Shaun Casey, who served as the U.S. Special Representative for Religion and Global Affairs for several years, was the keynote speaker at a daylong conference sponsored by the global religions and civic culture program held at BSU on Friday, Feb. 24.
The former Obama administration official is on the faculty of Georgetown University, and has written on the ethics of war in Iraq as well as the role of religion in American presidential politics. His book, The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon 1960, was published in 2009.
“The goal of the conference is to consider ways to optimize the resources of Bridgewater State University and communities in Southeastern Massachusetts to lead to a better understanding of the various religions and spiritual expressions that are represented in the region,” said Dr. Margaret Lowe, professor of history at BSU.
Watch an archived version of the Facebook Live event.
Professor Lowe is the coordinator of the global religions and civic culture initiative, which encompasses faculty for a number of disciplines across the university. It was founded in the fall of 2014 to establish an academic setting for the study of global religions and spiritual expression and to provide a setting and resource for the application of that understanding to everyday situations.
Naomi Arenberg, a 26-year veteran of public radio at both WGBH and WCAI, will interview Mr. Casey during the interactive keynote, which will be held from 12 to 2 p.m. in Maxwell Library’s Heritage Room. The keynote is open to the public and the campus community.
Mr. Casey is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School with a Master of Divinity and a Doctor of Theology in Religion and Society. He also earned a Master of Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard with a concentration in International Security. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Abilene Christian University and is a member of the American Academy of Religion.
(Story by Eva T. Gaffney, G ’01, for University News and Marketing; Facebook Live video by Charlie Peters)