Panel urges dialogue beyond 'culture wars'

Classroom discussion should challenge preexisting notions and stretch students' intellectual comfort zones, religion professors Cornel West GS '80, Eddie Glaude GS '97 and Jeffrey Stout GS '76 argued in a panel discussion last night in McCosh 10.

"If the students are not in some sense unsettled and unnerved, then I know I'm not doing my job," West said to the more than 100 students and community members who attended the discussion on the place of religion and civic values within academia.

Responding to questions about the role of the educator in a secular classroom and the extent that religious ideas should be presented in the classroom, the panelists strove to define the boundaries and obligations of intellectual instruction.

"How can you get the discussion past the culture war zone? How can you get [a class] past the point where everyone knows their part? How can you push it along so that they're outside of Robbie George-Peter Singer land?" Stout asked.

"I don't mean that those positions are unworthy of respect," he added, "but they aren't the only positions."

The discussion comes at a time when the role of religion in higher education has provoked scrutiny both on and off campus. UCLA recently released a study in Inside Higher Ed examining professors' degrees of religious and spiritual activity.

Though the great majority of the 40,000 faculty surveyed said they are religious or spiritual, less than half said colleges should encourage students' spiritual development.

The University decided not to participate in the UCLA study, but is planning to complete a similar survey in the near future, Associate Dean of Religious Life Paul Raushenbush said.

Religion in the classroom

The evolution debate was raised as an example of the difficulties incorporating religion into the classroom during the discussion yesterday.

Part of the contention surrounding the teaching of evolution stems from the discipline in which it is taught, West said.

"Creationism doesn't belong in the physics classroom, it belongs in the sociology classroom," West claimed.

Classes should not ignore religious discussion altogether, however.

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"In some classes ... like in evolutionary biology where there is a critical divide in peoples' minds between spirituality and biology ... a dialogue should occur, but not at the expense of basic bio being taught," former Princeton Evangelical Fellowship president Weston Powell '06 said. "If there is a class on evolutionary bio, it should teach evolutionary biology, but there should be a willingness of people to acknowledge other perspectives."

Some students said that a lack of religious acceptance on campus makes them wary of discussing religion in class.

"Especially in the sciences, religion is written off as basically contrary to reason," Religious Life Council member Cassandra DeBenedetto '07 said. "I think that just as we would recognize arguments from psychology or biology ... it is important to recognize religious arguments."

"Princeton tries to be religiously tolerant and recognizes the diversity of the students it has," she said. "But I also think that perhaps some Catholic views that come to light on various issues are not always tolerated by students or professors."

Faculty members, however, said they have observed a recent improvement in religious understanding and discussion on campus. Wilson School Professor Stanley Katz said he makes a point of comfortably discussing religion with students in his spring semester Civic Values class.

"There is less a reluctance now than there was [to talk about religion], and I think that's partly because of the resurgence of religiosity," Katz said. "I think we do a disservice to ourselves and our students if we don't articulate those feelings."

While discussion and acceptance was encouraged during yesterday's discussion, Stout reminded students that professors, as experts within their fields of study, are qualified to a degree of deference and autonomy in establishing their curriculum.

"We need to make a distinction between majoritarianism and democracy," Stout said. "Part of what democracy needs is an informed citizenry; democracy in this sense is a democratic republic — a form of government that is set up first of all with the aim of limiting opportunities for domination."

The panelists, however, expressed a wariness of expecting direct, moral teachings in a non-religiously affiliated university.

"Integrity, magnanimity, maturity — these things are not taught, they are exemplified," West said. "The worst thing you want is some form of algorithm that teaches majority and magnanimity."

At the same time, Professor Stout acknowledged a kind of moral expectation of professors in the classroom.

"What contributes more to a person's character than the nature of the things they love?" Stout asked. "We teach ... critical thought, which is trying to tell the truth between the excellent and the non-excellent."