MSU philosophy and religious studies departments might soon be housed together

Karl Marx is rolling over in his grave!

Grammar, you have too much free time. Either that, or an unhealthy obsessive condition.

While we’re at it let’s combine the School of Social Work with the College of Engineering, they’re only the exact opposite. Religion is not philosophy despite Thomas Aquinas’s best attempts to highjack Aristotle’s brilliant philosophical discoveries.

On a side note, Detroit gave the key to the city to Saddam Hussein in 1980 for donating to a church! I can’t make this crap up! Carl Levin served on the Detroit City Council between 1969-1973, becoming president of the council between ’73-‘77, where he forced the re-writing of the City Charter in ’74. After he left, his brilliant project gave the KEY TO THE CITY to SADDAm HUSSEIN! Now he’s Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Too funny.

And this thread has officially been derailed.

Philosophy of Religion, may I ask?

You should be asking what the religion of philosophy is all about.

Well said. ;)

It still pisses me off that Morrill Hall will be demolished. It’s a terrible waste of MSU history for a building that, if MSU’s admin/trustees would make a minimal investigative effort, could be saved. I’ve seen much older buildings with worse foundational infrastructure than Morrill be rebuilt from the inside and saved. MSU is both cheap and lazy. If U-M had a historic, handsome building as Morrill, you can bet they’d save it.

Why not astrology and philosophy. Religion has no place in a college. I consider this a HUGE step backward, and it cheapens MSU as a whole.

I’m a graduate student at another university, and we all share space—six graduate students to an office, with some students sharing a desk. When we TA classes and have to meet with students privately, we simply meet in a lounge or a nearby classroom. There are many universities—Northwestern, for one—where grad students in some departments don’t even have offices. In light of how bad the financial situation is at the moment, this hardly seems like something worth complaining about.

Giving state funds to religion departments in the university is a clear violation of the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and I’m sure it violates the michigan constitution as well. Never mind though, we’re all brainwashed fascists who no longer have objective grasp of language, thus we all speak Newspeak.

Re: morrill hall. Of course they want to demolish it, it’s a constant reminder of Congressman morrill who helped pass the federal Land Grant Act that helped kickstart msu. People might start realizing that the morrill Land Grant Act is still legally applicable and that we are REQUIRED by law to be an agricultural and technical college with less liberal arts bull crap.

Morrill Hall is a major dump and way ugly too. If they don’t knock it down it’s going to fall down on our heads soon enough. Too many people get all bunged up about crappy old buildings just because they’re old.

I’m sorry to hear that Morrill Hall is being torn down. It was within those stone walls that I studied great literature; wrote very bad papers, poetry, and fiction that enabled me to write better versions later; and prepared for the freelance writing and editing career that now supports my family and allows me to continue to learn and explore new ideas. It was cold in the winter (do the ancient steam heaters still exist?) and pretty hot in the summer (so we would often hold class on the grass outside).

That said, it was old then, and 28 years have passed since I last walked out one of its doors. Maybe time for something new, eh? Save a brick for me.

so glad they could think of a headline that isn’t almost exactly rthe same as that boring lead. oh wait..

It pisses me off that Morrill Hall will be demolished too.

There’s a difference between religious studies and a religion department, but the distinction probably escapes most of the drive by flamers.

@AYO: The plan calls for the reallocation of any and all current lounges and currently unoccupied nearby spaces that the philosophy department has under its charge. This would undercut the ability of the graduate students to “simply” meet anywhere nearby. The “simply” does not apply. This adds a new burden (regarding the management of work time allowed by the union contract) on the TAs. This, ultimately likely means that either the TAs will be taking time away from preparation or violating the contract.
Further, just because institutions such as Northwestern treat the graduate students poorly does not imply that the MSU philosophy graduate students should not resist these proposed changes that aim to diminish working conditions.

@what i see: also, too many people want things just because they’re new. There’s value in preserving historically relevant buildings. Some new ugly building that is not directly tied to the university’s founding is not necessarily the right thing to want.

@English Major: I’m sure you’ll be able to buy one at the surplus store for an inflated price (like bricks from old Sparty).

@AYO:
It shouldn’t be assumed that the graduate students do not share office spaces or that they’re opposed to such an idea. Under the current conditions, all graduate students in the philosophy department share offices. The concern is that (as msu employee indicated) that all of the PHL graduate students will be placed into one office (this would be at least 17 people) and that the other common areas and department resources will be eliminated.
While it is correct that we are in hard economic times, such a move may be devastating to the department’s ability to function currently and in the future.

We all want things, but when there’s no money we all have to cut back. There was a study regarding the renovation of Morrill Hall but it costs too much and it would take a long time. Also, I don’t think it would be a very good decision to use tax dollars and tuition money to renovate a building instead of keeping faculty at MSU. Yes, it would be great to keep a historic and beautiful building on campus but no one has stepped up. If MSU will not pay for it and the alumni are not willing to save the building then that’s a message that its not valuable enough. When current students, alumni and MSU friends see something valuable that they want to create, renovate or improve they take action. For example, the building that houses the Economics Department, Marshall-Adams Hall, which is just east from Morrill Hall also had problems with its foundation and it was saved several years ago thanks to donations from alumni and others.

This takes me to the most important point. The administration at MSU, and at every other university, will take care of current and near future issues that are essential for a university. For example, MSU uses a lot of its funding to recruit and keep great faculty and to give scholarships. This is essential for a university because without great faculty and students the value and the academic experience goes down. Some funding goes to renovation and rehabilitation of facilities but we have to remember that there’s less money every year. So, when a university wants to have the edge in something alumni and external donations and grants are essential and invaluable. I can assure you that without the MSU capital campaign that ended just a couple of years ago MSU wouldn’t be nearly the same as it is today. The endowment provides resources and opportunities for all of us that wouldn’t exist without those donations. We should be proud of having quality alumni, friends, administration and faculty that, in one way or another, have helped to increase our endowment of more than $1 bill. (the third university in the U.S. to reach that mark without a high profile medical research institution on campus).

Right now things are very bad and, thankfully, our alumni have helped the University improve. So, now that we will lose Morrill Hall we have to look forward, see what we have and think what we want to achieve. Morrill Hall will be demolished and a historical mark probably will replace it along a new, modern, more comfortable building in the future. We must remember that places are great because of the people not because of what’s around them.

Religion courses at MSU are not taught to convert people but to promote greater understanding of different cultures and it would be ignorant to neglect such a large part of human history. I am an atheist but I dont think the religion department is all that horrible. I havent heard of any MSU religion prof forcing students to practice any religions as part of curriculum.

And what about the majority of wars fought in history? Religion is at the core of them. Just because religion is a PLAGUE on human kind and mass-delusion, it cannot be ignored if only to arm non-religious people intellectually against religious nuts. there is also a hell of a lot of philosophy in religious texts or books with religious themes too (think Siddhartha) and many of the stories can be appreciated as purely myth without a prof shoving dogma down your throat.

Its not like the departments are going to conspire together or share individual offices. I think they will fit fine together. That being said i would go nuts if they housed any science department with religion.

BUT I DIGRESS, i like morrill hall and I am sad to see it go, the pairing of philosophy and religion is not all that strange, and sigh summer statenews crew.

It’s religious STUDIES, not religious CONVERSION/PROSELYTISM. Would a class on Nazi Germany aim to turn students into Nazis? Would a class on abnormal psychology aim to turn students into serial killers and rapists? No, of course not. Those classes, and the religious studies classes, are OBJECTIVE STUDIES of the aforementioned phenomena. GET THAT THROUGH YOUR HEADS

@Dawkins As noted, it is a strange move. Schools of the caliber of Michigan State don’t do this to their Philosophy and Religious Studies departments. You might argue that we are trying to be MORE efficient than they are, but you don’t make that claim.

The simple fact is that Philosophy needs to be included in making the cuts that they are eager to make. We want to eliminate waste, but we want some control over where we trim our fat (and believe me, we don’t have much—the result of years of prior cuts, no doubt). For me, this is the major concern. We simply want a dean who will take our suggestions seriously.

Thanks, everyone, for the spirit of debate here.

Phil. grad students do share office space — they’re at least four to an office currently.

Good points, student, but here’s an example of an old building (at Oklahoma State) w/ worse problems than Morrill that was saved when the school ponied up for $$, BECAUSE felt the building was historical and important to the University.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Central

Departments occupying Morrill should form a sports team; the University does not have a problem dumping millions of dollars into development of practice fields, complexes, etc. Just sayin.

The Religious Studies Department would be justified if the study of Islam received more money than the study of Christianity, because there is ten times more ignorance about Islam in the United States compared to Christianity.