A Discussion with Beth Hatch, Protestant Program Coordinator at Georgetown University

December 1, 2011

Background: Aamir Hussain, an undergraduate in the Georgetown College, interviewed Beth Hatch, Protestant program coordinator at Georgetown University on December 1, 2011. In this conversation, Hatch reflects on her own faith journey and what motivates her to do service.

How has your personal journey brought you to your work today, and why were you drawn to these particular issues?

I work in the Protestant Chaplaincy in the Office of Campus Ministry here at Georgetown. When I think about my personal journey, I never anticipated that I would be doing this kind of work. When I started college, this was not where I thought I would be. But I found that the most of the meaningful moments of my education and questions that I continue to be drawn to involve spirituality, theology, and questions about the meaning of life and questions of faith. As I’ve discerned what I want to do for work, there is nothing I would rather be doing than helping students grow in their faith, ask important questions, think about how we’re living, and help the Georgetown community do that together. It’s been an intersection of meaningful experiences for me, with needs that I feel deeply and want to help meet.

What got you interested in working at Georgetown?

I attended another Catholic university, and loved my education as a non-Catholic at a Catholic institution. I found the environment in a Catholic university to be a unique one, a community that engaged with the world, asking important questions, and a place committed to forming the whole person. I wanted to work at a university like that, and Georgetown was at the top of my list.

What are the most challenging obstacles we face in terms of poverty, and what are their faith dimensions?

Something that I see as a huge obstacle in terms of poverty is something that runs through many issues, especially in our city. This is our tendency towards a stark individualism. That’s not just an American thing, but it seems to run deep in our current culture. We can walk around blind to the needs of those around us, whether that’s the school in our city, housing issues, or health issues. Across the board, we are prone to looking after ourselves and our interests alone.

I’ve seen faith to be an incredible motivator for people to step outside of themselves, and to think about not just living for yourself-what it would mean to sacrifice financially, to give time, or even what you choose to do with your profession, what does it mean to live outside of yourself, for the common good, to really share love with your community. Those are pretty counter-cultural questions. As much as we would like to think we’re about changing the world, our tendency is to be pretty individualistic. In short, individualism.

What are some challenges you face in your work?

One of the biggest challenges is a culture of distraction: the level of demands on students’ time that keep students moving quickly, keep them over-engaged, to a level where reflection and discernment is impossible. We face that, as staff, certainly, and we don’t always bring a depth to our work because of the level of distraction. Hopefully, we’re allowing space for students to use discernment in the midst of distraction. Distraction is a huge challenge.

Another challenge is a culture of apathy towards religion. Like, “You know, I’ll decide later what I believe,” or “I don’t have time for anything like that,” Putting the bigger questions of life on hold is a huge challenge. Campus Ministry can often be pushed to the outskirts of campus life because it’s for the kids who self-select into it, who know they’re going to be religious in college. I would hope that we continue to find ways to engage with the broader campus.

What about interfaith work? What does the President’s Interfaith Challenge mean to you?

Interfaith work is a huge part of being a part of the Georgetown community. I share an office with a Catholic, Jew, Muslim—all coworkers, right in a row—so our dialogue has really been fun and natural because we’re engage in the same work. That has been, personally, something I’ve loved about Georgetown. We’re given tremendous resources and a lot of room to be creative in interfaith work. The best kind of interfaith work happens when people are sharing with each other from their traditions, and not just trying to find places to agree for the sake of agreement. When we’re really sharing from the depth and the richness of our traditions, providing places of hospitality, where we’re inviting others to share with us in prayer, food, offering occasions of gratitude, those experiences of interfaith work, for me, have been really meaningful.

As far as the President’s Challenge, it’s been so exciting. For me, it’s been an occasion to evaluate and think about what we’re doing already, to deepen that, to be better, to be more creative. I think it’s always good when you have to measure things, to say, “What are we really doing?” and to think about how we can raise the bar. And it’s been an occasion to bring together a lot of wonderful people who care about the same things, and to engage people who might not care at all, but would care about a Challenge.

What from your own faith tradition motivates you to pursue interfaith work?

There’s certainly a call in the Christian faith to love and know your neighbor (your neighbors being all people) and knowing what motivates people and loving people for exactly who they are. That’s certainly a call to interfaith work. Also, Christian faith calls us to the pursuit of what’s true about the world and God and to trying to understand and wrestle with really deep issues together. And lastly, I hope my faith keeps me always in a posture of humility. I have been loved and shown grace, and also know how very limited I am in light of who I know God to be. And so I want to live my life out of humility, and that means wanting to know and learn from other people—including people of other faith communities.

What can the Georgetown community do to help? What’s your message to the average Hoya?

My message to the average Hoya is find things you’re passionate about. Find reasons to fall in love with a cause, or a group of people, or a place, there’s no better time to do it than in college. You have “the world at your fingertips,” and you get to try a lot of different things. That’s the point of college. I think interfaith work, community service, all of these things are about falling in love and engaging the needs of the world. Take time to do that in classes, in your extracurricular stuff, in relationships.

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