Methodology
For my project, I decided to primarily conduct a focus group with student members of HCFA and interviews featuring full-time staff members and alumni involved as leaders in the community. I tried to evenly split the focus group in terms of gender and whether or not a student had held a leadership role within HCFA; the group was comprised of three male and three female-identifying students, all of whom have been involved in HCFA programming to various degrees, including Doxa, Bible courses, or additional discussions, gatherings, and informal meetings.
I treated the interviews as expert interviews since all interviewees held significant leadership roles within the HCFA community. I interviewed Don Weiss and Tyler Parker, two HCFA full-time ministry fellows who have both been a part of the HCFA community since 2008 and 2013, respectively, Don as a ministry staff member since HCFA's start and Tyler who joined as a Harvard freshman in 2013 and later joined staff first as an intern then most recently as a full-time staff member. I also interviewed Mattia Mahmoud, who served as Co-President during the 2019-2020 Academic Year and is currently a leader on HCFA's Alumni Board.
Finally, I wanted to supplement the focus group and interviews with a survey to hear from more diverse perspectives within HCFA. I collected a little less than 30 responses and asked open-ended questions regarding community, identity, and areas of improvement similar to the conversations held in the focus group.
