Kaufman Updates
Permanent link for The Story of Me. The Story of Us. The Story of Now. | By Liz English, Campus Program Manager on August 19, 2025
Each of us carries a story.
That story is shaped by innumerable factors - family, culture, beliefs, communities, social context, even fleeting interactions with strangers - moments, often small but powerful, that conjure emotions of pride, pain, belonging, fear, joy, and wonder. These moments come together to shape who we are, what we value, and how we show up in the world. Stories help us to explain our ‘why’ - why do I care about this particular issue? Why do I work where I do? Why do I believe what I believe?
While we author our own stories through the choices we make everyday, we also exist in the middle of much larger tales - the story of a people, an era, a place. These are the stories that build collective identity around shared experience. Who are we as Michiganders, as GVSU Lakers, as members of a particular worldview community? What are our shared values? What do those collective identities compel us to care about?
Interfaith happens at the intersection of these stories. We come from different traditions, faiths, and cultures, and rather than retreat from these differences, interfaith asks us all to stand and listen to the tales of others, to hold and honor them, to grow from what we hear, and to share our own in equal measure. To be an effective leader in an interfaith space is to lift up the possibility of true collaboration while honoring and maintaining individual distinctiveness. It’s a tall order, one that ultimately finds a sure footing when our stories of personal calling and of our collective needs are made explicit.
But weaving together the multitude of moments we’ve experienced into a coherent and intentional narrative does not always come naturally. Nor does the ability to truly hear the story of the person sitting across from you, especially when the stakes of such a conversation feel so high. Those skills must be developed.
This year, Kaufman’s Interfaith Leadership Cohorts will explore the nuances, challenges, and joys of crafting their stories together. By relying on Marshall Ganz’s work on public narrative, we will link the power of story to the work of interfaith leadership. Through our interfaith learning communities, our students will be encouraged to see themselves as not only authors of their “story of self,” but as agents of change. For once we come together in community, creating a “story of us” where individual experiences are uplifted while shared values and needs are articulated, then we can ask the question: how can these powerful stories help us meet the urgency of the moment? This is our “story of now.”
To quote Ganz, “Storytelling is how we interact with each other about values; how we share experiences with each other, counsel each other, comfort each other, and inspire each other to action.” The crucial work of interfaith begins with articulating those story moments of challenge and choice, fear and hope. By doing so, we extend an empathetic bridge to the person across from us and lay the foundation for genuine connection. In sharing our stories, understanding grows not from agreement, but from the courage to witness each other's humanity.
