URI ANNOUNCES NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

URI ANNOUNCES NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

The United Religious Initiative (URI) is pleased to announce Victor Kazanjian as its new Executive Director. Kazanjian will assume the position on October 15, after two decades serving Wellesley College as Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life, Co-Director of the Peace & Justice Studies Program and most recently Dean of Intercultural Education.

“The United Religions Initiative community in 86 countries of the world enthusiastically welcomes Victor Kazanjian as our Executive Director and looks forward to his leadership and friendship,” said William Swing, President and founder of the United Religious Initiative.

Victor Kazanjian himself is looking forward to joining the URI community. “It is a great honor for me to have been chosen as Executive Director of the United Religions Initiative. I am very excited to be a part of the URI team as we work together to build peaceful communities and engage problems of injustice and violence by supporting interfaith cooperation and understanding. One of the things that I have admired most about URI over the years is its commitment to a collaborative process of shared leadership that supports grassroots efforts to empower diverse groups of people of different beliefs and practices to transform their communities and the world. At a time when religion is often seen to be at the root of division among people, URI stands out as a beacon of hope for the possibilities for peace,” said Kazanjian. 

Global Council Chair Kiran Bali extends the council’s support. “I am absolutely delighted to welcome Victor Kazanjian as our esteemed Executive Director of URI. Victor is a real asset to URI bringing his extensive experience, leadership and high regard in the field of international interfaith cooperation. I look forward to working in partnership with Victor and our URI community to further strengthen our initiatives through the exciting times that lay ahead.”

Kazanjian’s work at Wellesley College is widely acknowledged as the catalyst in a  movement to include religious diversity and spirituality as core issues in higher education nationally and internationally, and has led to new models of interfaith and intercultural growth and understanding. Specializing in interreligious and intercultural conflict transformation, diversity and democracy, and grassroots peacebuilding, Kazanjian is a recognized thought-leader and the co-author of several books, includingEducation as Transformation: Religious Pluralism, Spirituality and a New Vision for Higher Education in America, (New York: Peter Lang, 2000), Beyond Tolerance: a Campus Religious Diversity Kit,(Washington: NASPA, 2004) and co-editor of the Studies in Spirituality and Education series published by Peter Lang Press.

In 1998 Kazanjian co-founded Education as Transformation, an international organization working with colleges and universities around the world to promote religious pluralism and spirituality in education. He is also a visiting faculty member and Fulbright Scholar at the Malaviya Center for Peace Research at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India, and the creator of Wellesley College’s Wintersession program in India. 

Victor Kazanjian is an ordinated priest in the Episcopal Church and holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is also a graduate of Harvard University.

                                Prof. John Kurakar