Hi My name is Ann Zhang and I have been serving as the Spiritual Life Commissioner for SGA for almost two years now. As some of you probably know, we have a new director for Center for Spiritual Life, her name is Julie Avis Rogers. Although Julie has only been at Emerson for eight weeks, she’s already bringing so much new energy and doing so many amazing things.
Today I want to introduce you the programs and goals Julie and the Center for Spiritual Life have created for the Emerson community. Since the beginning, even during the hiring process for the director for Center for Spiritual Life, Julie has shown enormous passion and love for this community. One of the very first goals Julie has is to help the existing spiritual student organizations on campus to continue to thrive and receive the support they deserve. On the other hand, Julie also wants to reach out to the wider Emerson community who may not be affiliated with any religion but wants to explore spirituality. This is a common goal shared by Julie and I. We both think spirituality and religions shouldn’t be a taboo in our Emerson community. We hope everyone can express their beliefs freely and talk about spiritual experience as they talk about any other kind of experience. Both SGA and Center for Spiritual Life are trying to build a safe, inclusive and fun environment for students to connect with what they love and care.
So What do We do?
Center for Spiritual Life is an office and support system for all students on campus who wants to share or learn about spirituality or religions. CSL has many new programs this semester, one of my favorite ones is the Friday lunch series called What Matters to Me and Why. This is a series of talks from students, faculties and staffs about what they are passionate about in their lives. This program is on every Friday, from 12-1pm in the Sky Box in the gym. Another amazing activity we have this semester is our Unwind Retreat. This retreat is a two-day-overnight trip to a farm just outside Boston for students to relax, get away from the city and to explore their spirituality. As someone who had gone on this retreat before, I would say it was a life-changing experience and I made some of my most wonderful memories there.
These are two of my favorite programs of this semester. Julie and I are also talking about bringing the Interfaith Council back in order to create some student-run and campus-wide events. If you are interested or wants to hear more from the Center for Spiritual Life, feel free to contact me at lvwenyu_zhang@emerson.edu or go follow our FaceBook at Emerson College Center for Spiritual Life.