Trinity College Among Growing Number of Institutions to Hire Muslim Chaplain

January 18, 2005

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0118/p14s02-legn.html

On January 18, 2005 The Christian Science Monitor reported, "when Trinity College students return to their snow-bitten campus next week, for the first time they will discover a Muslim chaplain working there. Sohaib Nazeer Sultan is one of only a handful of Muslim chaplains at colleges and universities across the country. But as the number of Muslim college students continues to grow - along with the desire to understand religious and cultural complexities at play in a post-9/11 world - more schools are hiring Muslim chaplains... In the past - and still at many schools today - a volunteer from the community would fill the role of spiritual adviser and advocate for Muslim students. Frequently, a student leads fellow students in prayer. Before Sept. 11, many of these leaders were international students with strong backgrounds in Islam, well-versed in both Arabic and the Koran, says Ingrid Mattson, director of the Islamic Chaplaincy Program at Hartford Seminary. But recent visa restrictions have reduced their numbers, heightening the need to train chaplains in the United States."