Islam Awareness Week came back for a third year during the week of April 7 to 11 at places on and off campus, including the Richard Mauthe Center. During the week, students and community members attended a combination of lectures and discussions.
The week’s events were the result of a committee consisting of people from the Mauthe Center, Office of International Education and Office of Middle East Studies, among others.
David Coury, humanistic studies professor, said there was a good mix of students and community members during the week’s events. Educational events such as lectures were mixed with cultural events like Hijab Day, where students were encouraged to wear a Hijab, a scarf common in Muslim culture.
“We tried to balance out things that were educational with things that are more cultural,” Coury said.
Heba Mohammad, senior history and political science major and current Student Government Association president, said she liked how the events kept the same general feel of the week, but were something new every day.
“It’s easy to repeat what you did the year before,” Mohammad said. “I really applaud the planning team for coming up with something different.”
Jemma Lund, associate student services coordinator at the OIE, was part of that team. This was Lund’s first year on the planning committee. Lund said the planning of the event started in summer when UWGB faculty and staff began discussing their availability.
“It’s all based on a strong interest and passion for spreading knowledge around campus and into the community,” Lund said.
Coury said education was an important factor for the week’s events.
“There are still many misconceptions about Islam,” Coury said. “A lot of people have questions because they don’t know much about it.”
With this week, Coury said people could learn about Islam from an educational as well as a cultural standpoint.
Aisha Umar, a Mauthe Center intern, has been involved with Islam Awareness Week since it started three years ago and said it’s been getting better every year.
“It’s nice for Green Bay to learn more about the people coming to their community so they can understand them more and make Green Bay more homogenous,” Umar said.
According to the Huffington Post, there are about 259 Muslims per 100,000 people in Wisconsin.
With so much to learn about Islam, Umar hopes the people who attended the events learned something from their experience.
Aside from education, the event was able to bring together non-Muslim students with Muslim students.
Mohammad said while there weren’t too many at the events, she’s met new Muslim students every year at Islam Awareness Week who have heard about the events and want to participate.
Mohammad said it’s also influenced any new Muslim students to get together with the Muslim Students Association, which she founded.
“Each of us has a vested interest in educating students about Islam,” Mohammad said. “It’s part of who we are and we don’t want one aspect of us to be what we’re judged on.”
Mohammad and Umar agree UWGB’s atmosphere is very accepting and inclusive when it comes to its Muslim students.
“The overall culture encourages students to stand up for each other,” Mohammad said.
Umar said there are a lot of students and faculty members on campus going beyond their comfort zones in order to understand people different from them.
“Even though Green Bay wasn’t as diverse as where I was used to living, I always felt people tried their best to get to know me better,” Umar said.
The week began with a showing of two documentaries surrounding the conflict in Syria, followed by a discussion facilitated by Coury.
The next day of events began with an open forum at the Common Grounds Coffeehouse, where students were given the opportunity to ask general questions surrounding Islam. Later that day, the Mauthe Center presented the Interfaith Panel. This panel spoke on the Muslim, Jewish and Christian connection to Jerusalem.
Mohammad Sharif, Robert Dick and Harvey Jaeger spoke on the Muslim, Jewish and Christian side, respectively. Sharif is the president of the Fox Valley Islamic Society, Dick is the Cantor, or chief song leader, for the Cnesses Israel Synagogue in Green Bay and Jaeger is the Protestant Chaplain of the Mauthe Center.
The next day was Hijab Day, where students were encouraged to wear a Muslim scarf, called a Hijab, for a day and then speak on their experience afterwards.
Later, St. Norbert College history professor Robert Kramer gave a presentation on the history of Islam and how it influenced Islam today.
Professor Ibtesam Al-Atiyat from St. Olaf College in Minnesota gave a presentation April 10 on women in Islam. Afterwards, the events went back to the Mauthe Center with a showing of the film “Amreeka.” The film was about Palestinian-Americans living in Chicago.
On that Friday, the week’s events culminated with a visit to the Green Bay Mosque. Although the week ended, the events didn’t officially end until April 15 with a discussion on the book “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.”
Overall, Umar hopes to see Islam Awareness Week continue every year indefinitely as long as both the Mauthe Center and UWGB are here.
