Lees-McRae College: Student Life


	PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS / CURRENT STUDENTS / FACULTY & STAFF / ALUMNI & FRIENDS

Global Community Series

Spring 2008

Moral Leadership From the Baha'i Perspective

Global Community Series Spring 2008 focuses on the Bahai Faith, especially in the areas of social action and educational advancement. The Baha'i Faith is the youngest of the world’s independent monotheistic religions. Founded in Iran in 1844, it now has more than five million adherents in 236 countries and territories. Baha'is come from nearly every national, ethnic and religious background, making the Baha'i Faith the second-most-widespread religion in the world. Baha'is view the world's major religions as a part of a single, progressive process through which God reveals God’s will to humanity. Baha'u'llah (1817-1892), the Founder of the Baha'i Faith, is recognized as the most recent in a line of Divine Messengers that stretches back beyond recorded time and includes Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ and Muhammad. The central theme of Baha'u'llah's message is that humanity is a single race and that the day has come for its unification into a global society. "The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens," wrote Baha'u'llah. As the process of global integration intensifies, the traditional barriers of race, class, creed and nation are breaking down. This process will, in time, give birth to a universal civilization. Baha'i communities around the world work to advance the processes leading to world peace, particularly in the areas of human rights, the advancement of women, moral education and sustainable development, by working with their governments, the United Nations, national and international non-governmental organizations, and other international agencies.

Global Community Series Spring 2008 will include the visit of Layli Miller-Muro, Executive Director of the Tahirih Justice Center in Washington, D.C. The Tahirih Justice Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting women from human rights abuses through the provision of legal aid and public policy advocacy. ( www.tahirih.org) Layli founded the Tahirih Justice Center in 1997 following her involvement in Matter of Kasinga, a high profile case that set national precedent and revolutionized asylum law in the United State. Gauziya Kassindja, a 17 year old girl who had fled Togo in fear of a forced polygamous marriage and a tribal practice known as female genital mutilation, was granted asylum in 1996 by the US Board of Immigration appeals (a story that you may recall from Kerry Kennedy's book Speak Truth to Power). Laylis work on this case opened the door to gender based persecution as grounds for asylum. Her work as a social and political advocate for the empowerment of women and human rights is a single example of what it means to be Bahai.

"To be a Baha'i simply means to love all the world; to love humanity and try to serve it; to work for universal peace and universal brotherhood." – Abdu'l-Baha. Today, Baha’is operate more than one thousand grassroots social and economic development projects and work to develop their own unique pattern of community life. In all their individual and community activities Baha'is are enjoined to uphold high standards of honesty, trustworthiness, compassion, and justice; and to be loyal and law-abiding citizens of the countries where they reside. While Baha'is abstain from any involvement in partisan politics, they may accept non-partisan government posts or appointments and may vote in civil elections as long as they are not required to declare a party affiliation. The Baha'i writings place great emphasis on education as the key to human advancement and well-being. Baha'i education and scholarship take many forms. The U.S. Baha'i community has developed a curriculum for the spiritual education of children that is used in hundreds of weekly children’s classes across the country. A network of regional schools offers family-oriented programs in the summer and winter for people of all ages to deepen their knowledge of the Baha'i scriptures and apply the Baha'i teachings in their personal, family and community lives. In addition, the U.S. Baha'i community maintains several permanent schools and institutes that offer courses on a wide variety of topics. Finally, scholarly study of the Baha'i Faith and of the application of Baha'i principles to current challenges is a rich and continually growing field of endeavor. For Baha'is, scholarship is a lifelong effort animated by the spirit of inquiry into the limitless meaning of Baha'u'llah's teachings.

Also joining us for Global Community Series, is Dr. Gordon Naylor, founder and Executive Director of Nancy Campbell Collegiate Institute, a private, international elementary and secondary school committed to the development of moral leadership and academic excellence (www.nancycampbell.net). His work at Nancy Campbell Collegiate Institute has led him to develop a model for higher education based on the principles of moral leadership.

Complimenting his visit is Wildfire Dance Theater, which Dr. Naylor helped establish, a group of college age students from various religious backgrounds (the majority of which are baha'i) dedicated to a year of traveling performance (www.wildfiredt.com). Their dances tell the story of our planets present challenges while taking the audience through a time of reflection that will hopefully lead to great understanding and change. The overall performance consists of a variety of dances from hip-hop and swing, to folk and aboriginal; topics include: racial unity, extremes of wealth and poverty, substance abuse, peer pressure, etc. While our speakers are here for a limited time, Wildfire students will live on the main campus of Lees-McRae College for the entire week of Global Community Series.