From Deseret News archives:

USU seeks scholar for LDS-studies post

Published: Friday, May 26, 2006 10:02 p.m. MDT
 |  E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
CASPER, Wyo. — Utah State University has formally announced its search for a scholar to fill its new Leonard Arrington Chair in Mormon History and Culture, as part of establishing the first religious studies program at a state-sponsored university in the Beehive State.

"We want to make this appointment before the holidays and have this person join the faculty in fall 2007," said Dean Gary Kiger of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at USU. He made the announcement during the opening session of the Mormon History Association conference Friday.

The school has been working to organize formal religious studies research for some time, and the Arrington Chair will be the second position at a secular university dedicated to the emerging field of Mormon studies.

Claremont Graduate University in California recently announced its search and fund-raising for a Mormon studies chair named after late LDS Church President Howard W. Hunter. The USU post is named after deceased LDS Church historian Leonard Arrington, whose work has become the basis for much of the scholarship that has since been produced regarding early LDS history.

Story continues below
Kiger also announced the selection of Charles Prebish, a specialist in Buddhist studies from Pennsylvania State University, to fill an endowed chair in religious studies at USU. Prebish has held visiting professorships at Naropa Institute and the University of Calgary, and spent a year as Rockefeller Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. He is co-founder of the online Journal of Buddhist Ethics.

The religious studies push at USU is already attracting research files from other high-profile scholars who work in Mormon studies. Kiger said the school will soon receive the papers of the late Valeen Tippetts Avery, retired professor of history at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Avery, who died in April at age 69, specialized in American Southwest and Mormon history. She co-authored "Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith," with Linda King Newell, in 1984, and in 1998, authored "From Mission to Madness. The Last Son of the Mormon Prophet."Both books were formally honored by USU.

Kiger said the school is also slated at some point to receive the papers of Jan Shipps, a professor emeritus of religious studies, history and philanthropic studies at Indiana University, Purdue, Ind. University. Shipps is widely regarded as one of the most knowledgeable scholars of Mormon studies who is not a Latter-day Saint.


E-mail: carrie@desnews.com

Comments

You can be the first to comment on this story.

previousnext

Latest comments

Jazz go up against 'the best'

Is Fez doing to keep getting these stomach viruses? This is a joke Fez is...

I hope they feel like they can win every time they walk on the court too. But...

Five players miss Jazz practice

To assume every human being is the same is a joke. Maybe your injury for...

Obama urges major new stimulus

Obama, you are out of your mind!! Does anyone truly believe that we as...

With Fesenko ill, the Jazz might need to go with Koufos in stretches to...

well of course. their SENIORS. their last year of high school football. their...

Best win of any Utah team so far. Excellent job BYU!

What are you talking about? Charters came from the left. Who cares what...

My bumper sticker. If you think Max Hall meant every word of it'' HONK''

Revive full food tax?

Remove the sales tax completely from food. Replace it with a tax on...

Advertisements