By Kelly Sullivan

A typical camp counselor might spend their days hiking, teaching arts and crafts or singing songs. However, Ilona Carroll is not a typical camp counselor.

Carroll, who graduated in May with a political science and international affairs degree, spent part of her summer teaching high school kids about issues surrounding religious pluralism and diversity. She was a counselor at Leaderhip Education Advancing Democracy and Diversity (LEADD).

Although it wasn’t a typical camp, she still faced some traditional challenges.

“I mostly had to make sure the kids didn’t kill each other,” she said jokingly.

LEADD is a week-long camp in Reisterstown, MD. The goal of the camp is to “empower high school students to become informed and engaged citizens in our religiously diverse nation,” according to its website, www.weleadd.org.

LEADD is a program of the Interfaith Alliance, a non-partisan advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. with state affiliates. Its mission statement, according to the website, www.interfaithalliance.org, is to be “committed to promoting the positive and healing role of religion in public life by encouraging civic participation, facilitating community activism and challenging religious political extremism.”

During the week, the campers attend classes and workshops. The activities range from learning about religious freedom in 18th century America, to researching separation of church and state cases, to writing action plans for projects related to religious freedom. Campers also had the opportunity to go to Washington, D.C. to read the Declaration of Independence and Constitution and meet with their respective senator or representative staff.

Carroll said she discovered the job completely by chance, after the director of religious education at her church in Maryland sent her an e-mail about it.

“I wanted to work at [LEADD] because I thought it would be a great opportunity to work with kids on issues I care about,” she said. “I thought it looked like a lot of fun.”

Carroll said that although she had never been a camp counselor before, she had worked with the same issues that LEADD did during her time spent at Northeastern. In fact, she said one of the programs she helped implement at LEADD came from a Northeastern experience.

“At Northeastern, I participated in two Spiritual Life Office/Leadership Education Growth Opportunity retreats,” she said. “They had something called town council. I learned a lot about other people’s religions, but it wasn’t someone teaching you about Islam, it was everybody else answering everybody else’s questions.”

Carroll said she thought town council was a great program and would be perfect for LEADD, so she suggested it to the camp faculty.

“[The kids] were learning a lot about politics and policy and how to put their plans into action, but they didn’t have a lot of intricate discussion or time for exploring religious issues,” she said. “So I came up with a program like [the town council] to implement into the week.”

This wasn’t the first time Carroll was instrumental in program development. During her time at Northeastern, Carroll was involved in the Northeastern University Unitarian Universalists (NUUU) and the Multi-Faith Student Connection. Through these organizations, Carroll said she was able to develop major leadership skills.

“Her impact was very strong,” said Shelli Jankowski-Smith, director of Spiritual Life. “She embodies the qualities of a good leader. She is dedicated, involved and dependable. She acts with integrity and respect of other opinions.”

Jankowski-Smith worked with Carroll closely as the advisor to the Multi-Faith Student Connection and as a resource for NUUU.

Carroll said she does not think there is a problem concerning religious pluralism at Northeastern, but said she does wish more people would take part in the events put on by the Spiritual Life center.

“I think that the Spiritual Life Office is doing a great job of supporting the students in whatever they’re doing,” Carroll said. “I would like to see more participation in the programs. The more people that participate, the more programs they can put on. The Spiritual Life office does so much already, it’s up to the students.”

Jankowski-Smith said it’s hard-working students like Carroll who make the needed difference.

“It was important that [Carroll] was such a strong leader,” she said. “She was a good model and always acted out of a deeply spiritual place.”

Carroll said she used what she learned at Northeastern to further enrich the LEADD program and was grateful for the opportunity to make an impact.

“It was encouraging to see that people were trying to teach kids about these issues, especially high school students,” she said. “It encouraged me to learn about these issues myself and try to educate others”