With the creation of the Center for Religion and Democracy, the University joins top-ranked Ivy League schools in specialized interdisciplinary research.
Funded by more than $10 million under the direction of Sociology and Religious Studies Prof. James Hunter, the Center and the University will assume the status of many Ivy League schools such as Yale and Princeton Universities, which currently have similar programs devoted to studying the relationship between government and religion.
While the Center is still in its infancy, the plans and goals for development are well beyond the beginning stages, said Pam Cochran, Center administrative director.
By Fall 2002, the Center hopes to recruit six graduate fellows whose research will be available to the public via a Web site and special lecture series held at the University.
Research topics at the Center will involve many departments at the University touched by the subject as well as the religious studies and sociology departments.
"The initial focus of the Center is on religion and democracy in America, but the long-term hope is to extend well beyond the United States," College Dean Melvyn Leffler said. "This Center means that the University will be one of the great places of study of religion and democracy."
Prof. of Sociology and Religious Studies James Davison Hunter said that he hopes to answer through the Center's research questions about ordering our common life when confronted with the dilemmas of injustice and inequity in the world.
"Perhaps the central crisis of American democracy is that the moral values and ideals that historically have been the foundation of democratic experience are eroding," Hunter said. "Religion has always been a central resource."
Three years ago, Hunter approached the Pew Charitable Trusts with a proposal for a center for research to delve into the questions that religion and democracy pose for our nation.
Pew agreed to provide funds for a non-partisan research center if the University made a "good faith effort" to raise at least $10 million for the project.
In early January 2001, University alumni Frank and Wynette Levinson made available $20 million in funds, half of which will aid in the establishment of the Center.
"The issue of religion in relation to American society was of fundamental importance to Jefferson in the creation of this University," Religious studies Prof. Harry Gamble said.
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