Dr. Sharon Erickson Nepstad to Become Director of Religious Studies
Dr. Sharon Erickson Nepstad is the incoming Director of the Religious Studies Program. Dr. Nepstad is an outstanding scholar in the sociology of religion, having gained national prominence in recent years through her studies of the role of religion in social activism. Her book Convictions of the Soul (Oxford University Press 2004) analyzes the role of religion and culture within the Central American solidarity movement in the United States in the 1980s. More recently, in Religion and War Resistance in the Plowshares Movement (Cambridge University Press 2007), she comparatively examined the role of spirituality and religion within an nuclear weapons resistance movement in Europe and the United States. Through these books and in her writing for academic journals and the popular press, Dr. Nepstad has advanced both scholarly and public understanding of religious dynamics within contemporary social movements.
Dr. Nepstad was recruited through a national search and will arrive in New Mexico in January 2009 from the University of Southern Maine, where she served as Professor of Sociology and Director of Religious Studies. She earned her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Colorado in 1996 and subsequently worked with some of the outstanding scholars of religion in America, including Robert Wuthow at Princeton and Christian Smith at the University of North Carolina. She has won numerous teaching awards and will lead the Religious Studies Program into the future while also serving as a tenured professor in the UNM Department of Sociology.
Brown, Williams Awarded Rogers Scholarship
Spring 2008 recipients of the Joyce Rogers Memorial Scholarship were Reigious Studies majors Derek Brown and Shandea Williams. Each received $500 in tuition support.
This scholarship may be awarded each semester to one or more students (preferably majors) in UNM's Religious Studies Program. The scholarship was endowed in honor of the late Joyce Rogers, an influential teacher of Religious Studies. Her former student Mera Wolf has written that "Joyce Rogers was the living embodiment of what is sacred in teaching and in life; she glowed in the dark. . . . [W]hen my own vision grew dark, [she] taught me again and again, in spite of my recalcitrance or because of it, that nothing, nothing, in art or in life, is impossible. She taught me that to surrender utterly and completely to the goodness in the Universe was the most profound way to triumph over evil, that 'an ancient kingdom [can be] restored, [there will be] peace on earth,' and man will realize the 'messianic victory . . . over what makes him inhuman' (Wiesel 1974)." Rogers died on Christmas Eve in 1994.
Brown, a junior, plans to work in youth ministry after graduation. Williams, who will graduate in December 2008, plans to attend law school and notes that "having a religious studies background is extremely beneficial to understanding politics and law in other countries and cultures."
In addition to the scholarship, the UNM Religious Studies Program was the beneficiary of a donation of many of Rogers' books, now housed in the Joyce Rogers Memorial Library, Hokona Zuni Room 366.
For more information about applying for the Joyce Rogers Memorial Scholarship, please contact Program Administrator Nancy Rice, Hokona Zuni Room 364, (505) 277-4009, or at nrice@unm.edu.
Endowed Chair of Catholic Studies
Endowed chairs, often linked to the study of religion, are a time-honored tradition in higher education. The first endowed chair was created in 1502 by the mother of King Henry VII of England, who established the Lady Margaret Professorship of Divinity at Oxford. In America, the Hollis Professorship of Divinity was established at Harvard College in 1721. Today there are endowed chairs in public and private universities around the world, in as many fields as are taught. By fostering scholarship and teaching excellence, contemporary endowed chairs represent unique collaborations between the donors they honor and the institutions in which they function.
Mindful of this tradition, and with the financial support of a major anonymous donor and of Albuquerque restaurateurs Larry and Dorothy Reinosek, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe has endowed a Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of New Mexico. While there are Catholic Studies chairs at a number of public universities in the United States, this is the first endowed Chair of Catholic Studies in the American Southwest. In choosing the Religious Studies Program at UNM, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe has selected a program that seeks to be comprehensive in its teaching about the diversity of world religions and that is actively engaged in research about the role of religion in civil society throughout the world.
The agreement between the University and the Archdiocese has been carefully crafted both to recognize the significance of the Catholic intellectual tradition, particularly in New Mexico, and to affirm the public and secular character of the state’s research university. As funds for the endowment are transferred fully and legally to the University, identifying and recruiting all chairholders will become the collective responsibility of the UNM faculty and administration. While the donor may suggest or recommend candidates, and will nominate representatives on the search committee, the University retains full responsibility and authority to name the occupant of the chair. Once the holder of the chair becomes a faculty member, he or she will have all the rights and responsibilities entailed in being a faculty member (including full academic freedom) and will be subject to the normal faculty review procedures for tenure and promotion.
The University is currently considering the timetable for launching the search for the first Professor of Catholic Studies at UNM. When launched, it will be a national search for the best available candidate. We hope that this endowed chair will be the first of many, with subsequent chairs to focus on other religious traditions and topics in religious studies. (posted 7/24/07)
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