Najam Discusses Faith Amid COVID-19 on WBUR
On April 7, 2021, Adil Najam, Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, appeared WBUR to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on communities of faith and the celebration of another holy season in a pandemic.
In addition to Najam, the segment featured two faith leaders from the Boston area: Father John Unni, Catholic pastor of St. Cecilia Parish in Boston, and Rabbi Claudia Kreiman, senior rabbi at Temple Beth Zion in Brookline. The speakers took listener calls from members of various faith communities.
In his remarks, Dean discussed how congregations had to pivot and change how they operated due to COVID-19, while at the same time trying to maintain their sense of community as they are forced to remain distant. COVID-19 denied people the proximity they needed at a time when people wanted it most, but Dean Najam stated that this created a need to find news ways of instilling a sense of community without the traditional means.
The full segment can be listened to below.
Adil Najam is a global public policy expert who also served as the Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan. He is the Inaugural Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and was the former Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). His research focuses on issues of global public policy, especially those related to global climate change, South Asia, Muslim countries, environment and development, and human development. Read more about Dean Najam on his faculty profile.