- RLD on Academics and Church growth: a demographic just-so story: “To try to answer jader3d’s question, and to agree with Stephen C and Jonathan, in most social science and humanities departments there is a very strong consensus that it is harmful to treat men and women differently, or to treat same-sex and opposite-sex relationships differently. Also, that if someone has strong and persistent gender dysphoria, the best treatment is for them to transition to the gender they identify with, and society has an obligation to treat them as belonging to that gender. So a church that doesn’t ordain women to the priesthood and excludes them from many positions of authority, does not perform or recognize same-sex marriages, and refuses to recognize gender transitions is, depending on the temperament of the individual, an unfortunate reality to tolerate, a problem to solve, or an enemy to defeat. In those departments, but really only in those departments, these issues are regular topics of discussion. The Church doesn’t come up all that often, but papers providing evidence (of varying quality) of the harm done by practices like the Church’s are plentiful. Stephen C’s roundups give you a flavor, but keep in mind those are only the ones that talk about the Church itself. Setting aside the evidence, humans are wired to agree with their community so they fit in. Some members do just fine despite all this; others don’t. The R1s indeed tend to set the agenda for the rest of academia, in part because we train so many of the faculty. (A lot of BYU professors are former members of my ward.) But at an R1, both size and power flow from research grant money, and the social sciences and humanities don’t get much of that. So the part of the university that’s hostile to the Church is fairly small. Yes, HR policies tend to reflect the propositions I started with. If someone can’t stand to work alongside a trans person, an out-and-proud homosexual, or a woman, academia is probably not for them. But I could send them a collection of quotes and speeches from President Oaks suggesting they should have more of a live-and-let-live attitude and be grateful we live in a pluralistic society. The same pluralism (or religious freedom, if you prefer) that lets them live the life they choose lets us live our faith even when we lose culture wars. Gender and sexuality are not the only issues where parts of the academy disagree with the church, though they’re by far the biggest. We’ve seen on the blog recently how anti-colonialist thought would recast the pioneers as villains, but that’s pretty niche. Economics is interesting in that it leans right rather than left. Studies have suggested that studying economics tends to make people more accepting of economic inequality, and if we take our scriptures seriously (D&C 70:14, for example, or 104:16), that’s a problem. But given Church culture, I don’t think many economists see a conflict between their field and the Church. (My degrees are in Economics, though in practice I’m basically a free-range social science data geek.)” Sep 13, 14:20
- on Academics and Church growth: a demographic just-so story: “Jader3d: Overton windows. It’s not as bald faced as some “God’s not Dead” professor challenging your faith, but the operating background software is that if your institution is heteronormative or has gender roles that it’s damaging.” Sep 13, 08:55
- on Academics and Church growth: a demographic just-so story: “As an aside, this goes back a while. My great-grandfather was a U of Chicago Zoology PhD back in the early 20th century, and when reading over his materials on FamilySearch he mentioned that Mormons had a reputation for wanting to get back West after getting their degrees (he ended up teaching at some college in Idaho and stopped believing, this was back when there was less space for LDS evolutionists, but he let my great-grandmother raise the family LDS, so here I am). So the coastal-degree-to-Mormon-Corridor pipeline has an old history.” Sep 13, 08:51
- on Academics and Church growth: a demographic just-so story: “Why would church members struggle more in the social sciences and humanities?” Sep 12, 21:22
- on Academics and Church growth: a demographic just-so story: “Thanks, RLD. I was wondering what your perspective would be. When we first started grad school, my wife felt like some ward members didn’t know quite what to make of her, as both of us were pursuing degrees. Then when we had our first kid, it was easier to fit in, but she sometimes felt more slotted into a box than understood. But that was 30 years ago. I agree that the representation of academic politicization has been badly distorted – what happens at some high-priced SLACs and R1s is not what happens elsewhere, where most faculty just want to teach and research. Then again, those are influential departments, and other departments hire their graduates and sometimes want some of that activist glamour for themselves. And the leftward lean of some disciplines is quite real, which can have unintended consequences even with the best of intentions (like the institutionalization of land acknowledgments that can be off-putting to some conservatives, and things of that nature). It’s been striking how often Stephen C.’s research roundups include articles that are quite comfortable treating the Church less as an object of study than as a disease to be cured, or a hostile entity to be resisted. And since a lot of largely apolitical departments are in colleges of arts and sciences, they can’t escape decisions made in the dean’s office.” Sep 12, 14:56
- on Kingdoms of Glory and Astronomical Apparent Magnitude: “Kent Larsen, I agree with you–that luminosity is a symbol for glory. But in the OP’s defense I think the math becomes typological if we “read” it is a language. In other words, looking at the differences in magnitude as measured by math can also serve as a rough analog to heavenly things–much like the sun, moon, and stars do.” Sep 12, 00:17
- on Constructing in our Meetings (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 9/6: “Kent, I don’t how my recommendations specifically helps me. The second paragraph suggests a method for having more money going to help the poor. Half the membership lives in developing countries. They and their neighbors need help. I’d rather give to the poor rather hoard money or build McTemples. And what’s with paying tithing before feeding your family? The first paragraph suggests a way that members can protest the current 2-hr schedule. Since members aren’t supposed to communicate directly with high-level GAs, there are few avenues for making suggestions. I’m suggesting one.” Sep 11, 12:07
- on Academics and Church growth: a demographic just-so story: “The branch I used to advise fits this story perfectly. When I was assigned, two professors at the local college were the branch president and one of his counselors, and their wives were also pillars of the branch. When they moved away, the branch suffered. Fortunately one new professor moved in–he’s now the Elder’s Quorum President and his wife is the Primary President–but they’re still short-handed. I live in one of those grad student wards (I moved down the prestige ladder by becoming staff rather than faculty while staying at the same university). One major change is that the grad student couples have substantially fewer children than they did even 20 years ago, so our Primary is small. No doubt that’s partially because much more often than in the past it’s the wife who is the grad student (or they both are). But some mothers of young children successfully navigate challenging graduate programs and even medical residencies, so it can be done. But…I think the politicalization of universities has been greatly exaggerated. Sure, most of the faculty are Democrats–the realignment of the parties along educational lines under Trump has seen to that. But politics is irrelevant* to most of what a university does, and in departments like Chemistry, Physics, Engineering, etc. it comes up no more often than in the average workplace. The politics is mostly concentrated in the social sciences (with the twist that Economics often leans right) and the humanities. Many of the stories you hear on Fox News about extremists at universities are true, but they’re not typical. Zealous undergrads have a lot less power than either they or the right-wing media think they have. Church members do just fine in the apolitical fields. Off the top of my head, current and past leaders around my stake include professors in Chemical Engineering, Physics, Biology, Accounting, Statistics, Geology, and more. Church members do struggle more in the social sciences and humanities. Conflicts with the Church are especially serious in behavioral health fields like psychology and social work, and that’s where I see members struggle the most. Of course if members go into the “studies” (gender studies, LGBT studies, etc.) odds are they’re already on their way out. *Okay, politics were irrelevant until the second Trump administration took a sledgehammer to federally funded research (and scared off so many foreign students). If grant funding goes back to being apolitical the hard science researchers will go back to being apolitical too, at least in the workplace. But even now, nobody in Chemical Engineering really cares what you think about the Proclamation on the Family.” Sep 11, 08:19
- on Academics and Church growth: a demographic just-so story: “RL, dentistry seems like a pretty good choice: you can help people in a concrete way, much better work-life balance, a real financial payoff, etc. Michael, that’s interesting, and kind of concerning. Any theories on what’s going on?” Sep 10, 23:07
- on Constructing in our Meetings (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 9/6: “Kent, It doesn’t seem right to me to compare Viktor Frankl’s circumstance to a rank-and-file Latter-day Saint today — doesn’t doing a comparison of the “victims” (Frankl and today’s saint) necessarily also involve a comparison of the “authorities” (Nazi goons and church leaders)? I don’t recall that Frankl described himself as “happy” in his circumstances. No, maybe let’s not compare a Nazi concentration camp with a LDS ward.” Sep 10, 21:41
