About the Department
also see: What Lehigh Students are Saying About Religion Studies, Major/Minor Students & Life in the Department.
A Brief History of the Department
The origin of Religion Studies at Lehigh coincides with the birth of the university in 1865. At that time, the Rev. Eliphalet Nott Potter, one of five men who assembled to serve as Lehigh's first faculty, was appointed as the professor of Moral and Mental Philosophy and Christian Evidences. Hardly a scholar of religion in the contemporary sense, Potter was a clergyman and a Christian apologist, concerned more with articulating and defending the beliefs of a particular tradition than with exploring religious phenomena worldwide. Nevertheless, he was a dedicated and distinguished educator (later, in fact, a college president), and his presence on that faculty symbolizes the university founders' commitment to humanistic scholarship in general, and to the study of religion and ethics in particular. An early course in “Christian Evidences,” maintained for several decades, flourished during the tenure of one of Potter's more notable successors, Prof. William A. Lamberton, but its perceived significance gradually declined until it was eliminated altogether.
A new chapter in the history of Religion Studies at Lehigh opened in 1929 with the establishment of a department of Moral and Religious Philosophy and the appointment of Claude G. Beardslee as its head and sole faculty member. Beardslee was a clergyman and served as the university chaplain; he was also a philosopher, and the curriculum that he established reflected both the changing zeitgeist in religious studies and his own scholarly temperament and interests. The university catalog from that period lists, for example, a two-course sequence in the philosophy of religion. The first course dealt with issues concerning the nature of belief and the status of religious knowledge; the second treated "important teachings of the world religions from the standpoint of philosophy." Course offerings in ethics were also supplied. Nonetheless, the university requirement in this area still could be fulfilled by a student's attendance at chapel “on an average of at least three times a week for two years," without any coursework in religion.
The department of Moral and Religious Philosophy existed during an interim period in Lehigh's history. Although the old course in Christian apologetics was already perceived as inadequate, no clear conception of religious studies as a full-fledged academic enterprise had been formed. Lehigh was certainly not unique in this respect: such a conception developed on the national scene only after World War II. Educators became aware that the rigorous, scholarly study of religion constituted an important and legitimate academic field (or set of disciplines) that could be comfortably and profitably pursued within a nonsectarian environment.
In 1947 the new department of religion was established at Lehigh, but four years elapsed before this decision bore significant fruit. The idea became a living reality with the arrival in 1951 of Prof. A. Roy Eckardt. Selected not simply to head the program but to be the program, Eckardt quickly compensated for the lack of collegial support in his field at Lehigh with his own enormous energy and creativity. In large measure, he created the field of Religion Studies at Lehigh. While establishing himself, through lectures and publications, as an internationally known scholar in the burgeoning field of Jewish-Christian studies, Eckardt was also a major figure in the development of the newly founded American Academy of Religion. He served as one of its first presidents and as the very first editor-in-chief of its journal (then the Journal of Bible and Religion, now the Journal of the American Academy of Religion). In 1965, Eckardt even proposed that the university consider extending an invitation to the Academy to locate its national office on the Lehigh campus, an invitation that, given his status within the organization and place in its history, the AAR would have been likely to take seriously.
This rare opportunity for Lehigh, represented by the presence within its own scholarly community of a man who had achieved national, even international prominence in his field, was never actively exploited. Not until 1973, twenty-two years after Eckardt's arrival, did departmental expansion occur. An additional fulltime position and two part-time positions were created, the part-time instruction provided by Prof. Alice Eckardt and the university chaplain, Hubert Flesher. In the years to follow, the department maintained a reputation within the university out of proportion with its small size, a reputation grounded in the scholarly productiveness of its faculty and vigorous student interest in course offerings.
A more dramatic era of expansion was initiated with the arrival at Lehigh of Norman Girardot, in 1980, and his immediate appointment as chair of the department. During the following decade, the faculty grew to its present size of seven members (including the university chaplain). Of special significance was the creation in 1984 of the Philip and Muriel Berman Chair of Jewish Studies, presently occupied by Laurence Silberstein. Prof. Silberstein also became the first director of the Berman Center for Jewish Studies. The Bermans subsequently provided funds for a second position in Jewish Studies, filled in 1988 when Chava Weissler joined the department's faculty.
<="" strong="">
[From The Brown & White May 4, 2001]: "The religion professors encourage their students to look at religion with open minds. Students enrolled in religion courses commend the faculty for their dedication to expanding students' minds while teaching in a respectful manner."
"The religion courses here at Lehigh are simply awesome. They are definitely playing an integral role in my becoming the spiritual person that I aspire to be." Erik Thompson, '04.
Vishai Kothari, '02, praised the Religion Department for focusing on religion as a part of our everyday lives. "Religion courses here at Lehigh teach us that religion is not a separate part of life and neither is it this awe-inspiring thing," says Kothari.
Major/Minor Students
MAJORS:
|
Ali, Tazeen M. - 2010 (Biology)
Badshah, Kush - 2011(Behavioral Neuroscience)
Beal, Francesca - 2008 (Psychology)
Biro, Zackary - 2011 (History)
Dean, Kaitlin M - 2010 (Journalism)
Denning, Naomi-Liza - 2010 (Pharmaceutical Chemistry)
Ferrizzi, Anthony - 2010
Gustafson, Kara - 2010
Krishnamoorthy, Kaila - 2011 (Behavioral Neuroscience)
Li, Robert - 2012 (Music)
|
 |
 |
Miller, Luke -2010 (History)
Nack, Elana - 2010 (Behavioral Neuroscience)
Paul III, Richard C. - 2010
Pimental, Dannielle Jayne - 2011 (IDEAS-Bioengineering/Religion Studies)
Razavi, Mir-Muhammad - mmr310 (Pre-Med Biology)
Rothkrug, Rachel - 2011 (Global Studies)
Steiner, Nicholas - 2010 (Political Science)
|
MINORS:
|
Ackerman, Steven - 2010
Al-Khalifa, Mohammed - 2010
Bakshi, Chetna - 2010
Berg, Emily R. - 2012
Brown, Vaughan Sterling - 2011
Buchberger, David - 2010
Clark, Danielle Megan - 2010
Curtis, Tiffany D. - 2010
Douglass, Elijah William - 2011
Karnani, Kiraj Rajan - 2010
|
Lindeboom, Brian K. - 2010
Majlessi, Jason N. - 2010
Marcucci, Angela Christine - 2010
Mauk, Julia R. - 2010
Murphy, Devon Nicole - 2009
O'Neill, Jeffrey Breckenridge - 2010
Patel, Anand R. - 2010
Penna, Elliott - 2011
Roman, Matthew P. - 2010
Sankhla, Neal Vijay - 2011
Shah, Sara N. - 2010
Stevenson, Gordon M. - 2012
Stillwagon, Ryan C. - 2010
Stolfo, David - 2011
Warren, Alexandra Marie - 2010
Wolfe, Sarah E. - 2010
|
|
Professor Wright's Birthday
|
|
Department Party for Faculty, Families, Majors & Minors
|
|
Department Party for Faculty, Families, Majors & Minors
|
|
Class Field Trip to The Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center
|
|
Rel 198 Final Banquet
|
|