Interfaith Interview
Stoneman Classroom
The notion that faith in God and intelligence can harmoniously coexist is not just a Christian concept. The goal of this panel is to:
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•explore commonality among religions with respect to the interplay of reason, intellectual inquiry, and matters of faith.
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•examine the faith-life questions, generally, as explored with Christianity in each of the other panels.
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•develop and explore points of uniqueness in various religions and how they deal with the question of integration differently.
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•develop the idea of how different faiths and religions can work together constructively and respectfully toward our common goals.
Interviewer
David Stone D’79
Founder & President, First Rate
Microbusiness developer, Afghanistan
David Stone is the founder and president of First Rate. Mr. Stone acts as the visionary for the firm, providing direction for product development and guidance for customer service. Mr. Stone launched First Rate in 1991 with the vision of providing a dynamic set of analysis tools that offer Web-based performance solutions. Since then, the company has enjoyed significant annual growth in revenue, which can be partly attributed to its reputation in the industry for building strong personal relationships with clients.
Mr. Stone's experience, before establishing First Rate, includes eight years at National FSI and SEI Investments where he worked as a programmer, developer and product manager. He has also worked as an application consultant at ComShare. Mr. Stone embarked on his career in 1979 at Banker's Trust of South Carolina in the management-training program. After successfully completing the program, Mr. Stone worked as an investment officer for several years.
Mr. Stone graduated from Dartmouth College where he studied economics and mathematics, while earning Varsity letters for football and track. Mr. Stone, being very committed to community service, serves on the board of Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Youth With a Mission, Friends of Youth With a Mission, and Turner 12. He recently received the Tom Landry Award from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes to honor him for his contributions and efforts for the organization. Mr. Stone also serves as the Scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop 545 at Arlington's Most Blessed Catholic Church.
Guest
M. Nazif Shahrani, Ph.D.
Professor of Anthropology, Indiana University
Ethnographic researcher, Afghanistan
M. Nazif Shahrani, Ph.D. was born, raised and partly educated in Afghanistan. He completed his B.A. at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in anthropology at the University of Washington, Seattle.
Currently, Dr. Shahrani is a Professor of Anthropology, Central Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. At Indiana University, he has served as the Chairman of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, the Director of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Program, and the Director of Middle Eastern Studies Program. Dr. Shahrani has held post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard and Stanford Universities and at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution.
Dr. Shahrani has conducted extensive ethnographic field research in Afghanistan, and, during the 1980s, studied Afghan refugee communities in Pakistan and Turkey. Since 1992, he has carried out field research in post-Soviet Muslim republics of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Since 2001 when the Taliban regime fell from power, Dr. Shahrani has regularly visited Afghanistan, most recently in March 2006. He has published widely and is currently working on a book entitled Post-Taliban Afghanistan: The Challenges of State-Building, Governance and Security.
