Mormon Studies, Big Money and U.

At the risk of sending our blog off on a tangent, I think we should consider one other aspect of the Mormonism/religious studies/BYU issue: what about the redder, better, and more secular school slightly north of Provo? Why doesn’t the University of Utah have a religious studies department? Harris Lenowitz, professor of Hebrew and Judaism at the U of U, once answered this question. But what do you think?

Regardless of whether or not the Utah legislature is to blame, we can all be fairly sure that it’s not for lack of interest. Most people I know from the U of U would have loved to take more classes in religion (and not just at the institute). The interest is there, the resources could easily be brought in, so what is stopping the U of U from developing a program in religion? It seems to me that Lenowitz may be right. If that’s the case, perhaps we should be concerned about how the new Mormon studies chairs will be funded. I’ve heard arguments on both sides. Some professors I’ve spoken with say that funding is really a non-issue, while others are worried that academic freedomwill be limited on account of the donors.