Institute for Communication and Religion Reports Productive Fall 2025 Semester

The fall semester has been very successful one for the Institute for Communication and Religion (ICR), having hosted several events and produced several podcast episodes. The semester began with the Forum on Courage, which took place on September 4. The event, which centered around the 1970 Inaugural Address of Monsignor Fahy, was very well attended by over 70 freshmen. ICR Director Jon Radwan and Angela Kariotis of Brookdale College coordinated a dramatic reading of the address, which was followed by a Q&A panel discussion. The faculty panelists were Reverend Forrest Pritchett, Monsignor Richard Liddy, CORE Director Nancy Enright, Ph.D., and student panelist Eva Ruark. A digital version of the event is available here.

For media work, Monsignor Richard Liddy, Ph.D., retired professor of Catholic Thought and Culture and former director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Seton Hall, sat with Jon Radwan for a podcast interview, where he spoke about his personal life, education, career and memories of his time at the University. The interview is available to watch or listen to now on Seton Hall’s YouTube or the ICR’s Podbean.

As part of Seton Hall’s Contemplative Community Week, the ICR hosted a Meditation and Mindful Breathing Workshop, featuring guest speaker Pradeep B. Deshpande, Ph.D. The workshop took place September 17 at Seton Hall’s Interprofessional Health Science Campus in Nutley. Deshpande guided students through an hour-long meditation and mindful breathing exercise, meant to encourage students to reconnect with their bodies and release stress. Deshpande serves as president of Six Sigma and Advanced Controls in Louisville, Kentucky, and is a professor emeritus in and former chair of the chemical engineering department at the University of Louisville. Deshpande also joined Radwan and Professor A.D. Amar, Ph.D. of the Stillman School of Business as a podcast episode guest, where he discussed meditation and the Bhagavad Gita. Both the podcast episode and meditation workshop are available now on the ICR’s Podbean.

On October 29, the Brownson Speech and Debate Team collaborated with the ICR to host the final event celebrating the College of Human Development, Culture, and Media’s One College One Exhibition Initiative. The hour-long event, “Telling the Truth: An Art and Argument,” featured speeches from four Speech and Debate Team students, which centered around the teachings of journalist and activist Dorothy Day, who co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement in the 1930s. At the event, sophomore speech and debate member M. Brynn Christianson performed an oral interpretation of Day’s writing about labor. Junior Joshua Yue delivered an impromptu speech, senior Amos Willey presented a persuasive speech about incarceration and legal reforms and senior Catherine Jones gave a rhetorical criticism speech about memory and disability activism. The session was followed by a Q&A, where the audience asked follow-up questions to the students.

The ICR also has several projects under development, so stay tuned for more events and new content. The Intersections podcast series will re-launch in Spring 2026, and there will also be an interview with Anthony DePalma, adjunct associate professor of Journalism at Columbia University, on his new book about Newark Abbey called On This Ground.

About the Institute for Communication and Religion
The Institute for Communication and Religion (ICR) is an affiliated unit within Seton Hall University’s College of Human Development, Culture, and Media. Religious traditions are primary drivers for social action across humanity’s full moral range, from care through violence. Launched with THRUST funding in Fall 2017, the ICR is an interdisciplinary nexus for communication and media scholarship addressing the critical intersection between religion and society. Guided by Nostra Aetate’s spirit of ecumenical and interreligious cooperation, the Institute seeks to engage in public dialogue and debate, promote academic inquiry and support religious dimensions of creativity. Our values are Seton Hall’s values: servant leadership, curricular innovation and intellectual excellence. For more information, visit the Institute for Communication and Religion website.

Categories: Arts and Culture, Faith and Service