Message from Dr. Ibrahim Farajaje

Please watch the following message from Dr. Ibrahim Farajaje, Provost and Professor of Islamic and Cultural Studies at Starr King School for the Ministry, about a recent decision he has made about the next step in his career and his life.

To Members of the Starr King Community:

Starr King School for the Ministry acknowledges, with deep regret, the decision of Dr. Ibrahim Farajaje to retire at the close of the 2016-2017 academic year. We know well what a great loss this is to the school and to the larger communities we reach. At the same time, this announcement allows all of us a chance to reflect on and recognize the tremendous work he has done in his 21 years of service to our school. In many ways, Ibrahim embodies the very spirit of Starr King School for the Ministry.

As Provost and Professor of Cultural Studies, Ibrahim has inspired countless students inside and outside of the classroom. He has partnered with scholars, religious leaders, and organizations to create more opportunities for learning within the school. He has mentored people who have become distinguished religious leaders, activists, artists, scholars and educators. He helped shape Starr King into the counter-oppressive, multireligious seminary we only dreamed of creating two decades ago. He was the primary architect of the educational model we now employ—a transformative, global, relational, multitheological and adaptive approach to educating Unitarian Universalist and progressive religious leaders. He has championed immersive education here, creating spaces for larger cultural exchanges and deeper learning, particularly through the Rumi Immersion to Turkey—which we are happy to say will continue, along with additional immersive opportunities that Ibrahim will help us to design. He also pioneered our use of online education 15 years ago, making more and more of our classes and programs accessible to people across the globe and to people of all levels of physical ability. He has contributed a number of scholarly works that have helped to reshape the ways we think about Islam, faith, philosophy and history. In ways too numerous to list, the impact that Ibrahim has had on our school— our students, our faculty and staff–is incalculable.

Over the next two years we will find more ways of recognizing Ibrahim’s work at the school and the profound legacy he will leave behind. We will also find ways to thank him for all he has done—and will continue to do—both for our school and for the larger world. This major transition will take time, but if you have been touched or inspired by Ibrahim, don’t hesitate to thank him now, to wish him well, and to celebrate Dr. Ibrahim Farajaje as he carries into the larger world the work he began here at Starr King.

Starr King School for the Ministry

Dr. Farajaje has requested that any gifts made in his honor to celebrate his retirement be designated to The Dr. Ibrahim Farajaje Immersion Scholarship Fund. To make a gift in honor of Dr. Farajaje, please visit www.sksm.edu/donate and select “The Dr. Ibrahim Farajaje Immersion Scholarship Fund” as your designation. This fund provides scholarships for students of Starr King School for the Ministry to engage in Immersion classes. Experiential learning in theological education is a passion of Dr. Farajaje and he is excited that this fund will make it possible for more students to participate in Immersion courses.