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“Science and medicine must be separate from religion”

Baylor logoThank-you to the friend of ESN who in response to my FB Wall post on George Washington U. Professor Tapped to Lead Tropical-Medicine School – On Hiring – The Chronicle of Higher Education (Audrey Williams June. 6/23/2011), reminded me Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) is not affiliated w/Baylor University (BU).

As I hopped on-line, the controversy regarding the relationship between Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Baylor University (BU) slowly came back to me. It is another difficult institutional history marked by the challenges of funding and religious affiliation. As I couldn’t fit the story (and some of the questions which it raises) into a FB comment or wall post, I thought I’d try a quick post on the blog. Thought it was particularly apt after Mike’s post How Do Christian Faculty Integrate Their Faith and Work? Hope he doesn’t mind a brief, less polished Wednesday post, AND I hope to hear from some of you in the field 😉

BCM’s official history of affiliation & separation can be found here. http://www.baylorhealth.com/About/Pages/Default.aspx shares BU’s rich hospital system and http://www.baylorhealth.edu/education/Pages/default.aspx lists BU’s medical educational opportunities (Note: I find the page illustrates the hole left by the loss of BCM in 1969). But that’s not the whole story!

In recent years, financial issues (and more?) led BCM to have talks with both Rice & BU regarding stronger relationships. BU’s President had great hopes for a renewal of a deeper relationship, but some strong opposition at BCM signed a petition which outlined how the “mission of BU is incongruous with that of BCM.” BU’s description of how the talks ended can be found here (Note: there was also some opposition from BU’s direction). BU appears to still have a “voice” at BCM and some “increasing partnership.” Anyone more familiar with the situation?

How do you respond to the petition’s statements:

  1. “science and medicine must be separate from religion,”
  2. The religious ideologies that permeate throughout BU’s academic policies may adversely affect both scientific progress and the culture at BCM, particularly in relation to issues such as evolution, embryonic stem cells, and sexual orientation.

Note: Before commenting I’d recommend you read the brief petition 😉

Another set of questions coming to my mind in reviewing the history of BU and BCM: [Read more…] about “Science and medicine must be separate from religion”

Week in Review: Book of the Decade Edition

What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.

  1. The research says Professor Is a Label That Leans to the Left (Patricia Cohen, NY Times, January 17, 2010). What do you think? HT: Miller. Note:  The article references Louis Menand’s The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University, mentioned in Week in Review: The Valiant Return Edition and the subject of an upcoming ESN quote series.
  2. Annual Poll of Freshmen Shows Effect of Recession (By Kate Zernike, NY Times, January 21, 2010):  “The recession hit this year’s college freshmen hard, affecting how they chose a school as well as their ability to pay for it, according to an annual nationwide survey released Thursday. …”  Related:  The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2009 (pdf)
  3. Can Religion Coexist with…Medicine? Faculty at the (independent) Baylor College of Medicine protest a planned merger with (Baptist-affiliated)

    4. Baylor University (Chronicle, Katherine Mangan). Their petition states, in part,

    The religious ideologies that permeate throughout BU’s academic policies may adversely affect both scientific progress and the culture at BCM, particularly in relation to issues such as evolution, embryonic stem cells, and sexual orientation.

    This week, the Chronicle also reported that the Baylor College of Medicine faces NIH sanctions over conflicts of interest (Chronicle, Paul Basken).

  4. Twitter at the MLA: ProfHacker.com offers a variety of perspectives on the use of Twitter at the recent MLA convention. They range from the scary (a job-seeker whose interview was derailed after a member of the interview committee found a tweet of his to be “spurious”) to the very cool (several twitterers who made important face-to-face connections after “meeting” fellow MLA members on Twitter).
  5. The Book of the Decade: Byron Borger of Hearts and Minds Books named Steven Garber’s Fabric of Faithfulness (affiliate link) as its “Book of the Decade”. We’ve had it on our ESN Core Bibliography for several years, so we think Byron has great taste!