The Roger C. Dowdy and Janie Wineman Dowdy Endowment for Initiatives in Peacebuilding through Spirituality and the Arts will support a graduate assistant position in Lynchburg’s Spiritual Life Center. In this role, the graduate assistant will be responsible for creating programmatic opportunities and initiatives for students and the University of Lynchburg community to explore the ways in which the arts and interfaith traditions can collaboratively impact peacebuilding for the common good — resulting in a more peaceful and equitable society, an expansive awareness of spirituality in everyday life, and a greater understanding of the arts in religious or secular traditions and the “public square.
Dowdy’s 40 years of peacebuilding background inform not just his own work, they’ve also shaped the scope of the endowment. He envisions a graduate assistant who will create high-quality programming that explores peacebuilding and interfaith dialogue through a variety of artistic disciplines and media. The endowment is an ongoing tribute to Roger’s late wife, Janie Wineman Dowdy ’70, to the couple’s love for the arts, and to the power of Lynchburg’s liberal arts education.
The graduate assistant position is currently held by Mimi Oliver.
