BSC Professor Kayla Kauffman Selected for National Seminar

For Immediate Release
Mar. 4, 2020

Birmingham-Southern College is pleased to announce that Assistant Professor of Religion Kayla Kauffman is one of only 25 faculty nationwide selected to participate in a seminar on teaching of interfaith understanding. Participants were chosen through a competitive nomination process.

Teaching Interfaith Understanding will be held at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, June 14–18, 2020. Supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., the annual multidisciplinary seminar by The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) and Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) features participants who are full-time faculty members at CIC member colleges and universities.

"I am thrilled to have been selected to participate in this prestigious conference,” Kauffman said. “I am looking forward to meeting with, and learning from, scholars and advocates of interfaith dialogue from around the country. I hope to bring what I learn back to the Birmingham-Southern college campus."

Kauffman, who holds a PhD from the University of Virginia, specializes in the history of religions in Africa, including indigenous and world religions such as Islam, Christianity, Vodou, and local traditions. With a special emphasis on the recent rise of Charismatic churches in West Africa, which are often associated with American Pentecostalism and the “prosperity gospel,” she also focuses her work on the ways in which religion intersects with social justice, non-violence, popular and secular culture, and international relations. This is her first year to teach at BSC.

The seminar will be led by nationally-recognized scholars Laurie Patton, president of Middlebury College and former dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and the Robert F. Durden Professor of Religion at Duke University, and Eboo Patel, founder and president of IFYC, a Chicago-based organization building the interfaith movement on college campuses.

According to the CIC, “the seminar will examine how interfaith understanding can be taught effectively in the college classroom so that students are equipped for interfaith engagement and leadership both in the classroom and beyond.”

“BSC is pleased that Dr. Kauffman has been chosen to participate in this important seminar. The exchange of ideas among scholars off campus translates to a richer educational experience for our students here at Birmingham-Southern,” said BSC Provost Dr. Bradley J. Caskey.

The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) is an association of nonprofit independent colleges and universities that has worked since 1956 to support college and university leadership; advance institutional excellence; and enhance public understanding of private higher education’s contributions to society.

For more information, visit www.cic.edu/TeachingInterfaith.

Birmingham-Southern College is a four-year, private liberal arts institution affiliated with the United Methodist Church and accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The institution is the result of a 1918 merger of Southern University, founded in Greensboro, Alabama, in 1856, with Birmingham College, founded in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1898. Birmingham-Southern has students from 34 states and 13 countries and a student/faculty ratio of 12:1.