The Chronicle ran a story in March '06 based on this study by UCLA: http://spirituality.ucla.edu/reports/spirit_professoriate.pdf
It addresses "spirituality" rather than religion, but the water is pretty muddy regarding the differences between the two concepts. Here's how the report defines spirituality: "seeking out opportunities to grow spiritually, considering oneself a spiritual person, and having an interest in integrating spirituality into one's life." Not much of a definition. If you check out the entries in Webster's Dictionary for the two words, it will probably leave you wondering what the real differences are. In any case, in the survey religion is shown to be a big portion of the spirituality expressed by survey respondents, and the percentages among faculty are high (i.e., your friend is wrong). They break it down by discipline only slightly, but biology comes in with the lowest percentages. Figure 2 (pg. 5) is pretty interesting... only 50-64% of faculty at specifically religious schools express strong spirituality. Huh? Dave Hewitt At 11:04 PM 8/21/2007 -0500, Malcolm McCallum wrote: >Check out the Chronicle of Higher Education, seems like they published an >artilce about this at some point. > >On Tue, August 21, 2007 11:03 am, O'Mara, Maureen wrote: > > Greetings list, > > > > I am wondering if any of you can direct me to research or a survey that > > has been done that would tell me the percentage of university professors > > that have Christian beliefs. I have a friend that has been fed the > > propaganda that university professors are not Christian. In my personal > > experience at two universities this is not true. He argues that it's > > because these professors are located in the western states and that > > those back east are not Christian. He has a hard time understanding how > > Christians can reconcile their beliefs with teaching science, > > specifically evolution. Yes, I believe he is a Creationist. I would > > like to correct, at least this part of his thinking, with some facts. > > It might also be good to show him any information that might be out > > there about scientists and spiritual beliefs. > > > > Thanks! > > Mo > > > > Maureen O'Mara > > Biological Science Technician > > USDA / ARS / NPARL > > 1500 N. Central Ave. > > Sidney, MT 59270 > > (406) 433-9497 > > Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Grasshopper research webpage: www.ars.usda.gov/npa/nparl/dbranson > > Grasshopper Management Website: www.sidney.ars.usda.gov/grasshopper > >Malcolm L. McCallum >Assistant Professor of Biology >Editor Herpetological Conservationa and Biology >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >[EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Hewitt Fisheries Science/Crustacean Ecology Virginia Institute of Marine Science College of William and Mary P.O. Box 1346 Gloucester Point, VA 23062 804.684.7333 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.vims.edu/fish/students/dhewitt/
