June 15, 2009

Dear Supporters of Religious Studies at FIU:

The Department of Religious Studies at FIU is delighted with the positive response of the Board of Trustees to the overwhelming support for continuing the Department of Religious Studies and its degree programs. We received a generous offer of the Dalai Lama to contribute $100,000 to save the Religious Studies program and to fundraise on its behalf, and widespread support for the program from students, alumni, a broad range of community organizations including the Catholic Archdiocese, Rabbinical associations, and local Imams, as well as strong support from the professional association, the American Academy of Religion.  The FIU Board of Trustees today rejected the proposal of the administration to terminate the Department, its BA, and half of its full-time faculty. Furthermore, the Board directed the Provost to attempt to find the necessary budget cuts without further cuts to academic programs. The Board argued that Religious Studies is not only integral to the strategic themes of the university (environment, internationalism, and healthcare), but is also critical to understanding and resolving  many of the most pressing problems in contemporary global society.

We faculty of the department cannot possibly thank you, our supporters, enough. We are especially grateful, of course, to the Dalai Lama, without whose support we could not have achieved the media attention that made so many others aware of the threat facing us. Within our own faculty, many of whom worked overtime to collect data and rally supporters, we owe much to Nathan Katz, not only for approaching the Dalai Lama on our behalf, but for his tireless lobbying of members of the Board. We are also grateful to the College of Arts and Sciences and its Dean, Kenneth Furton, for attempting to ameliorate the damage of the proposed cuts, even though in the end those efforts were not necessary. We have been gratified to have both our efforts over our past fourteen years as a department, and the mission of our field of comparative religious studies, validated and appreciated. Our students are jubilant; our exchange student partners are relieved, as are our faculty.

Over the next months, in addition to our teaching and research, we will not only concentrate on fundraising to prevent our department from coming under fiscal threat in the future, but will also attempt to adapt our curriculum even further to the demands of the contemporary world, as well as to integrate religious studies into other degree programs. There is now on our website (religion.fiu.edu) a link to fundraising.

This budget season has been a difficult one for Religious Studies programs around the nation. We continue to find this disturbing, as there has seldom been a time when the comparative study of religion is more necessary for global peace and health. We hope that other programs and departments can take heart from the success of our efforts to stave off the threat facing us.

Gratefully, on behalf of the entire Religious Studies faculty,

Christine Gudorf

Professor and Chair, Department of Religious Studies