Part I: May 13, 2025
Part II: September 30, 2025
6:00 pm–8:30 pm EST
Cost: Sign up for one part $25, Students $10
Sign up for both $40, Students $15
“Faith traditions hold historical, familial, geographic, and spiritual lineages.
What are the practices being handed down to others?
Who are the teachers, elders, and prophets who have held those practices?
Lineage is something to be carried from the past to now and on to future generations.
The now becomes an intermediary between what has been and what will be.”
Sharing Spiritual Heritage, A Report from The Fetzer Institute
If we consider our spiritual selves through a genealogical lens, we might see aspects of spirituality–such as beliefs, practices, community, and culture–as inherited traits passed down from generations past creating a spiritual heritage. Regardless of whether we identify with the traditions of our parents and grandparents, we are still influenced by the families, cultures, geographies, and histories that have come before us. In turn, we, too, will pass on a rich amalgamation of identity or faith–a spiritual legacy–that will continue to form and inform future generations of dynamic and beautiful humans.
Join us for a two-part Interfaith Tuesday Table Talk, where we will lean into this conversation of Unpacking Spiritual Heritage and Exploring Spiritual Legacy. We will be hearing from intergenerational multifaith voices and sharing our own over a delicious dinner at Dominican Center Marywood.
Co-hosted by Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Dominican Center Marywood.
Moderator and Panelists
Liz English, Moderator
Liz English is the Campus Program Manager for the Kaufman Interfaith Institute located at Grand Valley State University. She comes to interfaith work driven by an unrelenting curiosity about religious and spiritual cultures, experiences, and identities – including her own – and their role in the pursuit of social justice. She earned her MA in Critical Theory & Religion from the University of Denver where she focused on the intersections of religion and race, class, gender, and ethnicity in a global context.
Barbara Hansen, OP, Panelist
Sr. Barbara Hansen, O.P., Ph.D. ’62 graduated from Aquinas College with a chemistry major and mathematics minor. After receiving a master’s degree in combined science from the University of Mississippi, she earned her Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from the University of Oklahoma. She served as a chemistry professor and chair of the Science Division in the early 1970’s, and as Academic Vice President from 1975-1983. In 1984, she served as a Pastoral Associate in Maryland before returning to Grand Rapids where she assumed leadership positions in the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids, serving as prioress from 1994-2000. She became the Community Outreach Coordinator, in which position she produced television programming that highlighted area non-profit organizations, and political and social justice issues. She served on the board of St. John’s Home and was a founding member of the local branch of Women in Black, an international advocacy group for peace issues.
Jasmine Mand, Panelist
Junior at Forest Hills Eastern, Kaufman Interfaith Leadership Scholar
Hi, my name is Jasmine Mand, and I use she/her pronouns. I am currently a junior at Forest Hills Eastern. My worldview is shaped by the Sikh faith, and every Sunday I participate in seva sessions at the gurdwara. I have been part of the Kaufman Interfaith Scholar program for about two years. I enjoy discussing current issues and exploring solutions to social challenges related to faith, culture, and heritage. In my free time, I love to bake, play tennis, dance bhangra, and go bowling.
Joshua Polanski, Panelist
Director of Engagement, Interfaith Photovoice
Joshua Polanski is the director of engagement of Interfaith Photovoice. He earned a Master of Theological Studies from Boston University School of Theology. There he studied Islamic and Christian contributions to political theology while interning and later working at Hebrew College, the fastest growing rabbinical school in North America. He is a convert to Catholicism and his family shares Polish and Ojibwe backgrounds. His path to interfaith work began in childhood where his first two friends were a Muslim boy from Nigeria and a Jewish boy from Los Angeles. These relationships left indelible marks on the way Joshua sees the world. He is also a Tomatometer-approved (Rotten Tomatoes) film critic and a member of the Michigan Movie Critics Guild.
Zahabia Ahmed-Usmani, Panelist
Youth Program Manager, Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Zahabia Ahmed-Usmani is the Youth Program Manager at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute. She has a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology from Scripps College in Claremont, CA and a Masters of Public Administration from GVSU. She is a mom of three, two adult children and one middle schooler. As an interfaith practitioner she enjoys curating spaces where people of all backgrounds and cultures can be their authentic selves and see the humanity in one another. She identifies as a first generation, Pakistani American, Sunni Muslim.
