The National Gathering

The National Gathering begins with a welcome from Peter Laurence, Project Director and Co-founder; Victor Kazanjian, Project Co-founder and Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life at Wellesley College; and Diana Chapman Walsh, President of Wellesley College.

"...the college and university campus is America's most promising experiment in religious pluralism. Students are in the process of discovering what it means to be in community while developing their own respective world views. Students who develop a sense of pluralism during this critical time of their development can later play a key role in the building of a more stable and inclusive civil society...If spirituality creates openness, then rediscovering the spiritual dimension of education offers students, and consequently America society, the possibility of embracing diversity as a necessary step to the actualization of a global community."

-- Peter Laurence - Co-founder and Director of the
EDUCATION as Transformation Project

" As I have listened to you talk about why you are drawn to this project through its themes of transformation, pluralism and spirituality, I hear a deep yearning...a yearning born out of hopes, dreams and aspirations for humankind and the role that educational communities might play in moving us towards a more peaceful, just, beloved human community."

-- Victor Kazanjian - Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life at Wellesley College and Co-founder of the EDUCATION as Transformation Project.

" Our task is to envision a whole new place, a whole new space and role for spirituality in higher education as an essential element of the larger task of reorienting our institutions to respond more adequately to the challenges which the world presents us. As we look at the new millennium, we know that we are going to need people committed to living in ways that will insure a sustainable future, people committed to bringing diverse communities together."

-- Diana Chapman Walsh - President, Wellesley College