From the Symposium with Wellesley CollegeOpening Remarks

Victor Kazanjian

WELCOME to Wellesley College faculty friends from the Instituteof Oriental Philosophy, Soka University, Soka University for
Women, and the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century. Todaymarks another moment in the longstanding partnership between Wellesley College and the Boston Research Center. It was a decade ago, when
we were in the organizing phase of a conference which we hoped would
bring together faculty, chaplains, students and others to explore theimpact of religious diversity on higher education, that The Boston
Research Center and their director Virginia Benson stepped in to partnerwith us when others were reluctant to take on this controversial topic.
The conference proved to be a landmark moment in American Higher
Education that catalyzed a movement that has reshaped religious andspiritual life on college and university campuses across the country as
more than a thousand educators and students gathered on that October
weekend. That conference also birthed a new national organization,
Education as Transformation under the leadership of its director Dr.
Peter Laurence, my dear friend and colleague, who is with us today.
There have been many moments of partnership between then andnow. The Boston Research Center has held numerous important gatherings over the years on a variety of issues concerning the pursuit of peacein this world. And I had the pleasure of visiting Soka University in California, and then traveling to Japan some years ago, to meet with Dr.
Kawada and President Ikeda and learn more about value-centered education and the important peace work in which they are engaged. It wasvery inspiring and meaningful for me and I am very grateful to have had
this opportunity. And here we are together again ... at another Octobergathering. When my friend Masao Yakota called me to suggest that wemight co-host another gathering, I could not pass up the opportunity...
and how fitting it is that the first conference in Wellesley’s newly renovated Multifaith Center is one that we should host together.
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FROM THE SYMPOSIUM WITH WELLESLEY COLLEGE

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This Center has been more than a decade in the planning and is theresult of a dialogue process among a diverse group of people at Wellesley representing the world’s religious traditions and spiritual practices. It
is our hope that the Center not only provides a place of practice for all
religious communities but also encourages encounter and dialogue
around the many vexing issues that relate to the role of religion in theworld today. It is our hope that this effort at Wellesley, like the work of
the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century, contributes to thebuilding of a new global commons ... a global commons in which peopleof different ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds make a commitment to a shared responsibility for the resources of the world, resourcesthat include the economic, environmental, political, intellectual andsocial capital that constitutes the world in which we live.
Today’s dialogue on the theme of Religious Perspectives on GlobalIssues is part of that effort to build a new global commons by moving
beyond the enclaves that so often have marked the role of religion insociety, and create connection through scholarly discourse on issues thatchallenge the world.
I am so pleased that Wellesley scholars David Bernat, Jim Kodera,
Sharon Elkins and Neelima Shukla-Bhatt will be part of this day, andalso Pat Mische, a long time friend of Wellesley and the Boston
Research Center. I know that you will appreciate their words of wisdom
as I have over the years and continue to have as I consider each a teacher
in my own ongoing learning about religion and the world.
They are joined today by Drs. Kawada, Kanno, Kurihara, andYamamoto. I had the pleasure of sharing a meal this past Thursday
evening with this outstanding group of scholars and found myself filledwith the insight and inspiration that resonated around the table. I lookforward to each of their presentations today.
Our conference today is divided into three parts—at each session
there will be a series of presentations from a panel of scholars. Following each panel we will ask you to engage in a conversation at your tablein which your task is to identify key questions in response to what you
just heard from the panelists. We will then reconvene as a whole groupand pose some of these questions to our panel. After our first panel(Religion, Conflict and Community), we will share lunch together andthen reconvene for our second panel on Religion and Women and thirdpanel on Religion and the Environment.