Religious Studies and the public university: A case study at Arizona State University

TY - JOUR

T1 - Religious Studies and the public university

T2 - A case study at Arizona State University

AU - Cady, Linell

N1 - Funding Information: the Theravada Buddhist tradition. Another program grant, jointly funded by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council, led to the 1992 appointment of a scholar with expertise in religion in Russia and Eastern Orthodoxy. Finally, under the auspices of university enhancement of undergraduate education in general and strong departmental enrolments, religious studies was awarded an additional faculty line in 1994 to hire a scholar of religion with expertise in gender and religion, an area that had been a programmatic priority of the department for several years. The point that needs to be underscored is that additional lines in the past decade have been more dependent upon high enrolments and external grants than upon institutional commitment to developing the field of reli-gious studies. This is not to say that the above factors were the only causes of departmental expansion. Administrative approval for new lines, even if driven by enrolments and grants, depends upon a positive endorsement of the quality and value of a unit'. Hence the additional lines did reflect the de-partment's success in developing a strong reputation within the institution for research, grants, and teaching, in terms of both the quality and the quantity. Nevertheless, however essential this reputation was for departmental growth. generally speaking it was not sufficient. Moreover, a unit's reputation for quality is academically generic, having no essential relation to its subject matter. Arguments for the intellectual and academic importance of developing the field of religious studies have played, at best, only a secondary. supporting role in the quest for new lines in the past decade. While this may speak to the failure of religious studies to gain a foothold within the centre of the liberal arts curriculum in a public university, it also speaks to the degree to which market forces have taken control of the configuration of institutions of higher education. For my sense is that our situation has not been unique. or even the exception, among the liberal arts and sciences in the past decade.

PY - 1995

Y1 - 1995

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84966033698&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84966033698&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1163/157006895X00568

DO - 10.1163/157006895X00568

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84966033698

SN - 0943-3058

VL - 7

SP - 393

EP - 406

JO - Method and Theory in the Study of Religion

JF - Method and Theory in the Study of Religion

IS - 2

ER -