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TRINITY COLLEGE TO ESTABLISH INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF SECULARISM
A press release
Contact: Rama Sudhakar
860-297-2139
[email protected]
http://www.religionnews.com/press02/PR062905.html
Hartford, Conn., June 29, 2005-At a time when deep divisions between religious and secular points of view have revived the "culture wars," careful scholarly investigation of the secular tradition in Western culture is urgently needed. To that end, the Posen Foundation of Lucerne, Switzerland, has chosen Trinity College as the recipient of a major grant to establish an Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at the College for a five-year period commencing in July. The mission of the new Institute is to increase understanding of the sources, nature, and contemporary significance of secular values.
"There clearly is a need for dispassionate academic study of secularism in all of its complex forms and far-reaching ramifications," noted President James F. Jones, Jr. on learning of Trinity's selection. "The College is fortunate that, with the generous support of the Posen Foundation, it is positioned to provide leadership in meeting this need."
The new Institute's director will be Barry Kosmin, a sociologist best known for heading four major studies of religious identity in the U.S. "The contest between religious and secular values in America today has created a growing interest in the secular tradition on campuses and in society generally," Kosmin said. "The Institute aims to provide an objective approach that is both interdisciplinary and comparative-drawing on insights from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences while relating trends in the United States to those in other countries." The Institute will pursue sociological and demographic studies of the nature of secularism in the contemporary world while sponsoring a range of scholarly conferences, public lectures, and seminars. A major component of its work will involve Trinity faculty in creating courses that examine the development of secular ideas and values in the history of the West as well as their role in modern society and across the disciplines.
The grant, totaling $2.8-million over five years, will cover all of the Institute's personnel and programmatic costs. It represents an outgrowth of the Posen Foundation's sponsorship of the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, which found that over the previous decade the number of American adults stating they had no religion doubled from 14 million to 29 million, or 14 percent of the population. The survey, which has become the principal source of data on religious identification in the U.S. today, was conducted by Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, a demographer who will be joining the Institute as associate director. In a statement, the Foundation indicated that its goal was not to promote secularism but rather to enhance understanding of what has become one of the most contentious subjects of our time. "We owe it to ourselves and future generations that secular ideas and phenomena are clearly understood, so that people can make informed choices," the statement said.
At Trinity, the Institute will be housed with the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, which publishes Religion in the News, a magazine dedicated to examining how the news media cover religious issues in the U.S. and abroad. Both institutions will become part of a new Trinity Program on Public Values directed by the Greenberg Center's director, Mark Silk, who will continue to head the Center. The Program will enable the College to examine the full range of moral and ethical commitments that are shaping today's world.
"Recognizing the increased role of religion in contemporary society, a number of American colleges and universities have in recent years inaugurated special centers designed to look at one or another aspect of that role," Silk said. "But so far as I know, Trinity is the first to establish an academic institute devoted to investigating the secular side. It is a remarkable opportunity for us."
A press release
Contact: Rama Sudhakar
860-297-2139
[email protected]
http://www.religionnews.com/press02/PR062905.html
Hartford, Conn., June 29, 2005-At a time when deep divisions between religious and secular points of view have revived the "culture wars," careful scholarly investigation of the secular tradition in Western culture is urgently needed. To that end, the Posen Foundation of Lucerne, Switzerland, has chosen Trinity College as the recipient of a major grant to establish an Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at the College for a five-year period commencing in July. The mission of the new Institute is to increase understanding of the sources, nature, and contemporary significance of secular values.
"There clearly is a need for dispassionate academic study of secularism in all of its complex forms and far-reaching ramifications," noted President James F. Jones, Jr. on learning of Trinity's selection. "The College is fortunate that, with the generous support of the Posen Foundation, it is positioned to provide leadership in meeting this need."
The new Institute's director will be Barry Kosmin, a sociologist best known for heading four major studies of religious identity in the U.S. "The contest between religious and secular values in America today has created a growing interest in the secular tradition on campuses and in society generally," Kosmin said. "The Institute aims to provide an objective approach that is both interdisciplinary and comparative-drawing on insights from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences while relating trends in the United States to those in other countries." The Institute will pursue sociological and demographic studies of the nature of secularism in the contemporary world while sponsoring a range of scholarly conferences, public lectures, and seminars. A major component of its work will involve Trinity faculty in creating courses that examine the development of secular ideas and values in the history of the West as well as their role in modern society and across the disciplines.
The grant, totaling $2.8-million over five years, will cover all of the Institute's personnel and programmatic costs. It represents an outgrowth of the Posen Foundation's sponsorship of the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, which found that over the previous decade the number of American adults stating they had no religion doubled from 14 million to 29 million, or 14 percent of the population. The survey, which has become the principal source of data on religious identification in the U.S. today, was conducted by Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, a demographer who will be joining the Institute as associate director. In a statement, the Foundation indicated that its goal was not to promote secularism but rather to enhance understanding of what has become one of the most contentious subjects of our time. "We owe it to ourselves and future generations that secular ideas and phenomena are clearly understood, so that people can make informed choices," the statement said.
At Trinity, the Institute will be housed with the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, which publishes Religion in the News, a magazine dedicated to examining how the news media cover religious issues in the U.S. and abroad. Both institutions will become part of a new Trinity Program on Public Values directed by the Greenberg Center's director, Mark Silk, who will continue to head the Center. The Program will enable the College to examine the full range of moral and ethical commitments that are shaping today's world.
"Recognizing the increased role of religion in contemporary society, a number of American colleges and universities have in recent years inaugurated special centers designed to look at one or another aspect of that role," Silk said. "But so far as I know, Trinity is the first to establish an academic institute devoted to investigating the secular side. It is a remarkable opportunity for us."
