Course Program Changes Hands

Keith B Miller (kbmill@ksu.edu)
Sat, 20 Jun 1998 12:09:07 -0600

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>Meta 118. 6/18/98. Approximately 115 lines.
>Please feel free to forward all Meta messages in their entirety.
>
>Below is a press release from the Center for Theology and the Natural
>Sciences announcing that the Center has received a $12.6 million four-year
>grant from the John Templeton Foundation to develop and expand the Science
>and Religion Course Program. Bob Herrmann at Gordon College in
>Massachusetts, The current program director and project founder, is
>stepping down. CTNS is stepping in to take over this important job. Over
>the last four years almost 400 professors have received $10,000 grants to
>develop and teach new courses in science and religion. The Course Program,
>and the workshops that accompany it, have given the field of science and
>religion an enormous boost.
>
>With many returning from Templeton Summer Workshops in Berkeley and Boston,
>and others of us yet to head off to other Summer Workshops in Chicago,
>Toronto, and Oxford (I leave tomorrow for Chicago), this would be a good
>time to acknowledge the vision and leadership of Bob Herrmann in helping
>the Templeton Foundation create and guide this program during the first
>four years. We might also wish the folks at CTNS great success as they
>begin to administer, develop, and internationalize the Science and Religion
>Course Program.
>
>-- Billy Grassie
>
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>Press Release
>
>For Immediate Release
>Contact: Robert John Russell, Ph.D. or Ted Peters, Ph.D.(510) 848-8152
>
>CTNS Receives Major Grant for
>"Science and Religion Course Program"
>
> The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) at the Graduate
>Theological Union has received a $12.6 million four-year grant from the
>John Templeton Foundation to develop and expand course programs in science
>and religion at universities worldwide. Over 70 percent of the money will
>directly support the creation of regional and international programs in
>this field.
>
> "Our vision includes strategies to truly expand the international
>scope of
>the existing Science and Religion Course Program," stated Dr. Robert
>Russell, executive director of CTNS and principal investigator of the
>expanded program. "In an age when science and religion are often seen as
>inevitably in heated conflict or in total isolation, CTNS is committed to
>an open, self-critical dialogue for constructive interaction benefiting
>both fields. CTNS will work aggressively to seek long-term
>institutionalization of courses in science and religion on university,
>college and seminary campuses around the world."
>
> The Science and Religion Course Program, begun in 1994 with the
>support of
>the John Templeton Foundation, sponsors new or improved courses in science
>and religion at academic and religious institutions located primarily in
>the United States, Canada and England. The new Templeton grant will help
>CTNS build on the program's current work.
>
>CTNS has developed three main goals for the future:
>
>- To internationalize the program over the next four years, expanding it to
>include Europe, Asia, Australia-New Zealand, and Latin America;
>
>- To broaden the impact of the existing science and religion course
>program, bringing it to faculty on 25 of the leading research universities
>and 15 of the leading divinity schools and seminaries in the United States,
>Canada and England; and
>
>- To strengthen the program where it has been most successful so far.
>
> The John Templeton Foundation established the course program to
>encourage
>pedagogy in science and religion. Over the past four years, almost 400
>courses have been awarded $10,000 each ($5,000 to the institution, $5,000
>to the course instructor). The course program currently supports three
>annual introductory workshops in the United States, Canada and England to
>acquaint interested faculty with the program and provide them with basic
>resources in the field. The program annually sponsors five advanced
>workshops for faculty who win a course award to acquaint them with current
>research areas in the field of science and religion.
>
> Beginning September 1, 1998, CTNS plans to continue the annual
>introductory and advanced workshops in North America and England and
>sponsor a total of 25 new workshops over the next four years in Europe,
>Australia-New Zealand, Asia, and Latin America.
>
> "We hope The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences will make
>measurable progress toward what is already a vital society of faculty
>teaching science and religion courses," stated Dr. John Templeton,
>president of the Templeton Foundation. "Our mutual goal is to take specific
>creative steps toward a long-term impact on the academic field."
>
> Located in Berkeley, California, the Center for Theology and the
>Natural
>Sciences is a non-profit organization whose mission is to sponsor the
>creative, mutual interaction between science and religion. The Center was
>founded in 1981 by Robert John Russell, who holds a doctorate in
>experimental physics, an M.Div./M.A. in religion, and is ordained in the
>United Church of Christ, Congregational.
>
> The Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, California, is a
>consortium of nine interdependent Roman Catholic and Protestant seminaries
>and a Unitarian/Universalist school of ministry. CTNS is one of eleven
>affiliated centers and program units of the GTU.
>
> The John Templeton Foundation was founded in 1987 by internationally
>renowned investment manager Sir John Templeton to encourage the pursuit of
>religious and scientific knowledge. The Foundation currently funds over 90
>projects, studies, award programs and publications around the world.
>Foundation programs focus on five areas: spiritual information through
>science, spirituality and health, character development, free enterprise
>education and the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.
>
>#30#
>
>The Graduate Theological Union
>2400 Ridge Road
>Berkeley, CA 94709
>510-649-2400
>Fax: 510-649-1417
>
>
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Keith B. Miller
Department of Geology
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506
kbmill@ksu.ksu.edu
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/

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