Author: Iris Edwards
Sophomores Derwyn Johnson and Zack Del Rosario held the first meeting of Occidental’s recently formed Atheist, Humanist and Agnostic Club (AHA!) on Thursday, March 31, which will serve as an outlet for skeptical students to explore their beliefs.
Occidental has a large population of students with non-faith based backgrounds, and therefore Johnson and Del Rosario thought the club could be a valuable resource on campus.
“Derwyn Johnson and I started the club because we felt there needed to be an outlet for non-religious students at Oxy. We thought it strange that a college campus so diverse and with so many identity-based student organizations was lacking a proper secular student alliance,” Del Rosario said.
Del Rosario and Johnson plan for the meetings, which will be held every Tuesday at 5 p.m. in Lower Herrick, to be primarily discussion based. In addition, the AHA! presidents hope to integrate readings and documentaries into the meetings to inspire dialogue and thought.
AHA! is currently focusing on recruiting regular members by raising campus awareness of the new club. Del Rosario and Johnson hope for the club to become a bigger name on campus in coming years.
“As of right now, because the club is so young, we are really just trying to create a comfortable foundation of returning members, the backbone of the organization,” Del Rosario said. “Next year, we will hopefully be able to focus more on gaining recognition through campus-wide events. Ideally, we would like the club to be as legitimized and as active as other identity-based student groups that are essential to the infrastructure of the Oxy student body.”
AHA! has been offered a seat on Occidental’s newly formed Interfaith Council, established in February. The Council is made up of ten Occidental students from different faith-based organizations on campus.
“The Interfaith Council was first conceived of as a place for students of various faith based and non-faith based backgrounds to come together to foster interfaith dialogue, to promote respect and understanding on campus and to act on social justice issues of mutual concern,” Secretary of Interfaith Council Natalie Malter (sophomore) said.
Malter hopes that AHA! will accept their offer and is looking forward to have a non-faith member on the Council.
“I believe that interfaith work needs to include people of non-faith based backgrounds as well as faith based ones or else it remains incomplete. The only prerequisite for being a member of the Interfaith Council is meaningfully engaging with existence in some form. If you do that, you have something to contribute, something to bring to the conversation,” Malter said.
“I believe one valuable aspect of the Interfaith Council will be its role in bringing together students from all religious and non-religious backgrounds to participate in addressing social justice issues that exist in our society,” Interfaith Council President Esther Shears said.
Interfaith Council is also looking forward to expansion. They are hoping to gain new members from the student body, including representative from the AHA! and the Latter Day Saints organization on campus, as well as organize service projects and visit different places of worship throughout Los Angeles.
“I am really excited to watch the Interfaith Council grow and evolve over the next couple years,” Malter said.
The Interfaith Council meets in the Clarity room of Lower Herrick on Mondays from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.
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