New Home for Maxwell Institute
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2019 3:22 am
As we have found out very recently during exchanges between MI and Interpreter folk, the Maxwell Institute is going to be housed in a new building on BYU campus, closer to the center of the action. I congratulate the Maxwell Institute on the support they are receiving from BYU and the LDS Church. You guys must be doing a lot of things right!
One is reminded of past unfulfilled dreams of the FARMS Ziggurat, an artist's rendering of which once graced the front page of the Provo Daily Herald. The longed-for Ziggurat never came to be, and the successor organization to classic-FARMS, Mormon Interpreter, is housed where? If anyone knows, please tell me.
In any case, during the dust up of recent hours, Blair Hodges showed up in various conversations to affirm the University's and Church's support for MI by referring to their future building. Blair's news was followed quickly by DCP blogging to diminish as much as possible anyone's enthusiasm for MI's institutional support. Let's look at what he had to say:
See: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/12/my-alleged-war-against-the-maxwell-institute.html
This piqued my curiosity. Is it true that Blair would exaggerate the size of his future office in a little spat with Mormon Interpreter? Past experience would indicate that Blair is on the receiving end of Interpreter pettiness, but not one to dish out in kind. So I did a little digging into this question on the MI website:
See: https://mi.byu.edu/moving2020/?fbclid=IwAR30n_h7Zwzci6bgqGx-wVjcYg6t9De9Y7EObazlQIc7tkMLdbyKAYB7N3U
Here is what Blair wrote in November, long before this recent little imbroglio:
OK, hold the phone here. DCP has not accurately represented this situation at all. Look at what Fluhman said very carefully:
Our new space itself will reflect in its very design our new mission and priorities.
Guys, the West View Building would seem to have space specifically designed for the Maxwell Institute. Designed to fit its new mission and priorities. If we add to this the fact that in recent times the Institute has hired Phil Barlow from USU, the Givenses, and Peck, well, this begins to look like a significant expansion of the Institute in a very positive way.
Consider this: if one were to ask where they could find seasoned scholars of Mormonism who have already made their mark in peer-reviewed monographs, where would people in the know direct them? To DCP, Midgley, Hamblin, Hancock, or Greg Smith?
Hardly.
They would naturally name people like Terryl Givens and Phil Barlow. These are not guys who have a reputation for nasty polemics and hit pieces. They have a reputation for producing widely respected scholarship published by reputable university presses. And they have been at this for a long time. The LDS Church went out and hired some respectable big guns for the MI, and now we are to imagine that they will be stuffed in the broom closet next to the English Department or some such?
No way. Instead, the Church made sure that these great scholars would have a commodious new office and classroom complex designed for the MI's "new mission and priorities."
Think again about what Blair Hodges wrote regarding this space back in November:
The Institute’s new space in the West View Building will better accommodate small lectures, weekly brown bag sessions, faculty gatherings, advisory board sessions, student mentoring, the research of our resident and visiting disciple-scholars, and all the other Institute happenings. (It’ll be the new home of the Maxwell Institute Podcast, for example.)
I know of few departments in the Humanities that are equipped so handsomely with their own rooms and technology for all of these things.
So, rest assured, fellow MDBers, that the Mopologists are up to their old tricks of spinning things in the way that makes themselves feel good and others look not as good. DCP wants us to imagine a shrinking MI that is stuffed in a crowded building because, well, this little MI thing has to be wedged in some corner, right?
No. Not at all. MI is being forged and outfitted for an exciting future, and Holland's talk to them was not a rebuke of the past; it was a mandate and pep talk for that exciting future.
Well, we can't blame DCP for trying!
One is reminded of past unfulfilled dreams of the FARMS Ziggurat, an artist's rendering of which once graced the front page of the Provo Daily Herald. The longed-for Ziggurat never came to be, and the successor organization to classic-FARMS, Mormon Interpreter, is housed where? If anyone knows, please tell me.
In any case, during the dust up of recent hours, Blair Hodges showed up in various conversations to affirm the University's and Church's support for MI by referring to their future building. Blair's news was followed quickly by DCP blogging to diminish as much as possible anyone's enthusiasm for MI's institutional support. Let's look at what he had to say:
DCP wrote:Some are saying that a new campus building is to be constructed for the Maxwell Institute and that this illustrates the enthusiasm and complete support of the Brethren for the course that the Institute has taken since 2012. Well, let’s not overstate this. The Maxwell Institute has been housed in University buildings for decades, since before it had the name Maxwell Institute and since long before it adopted its new course. (I had an office in its third campus building that I was ordered to clear out and to leave immediately upon my return to the United States from the Middle East in June 2012.) Significantly smaller now than it once was, the Institute has recently been moved to temporary housing in another university building – which is its fourth. And, when the new West View Building is completed, the employees of the Maxwell Institute will be among its various tenants.
See: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/12/my-alleged-war-against-the-maxwell-institute.html
This piqued my curiosity. Is it true that Blair would exaggerate the size of his future office in a little spat with Mormon Interpreter? Past experience would indicate that Blair is on the receiving end of Interpreter pettiness, but not one to dish out in kind. So I did a little digging into this question on the MI website:
See: https://mi.byu.edu/moving2020/?fbclid=IwAR30n_h7Zwzci6bgqGx-wVjcYg6t9De9Y7EObazlQIc7tkMLdbyKAYB7N3U
Here is what Blair wrote in November, long before this recent little imbroglio:
“In that new space,” said Institute executive director Spencer Fluhman, “the Institute will be poised for a significant campus role long into the future. Close to our colleagues in the Humanities and Religious Education and near the BYU Library and other important campus locales related to our work, the Institute will bring interested campus members together more easily and more regularly to pursue disciple-scholarship together. Our new space itself will reflect in its very design our new mission and priorities.”
The Institute’s new space in the West View Building will better accommodate small lectures, weekly brown bag sessions, faculty gatherings, advisory board sessions, student mentoring, the research of our resident and visiting disciple-scholars, and all the other Institute happenings. (It’ll be the new home of the Maxwell Institute Podcast, for example.)
OK, hold the phone here. DCP has not accurately represented this situation at all. Look at what Fluhman said very carefully:
Our new space itself will reflect in its very design our new mission and priorities.
Guys, the West View Building would seem to have space specifically designed for the Maxwell Institute. Designed to fit its new mission and priorities. If we add to this the fact that in recent times the Institute has hired Phil Barlow from USU, the Givenses, and Peck, well, this begins to look like a significant expansion of the Institute in a very positive way.
Consider this: if one were to ask where they could find seasoned scholars of Mormonism who have already made their mark in peer-reviewed monographs, where would people in the know direct them? To DCP, Midgley, Hamblin, Hancock, or Greg Smith?
Hardly.
They would naturally name people like Terryl Givens and Phil Barlow. These are not guys who have a reputation for nasty polemics and hit pieces. They have a reputation for producing widely respected scholarship published by reputable university presses. And they have been at this for a long time. The LDS Church went out and hired some respectable big guns for the MI, and now we are to imagine that they will be stuffed in the broom closet next to the English Department or some such?
No way. Instead, the Church made sure that these great scholars would have a commodious new office and classroom complex designed for the MI's "new mission and priorities."
Think again about what Blair Hodges wrote regarding this space back in November:
The Institute’s new space in the West View Building will better accommodate small lectures, weekly brown bag sessions, faculty gatherings, advisory board sessions, student mentoring, the research of our resident and visiting disciple-scholars, and all the other Institute happenings. (It’ll be the new home of the Maxwell Institute Podcast, for example.)
I know of few departments in the Humanities that are equipped so handsomely with their own rooms and technology for all of these things.
So, rest assured, fellow MDBers, that the Mopologists are up to their old tricks of spinning things in the way that makes themselves feel good and others look not as good. DCP wants us to imagine a shrinking MI that is stuffed in a crowded building because, well, this little MI thing has to be wedged in some corner, right?
No. Not at all. MI is being forged and outfitted for an exciting future, and Holland's talk to them was not a rebuke of the past; it was a mandate and pep talk for that exciting future.
Well, we can't blame DCP for trying!