Academic chair honors 14th president
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CLAREMONT, Calif. — Approval to create the Howard W. Hunter Chair in Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University was announced by the school's President Robert Klitgaard, Provost Yi Feng and board of trustees Tuesday, Oct. 24. When the CGU search committee has completed its work within the next few months, it will recommend a pre-eminent scholar to occupy the Hunter Chair in the School of Religion, according to School of Religion Dean Karen Torjesen.
This will be the first academic chair for graduate-level study of the Church at Claremont.
The idea for an academic chair to honor the Church's 14th president, Howard W. Hunter, a longtime resident of Southern California and former Church historian, led to the founding of the Hunter Foundation in early 2006. This past April, CGU and the Hunter Foundation publicly signed a landmark endowment agreement that laid the groundwork for establishing the Hunter Chair. (See Church News, May 6, 2006, p 7.)
Since the agreement was signed, the Howard W. Hunter Foundation has received substantial financial commitments, according to Joseph Bentley, chair of the LDS Council for Mormon Studies at the CGU School of Religion. The council is currently composed of 12 Church members drawn from business, academic and community circles in California and Utah. Its role is to advise Dean Torjesen on matters relating to CGU's nascent Mormon Studies program. In addition, the LDS Council at Claremont has committed its own funds to ensure the incoming professor's first year salary. Thus, CGU agreed to begin the search this year.
The Hunter Foundation's ultimate goal, observed council member Armand Mauss, is to fund an entire Center for Mormon Studies. That will include not only the salary for the chair, but also a residence, special library resources, graduate fellowships, research grants, conferences, invited lectures, publications and various outreach activities to engage with other faith traditions. However, the most important and urgent goal, according to Brother Bentley, is raising a large enough endowment to establish and maintain the Chair.
After Provost Feng has formed a search committee and advertised the position, in accord with usual university policy, the committee will evaluate candidates, interview finalists and submit recommendations for a scholar to fill the chair. The provost will make the final decision. Conceivably, the Howard W. Hunter Chair could be filled by fall 2007, remarked Dean Torjesen.
The Mormon Studies program will be part of CGU's new approach to the comparative study of religion. The university seeks to "encourage dialogue between the faithful practitioners of a religion and its scholarly observers, thereby fostering a dynamic exchange between faith and scholarship," said LDS Council member Robert Rees.
In order to overcome "the old battle between science and faith," said Dean Torjesen, "we need to bring the faithful into conversation with the academic; to bring the 'insider' into conversation with the 'outsider."'
In 2002, Dean Torjesen visited Salt Lake City and Brigham Young University to establish relationships with Church and university leaders.
To permanently endow both the Hunter Chair and a Center for Mormon Studies will require substantial additional private donations. Friends of President Hunter and his family, as well as others interested in creating the Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont, may contact: info@HowardHunterFoundation.org for further information.
