyota, who sometime ask me, "Mommy, why don't some people like Muslims?" I tell them, it's because people don't know our stories is the reason there's so much ignorance. We see it time and again-- a drunken man fired shots in a Connecticut mosque. Later he begs forgiveness, shares he was afraid of a religion he knew nothing about. A California student is kicked off a plane for saying what many religious Americans say of diverse traditions, God willing, but in Arabic. An influential Muslim man confides in me how a White House correspondent revealed to him, "I know nothing about Muslims. I don't even know how to write them, write about them," but she wanted to learn. Hence, I empower my fellow Muslims by researching and sharing our stories in a way that will reach far and wide. I know how much people don't know. And it's dangerous. I aim in my work not just to empower, but unite and build communities across divides. So I carry our Muslim stories, true stories well told, to a diversity of people and places, like museum exhibits and lyric essays, speeches and book chapters, to journalists and White House officials, leaving our footprints not just for today, but for hundreds of years from now so people might understand who we were and how we loved humanity. I hope for a more understanding world for all of our progeny-- yours, mine, and beyond's. That's the fierce urgency of mine now. And I'm humbled and grateful to be on this stage alongside elders driven by a fierce urgency also to do good. We're all connected to this special place that helped us, helped us bring more understanding to how people struggle to make sense of their lives through religion. Thank you. \[APPLAUSE\] CHRISTOPHER J. HANSON: Thank you. MARY E. HUNT: Good afternoon. And thank you to David and to Precious and in anticipation to my friend for the remarks I he will make shortly. It's great to be with all of you. And thanks to you, Chris, and especially to Margaret and other members of the Alumni Council. It's great, really, to be here and to see such a support for the way in which Harvard Divinity School has developed. I want to pay special tribute to Michael Goetz and to his staff, if you'll join me, the people who've really made this happen. \[APPLAUSE\] We've received lovely hospitality and a warm welcome from all of you. Thank you so much. I also want to thank my partner, Diann Neu, and my many friends scattered throughout the room here supporting this because I'm really-- I understand myself, as I think many of us do, as receiving an award on behalf of lots and lots of people. And I happen to represent and am mindful of the many women, and particularly the many LGBTIQ people, with special emphasis on trans people in this difficult time, who strode this campus well before and after I did. They left their marks on these halls and on the fields of feminist and queer studies in religion. And I bow this afternoon in gratitude to each and every one of them. I think, for example, of my friend, Brinton Lykes, who was the first coordinator of women's studies, the project that began the Research Resource Associates in Women's Studies program. And, in fact, the reason I mention it is because although Connie Buchanan ran it brilliantly, it was, in fact, a student-initiated effort at this school. And I want to emphasize the importance of students. It was the precursor to the program that we now celebrate. I also call to mind the early women students here. Again, in the 1950s, people like Letty Russell, they cannot have had an easy time being the first women in these places. I think with deep gratitude of Dr. Rena Karefa-Smart, who was the first African-American woman to receive a doctorate here at Harvard Divinity School. Please join me, Dr. Rena Karefa-Smart. \[APPLAUSE\] And in a particular way this afternoon, I want to acknowledge my friend and colleague Emily Cohen, who will graduate next month. And she symbolizes for us the many graduates for next month who will join this Alumni Association and who, in fact, are a cohort of explorers about to graduate and do what we have all done over the years. So to all of them, to all of you who are behind them, as it were, in your classes, all best wishes to you. The richness of Harvard Divinity School, in fact, lies ahead of us. And I think that it's remarkable how quickly these changes have taken place. David and I were both here twice in our time. But I think the really important thing to say is that achieving parity is really not the issue. The issue is that we've upped the game here at Harvard. People of color, LGBTIQ people, women, people of many faiths, and people of no faith whatsoever bring to this institution and to the world an endless array of talents and commitments. If anyone ever worries about diluting the product by diversifying the pool, let Harvard Divinity School be living proof that things only get better with more variety. \[APPLAUSE\] 100 years from now, when Harvard Divinity School convenes for the 300th birthday, I dare say very few, if any of us, will be present in body. But I wonder if the concerns that we Gomesians represent today, especially civil rights, full inclusion of Muslims in society, international human rights, and justice for women and LGBTIQ people, I wonder if those issues will even still be on the agenda. I fantasize that they'll be long settled and that the future, at future HDS alum events, there will be highlighted other issues that need critical religious attention, like the environment-- we're missing today's People's Climate March in Washington-- an end to war, a new just economic order. Perhaps by then, 100 years from now, robots and even a few of the great apes will number among HDS alums. Who knows. But whoever follows us a century from now will certainly be in the same position that we're in today. Peter Gomes put his finger on it. And with this, I conclude, he wrote in a sermon in 1990, and I quote Peter J. Gomes, "Therefore, those of you who think that now is the moment that we celebrate, you need only to look around you and see what remains to be done. And those of you antiquarians who think it was back there someplace and we've lost it, that we have only to go back and find it again, then you, too, don't understand," Peter Gomes says, "what we're seeking because what we're seeking is something that we have not yet had, which is why we continue to seek it. We're not recovering anything. We're hoping to discover something. And that is why virtue and wisdom are necessary ingredients in the ongoing renewal of our public civic life together," Peter Gomes. I urge us this afternoon to continue to cultivate the virtue and wisdom that emerged from myriad sources. I dare say virtue and wisdom are needed more this season than any I can recall for our collective survival and the thriving of this planet Thank you. I look forward to our discussion. \[APPLAUSE\] You're on. CHRISTOPHER J. HANSON: Thank you very much, Mary. Charles? CHARLES GILCHRIST ADAMS: Yes. I've been trying to figure out why I was put on the program. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to give account of my stewardship as a human being. My mother died when I was very, very near my 13th birthday. And one of the persons who came to help the family with arrangements happened to be my grand uncle. And he said, "Charles, well, I know you're going to miss your mother, but don't worry about it, too, you dear child. I'm going to send you to a place where you'll help get over this sad day. And I'm going to see that you get into Harvard University as a student of Theology. And that's the best comfort I can give you today now that you're 13, wondering whether you want to keep living." And he gave me a reason to live and a reason to lift my head high on my mother's funeral. She was the best friend I had in the world, and there she was gone. Should I still live here? He said, oh, yes. And you're going to Harvard. And that's going to make all the difference. That's all I have to say. I'm glad I'm here. And it's making a difference. \[APPLAUSE\] MARY E. HUNT: Thank you. CHRISTOPHER J. HANSON: Thank you very much for the four narratives that you have shared here today. Now we'll move into more open conversation format. And to start off, we'll start with this question, which is, during your times at HDS, you helped make this campus more inclusive. That's one of the reasons that you were identified as the honorees today. I was wondering if you could speak on this and with one another about what were the biggest challenges in making this campus more inclusive? CHARLES GILCHRIST ADAMS: Me? Oh, I didn't know you were talking to me. I bet that fits a lot of people. Well, I think one of the things is the scholarship fund. And I'm very happy that I could get in on a fund that had been begun during my time as an active alumnus of this school. And that was that some Black people said, we want to go to Harvard, but we can't raise the money. So I said, well, I'm going to start working on that. And it had already been begun by other people, but it just wasn't getting anywhere. But I was president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention. So I had a whole convention that saw to it that I got to Harvard, that I got in on those that were planning this fund for Black people. I can make it very brief. And finally, somebody wanted to separate the givers and find out what Black people were contributing and whether or not we should take white money rather than green money. And so I said, well, let's see. What are you talking about? Well, no. James Luther Adams caught hold of the argument. He says, I'm white, and I'm going to give to that fund because I think that the school needs more than just white people. And if you're a part of that, I'm a part of that. If you're not, I'm not interested. And that's how the thing grew. And James Luther Adams said, when they went to him, he said, of course, I'm going to give because this is my school. And I know that I can make a difference. That's all it is. That's all I have to say. Make a difference. \[APPLAUSE\] DAVID LITTLE: I thought it was very interesting to hear Peter Slater talk about some of the tensions that surrounded the establishment of the Center for the Study of World Religions and the establishment of the Catholic Chair, whether here or in the university. It seems to me, going back to the late '50s, early '60s, that was the kind of conflict we were encountering, whether to move out inclusively within the confines of this school or to transfer other kinds of tradition out there. So that was a hugely important turning point, I would say, in beginning to open the door to the kind of inclusivity that you see now. Was Harvard Divinity School a traditional theological school, Protestant by orientation, or was it to become a more inclusive institution? I think that was a critical point at which the decision was made. And we've only moved on in a much more broad way ever since. MARY E. HUNT: Well, and certainly and we've talked about it a lot this weekend, the advent of women at Harvard Divinity School, I think, has made such a substantive difference. And I really do mean up the game in a very significant way. I was here in the early '70s. And a number of my classmates, Ruth Portillo and Jane Redmont and too numerous to mention in this group, will remember with me how that Research Resource Associates program got started through the women's caucus and through the student-led efforts. And you'll also remember with me the efforts to move faculty in the direction of inclusive language. Margaret Hutaff, you'll remember some of this, too, the plane of kazoos, the throwing of M&Ms at professors for operant conditioning to help them with their language learning and so forth. And some of these things, I think, are the telling of bra burning of the women's movement. They're somewhat apocryphal, but they make good stories. And they illustrate a point, that it does take initiative and, again, student initiative, people who have the most to risk, in a way, taking the initiative to make change. And then, of course, you have a succession of brilliant and accomplished women who have come. The second area, I think, and you mentioned it, David, is the Catholic question. And I think it's really important to say that this was-- when I came in the '70s and many of my colleagues, this was a Protestant divinity school. I really came to study theology. I really didn't know that women were here studying for ministry. I did not know that. And so, Chrissy, you'll remember some of the early courses that were taught for women in ministry. And the real difference, the new things that women, the new insights women brought to ministry, which made a big difference, and helped those of us who were Catholic women to imagine ourselves as ministers, which is really quite an extraordinary. It was like a pregnant male, a woman priest. We didn't imagine. It was not something we could imagine. So that was helpful. And then the third area, which I think really does bear on our conversations today, and that is the advent of queer studies in religion and the very important work of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer students, faculty, staff. And I think that has happened here at Harvard Divinity School but really needs to be lifted up. It's not been lifted up much this weekend. It really needs to be lifted up as we move into queer studies and begin to take seriously the ways in which sexual identity, gender identity, all of these questions are moving both in the field and in the lives of ourselves and our children. This is terribly important. So we have some leadership to perform here as well. So those are three areas that I would look to. PRECIOUS RASHEEDA MUHAMMAD: So some of the challenges when we were here-- well, I was here a much later time. And when I came, I think the first thing I remember my first day, I remember meeting \[? Feli ?\] \[? Copeland-- ?\] I don't know if he's in the room-- African-American Baha'I student, and also \[? Al-Hussein ?\] \[? Madani, ?\] who was a Kenyan-born immigrant with a Shia Isma'ili background. So I had some diversity. But in that first experience of meeting those people, another person who was here when I was here was Reza Aslan. I'm sure everybody knows who Reza Aslan is. But he's an Iranian immigrant to the United States. But that was really, in terms of the diversity at the time I was here, besides myself, Reza, and \[? Al-Hussein, ?\] we were the only Muslim students. And now you have so much more exposure to Muslim students and to the history of Islam in America. Harvard was very good with the resources and academic resources and possibilities for the Study of Islam, worldwide Islam, historically, classically, et cetera. But when it came to the history of Islam in America in terms of the lived religion, there wasn't really much here. And so I would go from professor to professor and say, could I do an independent study with you on something that has to do with Islam in America? And they'd say, you probably know more about it than I do. So I just saw that as an opportunity to try to improve the situation by creating a conference that would educate the community and create new learning possibilities for myself. And so where I saw a challenge, I tried to meet it with a solution. And at the same time, it was an opportunity for not just Muslim students because, again, there were only a few of us here, but students across the university and students who were not Muslim all became engaged and departments and programs and different organizations all supported. So it became a community learning experience. CHRISTOPHER J. HANSON: It seems like one of the common themes that you all have been hitting on is student initiative, that it really was the students that were approaching the professors, whether it was an independent study or really creating a new program. What advice would you give to students today on campus that want to further the inclusive environment of HDS, that might find themselves in a particular minority? What sort of resources or habits could they draw upon? PRECIOUS RASHEEDA MUHAMMAD: I'll start. CHARLES GILCHRIST ADAMS: To lighten the landscape where you are, where you are. You are here now on a full-- see, Shakespeare has a statement, I believe, that we are now a part of the voyage. And unless we love and cherish each other, none of us will survive, something like that. Upon such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must do the best we can or lose our ventures, something like that. You're Harvard people. You can look it up. I can't remember it. And my eyes have been operated on within the week. So I can't see to read anything, even if I had written something. But I can say thank you very much. And I'm a changed man because of you. MARY E. HUNT: Thank you. \[APPLAUSE\] DAVID LITTLE: I thought yesterday in the dean's panel the discussion among the deans from various schools was extremely interesting in regard to the need to develop interconnections, engagement across disciplinary boundaries-- business, religion, law, et cetera. It seems to me that is, perhaps, an important area where student initiative, together with faculty initiative, is very important. When I was teaching here, we did do courses in the Yard. And they combined students from the Divinity School, Law School, Government Department, and so on. And those were extremely important experiences, I think. And I'm not sure whether that's continued or not here at Harvard. But it seems to me something that does, indeed, need to be advanced and sustained to the degree that's possible. MARY E. HUNT: I think one of the things that I learned here was that the old divide and conquer is the biggest danger, and that for students to come here and have different interests, the key point is not to be divided and, in fact, conquered by what would be a seeming homogeneity. And that's the real trick because otherwise, students have a very short time in an institution and a real reason for being here. And so the amount of time they have to create and innovate and make something new is really precious time. And so I think that the key issue is to keep talking to each other. I remember, for example, with African-American students, the African-American students at Harvard in the '70s, and the women had to learn to talk with each other. And they were mostly men. And we were, obviously, all women. And we needed to learn to talk to each other. And we needed to learn not to be divided. And we needed to find those African-American women who would, in fact, be with all of us. And that was an effort not to be divided and conquered. Otherwise, there would not have been change. And that, I think, is one of the hardest things. And especially in the current-- in light of the current administration, the difficulty of having conversations across difference, especially with people who do not see the world as we do. And so I would say that old divide and conquer thing needs to be watched out for all the time. PRECIOUS RASHEEDA MUHAMMAD: I think the advice I would offer would be to get outside the classroom. Before I came here, I had a friend who graduated from the University of Iowa, like I did, undergrad. And he came to Harvard before me at the Kennedy School. And he graduated. And then when I came, he asked me, how is it going at Harvard? And I said, oh, I'm just trying to get straight As. I want to get into a doctoral program. I'm just focusing. And he said, Precious, you need to get outside the classroom. One of the best experiences at a place like Harvard is the people that you will meet and the engagement that you will have. And so that's kind of what I did. I mean, someone might look at me and not know where I'm from. But I was raised in the Northeast, the Midwest, and the Deep South. So there's a whole lot of stories in me. And there's other people who you look at. There's a whole lot of stories in them. And you don't have any opportunity to engage that or learn from that at all if you never get outside the classroom. I know everyone comes here, a place like Harvard or any university, and, of course, the academics is important. But what does it mean if you haven't learned anything from your fellow classmates? I know when we started the Islam in America Conference, at my apartment at Peabody Terrace, we had \[? Shaka ?\] from the business school, \[? Aretha ?\] from the law school, \[? Fareed ?\] from the college. I mean, we were all meeting there trying to come up with this idea. It was like a pan-Harvard experience. And we built lifelong relationships with those people. And I never would have had that opportunity. These people were from all over the country and all different parts of Harvard, kind of like what the professor was speaking about the different areas of Harvard and benefiting from those coming together and learning from each other. I never would have had that opportunity if I had just stayed in the classroom, under the table, just studying and not getting a chance to engage. So I just say get outside, meet people, and build something together while you're here. \[APPLAUSE\] CHRISTOPHER J. HANSON: So we have time for just one more question. And I would like each of you just to keep your answer to about one or two sentences, which I apologize for because this has been very inspirational. We kicked off our bicentennial year underneath this tent last August with the question, what is it to be a multireligious divinity school? And I see many faces in the audience that were here back in August. And so I just want to pose this to our panel. Looking forward to the next 200 years of the school, what do you think it means to be a multireligious divinity school? So just one or two sentences, quick thoughts. Think of it as a tweet. MARY E. HUNT: Well, I'll start. I think the pressing needs of the world and the extraordinary privilege that we have come together. And they require us to develop situated scholarship in the service of global justice. 44 words, I think. \[APPLAUSE\] CHARLES GILCHRIST ADAMS: I should say, Preston Williams will recall that we greatly expanded it among the Black alumnae of the school in the late '60s and early '70s. And he was coming up. He got into Harvard. He got on. He's a full professor and so forth. So he says, you got me on the faculty. And that's a door for you. And we can tackle this problem and solve all of the issues that are in our community because there are a whole lot of motherless kids and fatherless kids and poor educated kids, hungry kids, dying kids. There's something that our president can do to make us great again, but it's not going to come if-- it's not going to happen if we're all dead of atomic explosion. So who are we going to put in power to keep us here so we can all live in one world, built on one foundation. And I'm a part of that world. And I got a piece of sand in the foundation. \[APPLAUSE\] DAVID LITTLE: One key approach to multireligiousness and so on seems to me to find common problems-- environment, human rights, free speech, religious freedom, peacemaking, et cetera-- and get conversations among the different religions going around those common problems. That seems to me perhaps a more productive approach than just starting out with discussions of theology and differences of that kind. It seems to me those common problems identify common interests and commitments, which then can be diversified in approach as people continue to reflect on it. But I urge that kind of forward motion myself. \[APPLAUSE\] PRECIOUS RASHEEDA MUHAMMAD: Oh, I'm next. Let's see-- to not just have students here who are of different faiths and not just have areas of academic study that represent the different faith traditions, but to have the serious engagement, intrareligious and inter-religious and, as he said, around common areas of interest and common areas that are impacting the world today, common areas of concern that are impacting the world today. Oh, that's my two sentences. \[LAUGHTER\] \[APPLAUSE\] CHARLES GILCHRIST ADAMS: We're courting each other. CHRISTOPHER J. HANSON: Well, it's been a real pleasure to host all four of you here today. And congratulations on the honor. You inspire the students that are on the campus today and the entire community that's proud to call HDS home. So thank you very much. MARY E. HUNT: Thank you, Chris. CHRISTOPHER J. HANSON: So I do have-- \[MUSIC PLAYING\] See also:- [ Alumni News and Activities ](/news-category/alumni-news-and-activities) - [ Audio ](/news-classification/audio) - [ Video ](/news-classification/video) - [ Features ](/news-type/features) - [ Bicentennial ](/topic-tags/bicentennial) - [ Gomes Honors ](/topic-tags/gomes-honors)