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Her once-friendly neighbors were different. "It was incredible," she says softly. "Before, we were friends; they would eat my food, play with my children and smile and wave to me in the hallways and on the street. But after, it all changed. After Sept. 11, they couldn't look me in the eye." They were scared, Nayan knows. So was she. As the country reeled, fear took over. Yet Nayan didn't shy from facing the new reality that had settled around her. "I knew I had my work cut out for me," she says. In the days immediately following the terrorist attacks, many Muslim students on IU's campus came to Nayan to share their sto- ries of fear and bullying. Typical to her style, she gathered people to talk it out. Her goal? To begin a dialogue of understanding at this heady time. An exercise in cross-cultural dialogue and education, Nayan received much praise for her ability to bring people together. This theme has been repeated many times throughout the past decade of her life, and ultimately led to a collaborative project built on one simple premise: Courage. all a par� of eac� ot� when we learn to "Courage to me is taking that first step into the unknown with the hope that good things will come out of it," Nayan says. "Cour- age also means ensuring justice for other people and doing the right thing. It is crucial for us to agree to disagree agreeably." Nayan's focus on justice—and doing the right thing—was born out of her own moment of courage. In 2007, she chaperoned a field trip from the Madinah Academy to a small community outside of Madison. There, Nayan and her group of about 30 Muslim children and parents experienced the kind of treatment that often comes from ignorance and fear. Before boarding a train for the trip, Nayan was summoned by the to isolate or pull away." embrace "We are all related— It makes us better peopleer's worl� . each other rather than engineer on duty who bellowed at her, "I am a Christian. Are you going to kill me?" Her cheeks flush at the memory of the blatant hatred, the emo- tions of that moment, and of calmly, quietly, with full knowledge that her students were watching her, sharing her story and dispel- ling this man's myths and misunderstandings. The scariest part about the whole incident to Nayan? The fact that the engineer was a pastor at one of the local churches. The emotions of that experience morphed for her into a deep resolve to plant the seeds for cultural awareness and tolerance across religions. To her, the path was clear. With her family's support— and at her husband's urging, in fact—she decided to go back to school to earn her doctorate. Nayan found her place within the UW-Madison's Lubar Institute for the Study of Abrahamic Religions (LISAR). Founded in 2005, LISAR's mission stems from the close ties yet often bitter con- nections that have historically existed among Jews, Christians and Muslims. To Nayan, it was a place to utilize her life experiences and August 2012 bravamagazine.com 43