The New Humanism: Humanist Leadership Education
This article originally appeared in the SSA eMpirical No. 20 - June 2007.
SSA Executive Director August Brunsman reports on a meeting at the New Humanism conference in April. Leaders from fifteen humanist organizations met to discuss the future of educating leaders for the humanist movement. Here, August discusses the meeting, its goals, and what may be in store for the humanist movement.
On the Sunday morning after the New Humanism conference, leaders from over fifteen humanist organizations met in Harvard's Gutman Conference Center to discuss the future of educating leaders for the humanist movement. I represented the Secular Student Alliance. It is important to know that we were talking and thinking about "big tent" humanism, an idea much less concerned with using a particular label than with one's commitment to a naturalistic approach to understanding the world and being accountable to one's fellow human beings. So as you read, feel free to swap the H word out with whatever label brings the most joy to your god-free heart: atheist, agnostic, Bright, naturalist, freethinker, nontheist, etc.
The meeting was convened by the Humanist Institute (HI), created at a similar meeting twenty-five years ago at the University of Chicago. In 1982, the ascendancy of the Moral Majority had only begun, but the handwriting was on the wall that Christian nationalism was itching to make itself felt in America. Those humanists in Chicago in 1982 charged the Humanist Institute to train leaders to "defend humanism against the assaults of its adversaries and to find an effective way to bring the message of humanism to a wider public." It has put about 100 leaders through its two-year program since then.
Despite HI's very noble efforts, we find ourselves facing exactly the same challenges it faced when the Institute began accepting students: humanism has an abundance of vocal opponents and the wider public remains ignorant of what we really believe and who we are. It was with a courageous awareness of the stubbornness of the challenge given to it in 1982 that the Humanist Institute called this meeting in Cambridge. Specifically, they wanted feedback on how to organize the educational assets of our movement to create more leaders to defend and advance humanism.
There was no shortage of ideas on how to change what kind of education should be offered and how it should be offered. Specifically, people suggested continuing the recent trend HI started of focusing more on practical movement-building skills like fundraising, community building and event organizing rather than philosophical issues. Also, participants called for building on the Institute for Humanist Studies' web-base Continuum of Humanist Education.
These revisions of details are important. However, I suggested that the problem we're facing is far less the kind of education that we're offering and how we're offering it than that there are precious few ways to make a living with that education. HI's focus has mostly been on people who do not expect to make a living from defending and advancing humanism. However, the extent to which we are able to create an economic engine to provide people with a way that they can making a living as leaders is the extent to which was can actually significantly increase the number of these leaders. There are no doubt other ways to grow this movement, but having people spend their careers on it is a model that has worked for other movements. Creating this economic engine will also be a way to bring more diversity in terms of race, gender and social class into our leadership ranks.
A specific suggestion was made by Greg Epstein, Humanist Chaplain at Harvard, to provide training for people to become Humanist Chaplains at campuses around the country and for that training to involve learning how to fundraise money for a salary. A working group was formed to create a weekend program to provide a rigorous introduction to becoming a Humanist Chaplain. This weekend program is slated for spring of 2008 - stay tuned for specific dates.
The title "Humanist Chaplain" is less important than the essence of the role. The role would involve a person living on or near a campus. This person's responsibility would be to provide education, leadership and perhaps counseling to the members of that campus from a humanistic perspective. Alternate titles like "Campus Humanist Leader," "Humanist Counselor," "Humanist Celebrant," or even "Humanist Campus Organizer" come to mind. Remember to feel free to swap out the H word for your favorite brand name. It is worth remembering that the titles "Dean" and "Doctor" also have Christian roots and mayhap the time to secularize the title "Chaplain" is upon us.
In addition to the training for these "chaplains" to cover fundraising, the organizations that already exist in our movement would have to support these folks as they get on their feet. However, in order for the model to grow, these people would have to be adept at bringing new money into the movement. The word "entrepreneurial" found itself on several people's lips. Maybe we should talk to the Skoll Foundation.
What do you think of the notion of the movement making a concerted effort to train and employ "Humanist Chaplains?" [discuss it in the forums]
I was five years old when the 1982 meeting happened. There is no doubt a five-year-old today who will look back on the progress of our movement in 2032; twenty-five years from now. Let's build on the last twenty-five years and make her proud.
End Note: Another major issue that came up at this meeting was how we conceive of our identity as whatever kind of god-free people we are. This issue transcended the whole conference and will be the topic of a separate article in our next issue of the eMpirical.
Here's a list of the officially invited organizations:
American Ethical Union
American Humanist Association
Center for Inquiry
Humanist Association of Canada
August E. Brunsman IV is the Executive Director of the Secular Student Alliance. In the spirit of full disclosure, he happens to be one of the few who are paid to advance and defend naturalism.
SSA Executive Director August Brunsman reports on a meeting at the New Humanism conference in April. Leaders from fifteen humanist organizations met to discuss the future of educating leaders for the humanist movement. Here, August discusses the meeting, its goals, and what may be in store for the humanist movement.
On the Sunday morning after the New Humanism conference, leaders from over fifteen humanist organizations met in Harvard's Gutman Conference Center to discuss the future of educating leaders for the humanist movement. I represented the Secular Student Alliance. It is important to know that we were talking and thinking about "big tent" humanism, an idea much less concerned with using a particular label than with one's commitment to a naturalistic approach to understanding the world and being accountable to one's fellow human beings. So as you read, feel free to swap the H word out with whatever label brings the most joy to your god-free heart: atheist, agnostic, Bright, naturalist, freethinker, nontheist, etc.
The meeting was convened by the Humanist Institute (HI), created at a similar meeting twenty-five years ago at the University of Chicago. In 1982, the ascendancy of the Moral Majority had only begun, but the handwriting was on the wall that Christian nationalism was itching to make itself felt in America. Those humanists in Chicago in 1982 charged the Humanist Institute to train leaders to "defend humanism against the assaults of its adversaries and to find an effective way to bring the message of humanism to a wider public." It has put about 100 leaders through its two-year program since then. Despite HI's very noble efforts, we find ourselves facing exactly the same challenges it faced when the Institute began accepting students: humanism has an abundance of vocal opponents and the wider public remains ignorant of what we really believe and who we are. It was with a courageous awareness of the stubbornness of the challenge given to it in 1982 that the Humanist Institute called this meeting in Cambridge. Specifically, they wanted feedback on how to organize the educational assets of our movement to create more leaders to defend and advance humanism.
There was no shortage of ideas on how to change what kind of education should be offered and how it should be offered. Specifically, people suggested continuing the recent trend HI started of focusing more on practical movement-building skills like fundraising, community building and event organizing rather than philosophical issues. Also, participants called for building on the Institute for Humanist Studies' web-base Continuum of Humanist Education.
These revisions of details are important. However, I suggested that the problem we're facing is far less the kind of education that we're offering and how we're offering it than that there are precious few ways to make a living with that education. HI's focus has mostly been on people who do not expect to make a living from defending and advancing humanism. However, the extent to which we are able to create an economic engine to provide people with a way that they can making a living as leaders is the extent to which was can actually significantly increase the number of these leaders. There are no doubt other ways to grow this movement, but having people spend their careers on it is a model that has worked for other movements. Creating this economic engine will also be a way to bring more diversity in terms of race, gender and social class into our leadership ranks.
A specific suggestion was made by Greg Epstein, Humanist Chaplain at Harvard, to provide training for people to become Humanist Chaplains at campuses around the country and for that training to involve learning how to fundraise money for a salary. A working group was formed to create a weekend program to provide a rigorous introduction to becoming a Humanist Chaplain. This weekend program is slated for spring of 2008 - stay tuned for specific dates.
The title "Humanist Chaplain" is less important than the essence of the role. The role would involve a person living on or near a campus. This person's responsibility would be to provide education, leadership and perhaps counseling to the members of that campus from a humanistic perspective. Alternate titles like "Campus Humanist Leader," "Humanist Counselor," "Humanist Celebrant," or even "Humanist Campus Organizer" come to mind. Remember to feel free to swap out the H word for your favorite brand name. It is worth remembering that the titles "Dean" and "Doctor" also have Christian roots and mayhap the time to secularize the title "Chaplain" is upon us.
In addition to the training for these "chaplains" to cover fundraising, the organizations that already exist in our movement would have to support these folks as they get on their feet. However, in order for the model to grow, these people would have to be adept at bringing new money into the movement. The word "entrepreneurial" found itself on several people's lips. Maybe we should talk to the Skoll Foundation.
What do you think of the notion of the movement making a concerted effort to train and employ "Humanist Chaplains?" [discuss it in the forums]
I was five years old when the 1982 meeting happened. There is no doubt a five-year-old today who will look back on the progress of our movement in 2032; twenty-five years from now. Let's build on the last twenty-five years and make her proud.
End Note: Another major issue that came up at this meeting was how we conceive of our identity as whatever kind of god-free people we are. This issue transcended the whole conference and will be the topic of a separate article in our next issue of the eMpirical.
Here's a list of the officially invited organizations:
American Ethical Union
American Humanist Association
Center for Inquiry
Humanist Association of Canada
The Humanist Institute
University for Humanistics at Utrecht (Netherlands)
The Institute for Humanist Studies
The Secular Coalition for America
The Secular Student Alliance
The Society for Humanistic Judaism
The Unitarian Universalist Association (not actually a naturalistic organization by definition, but perhaps 40% of its members are naturalistic)
HUUmanists (an organization of humanistic folks within the Unitarian Universalist Association)
The Workman's Circle
The Freedom from Religion Foundation
Humanist Chaplains from Harvard, Columbia , and Adelphi
Organizations with unofficial delegates:
The Humanist Society
Camp Quest
Carl Sagan Academy
Florida Humanist Association
Freethinkingteens.com
University for Humanistics at Utrecht (Netherlands)
The Institute for Humanist Studies
The Secular Coalition for America
The Secular Student Alliance
The Society for Humanistic Judaism
The Unitarian Universalist Association (not actually a naturalistic organization by definition, but perhaps 40% of its members are naturalistic)
HUUmanists (an organization of humanistic folks within the Unitarian Universalist Association)
The Workman's Circle
The Freedom from Religion Foundation
Humanist Chaplains from Harvard, Columbia , and Adelphi
Organizations with unofficial delegates:
The Humanist Society
Camp Quest
Carl Sagan Academy
Florida Humanist Association
Freethinkingteens.com
August E. Brunsman IV is the Executive Director of the Secular Student Alliance. In the spirit of full disclosure, he happens to be one of the few who are paid to advance and defend naturalism.
This article originally appeared in the SSA eMpirical No. 20 - June 2007.
Submitted by Lyz on Wed, 06/13/2007 - 01:33
