Browsing by Author "Malbon, Elizabeth Struthers"

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    History of Religious Studies at Virginia Tech - Website Archive
    Miller, Harlan B.; Long, Edward L.; Smyth, Ellison A.; Grover, Norman L.; Kennedy, Charles A.; Malbon, Elizabeth Struthers (Virginia Tech, 2014-06-09)
    This document contains 8 archived webpages from the Virginia Tech Department of Religion and Culture's website, which was available online from June 2014 to March 2016. The archived webpages include the following: (1) History of Religious Studies at Virginia Tech (2) Pre-History of the Philosophy (and Religion) Department (3) Notes on the Founding of the Department (4) Excerpts from a 1957 Letter (5) Some Notes on the Genesis of the Department (6) Notes on the Beginning of the Philosophy and Religion Programs at VPI & SU (7) Department of Religion History (8) August 14, 2001 Letter to the Religious Studies Faculty
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    Metamorphosis of a dream: the history of Appalachian Bible College (1950-1983)
    Winters, Richard William (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1985)
    The history of Appalachian Bible College, under the administration of its first president, is the story of an institutional dream that changed. This study seeks to document and explain those changes. The college began with seven students, meeting in borrowed facilities, but it grew to have nearly 300 students and its own multi-million dollar campus. Early students were deliberately drawn only from the Southern Highlands, but that distinctiveness slowly gave way to a much more cosmopolitan blend. The curriculum evolved from a single program required of all students to multi-vocational (albeit singularly church-related) offerings. General Studies, that originally had almost no place in the curriculum, came to occupy nearly a third of a student’s time. The behavioral restraints that were placed upon students changed significantly over the years. The tightly knit “missionary team” that subsisted on a minimal family-allowance was gradually transformed into a differentiated staff with a graduated salary scale. Bureaucratic organization replaced the President’s earlier charismatic style of administration, just as more traditional financial procedures were substituted for the “no-indebtedness” and “no-solicitation” policies of the early years. Tuition-free arrangements were dropped in favor of standard college practices, and professional accreditation eventually led to the granting of a Bachelor of Arts degree. The research led to the following conclusions: (1) The model around which Appalachian Bible College was organized shifted from that of a home mission organization to that of a collegiate institution; (2) Many of the practices related to finances and leadership at Appalachian Bible College moved from a basis in principled idealism to pragmatic expediency; and (3) The institution’s response to culture changed from “separatism” to “conversionism” (as these terms are defined by H. Richard Niebuhr, in Christ and Culture).
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    Paved with Good Intentions: The Road to Racial Unity in the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia
    Salmon, Nina Vest (Virginia Tech, 2016-06-19)
    The Right Reverend William Henry Marmion was consecrated as bishop of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia on May 13, 1954, days prior to the Brown v. Board of Education decision and just over a decade after the Episcopal Church's General Convention formally opposed racial discrimination. A diocesan conference center in Hungry Mother State Park, purchased soon after his consecration, sparked a controversy that was to smolder and flame for the first decade of Marmion's 25 years as bishop. Marmion led the move to desegregate the diocesan conference center, Hemlock Haven, in 1958 and subsequently effected integration by closing three of the four black churches in the diocese and inviting members to choose a neighboring church to join. The initial integration of the diocese was a turbulent process that centered around Hemlock Haven. The diocese moved with some difficulty towards racial integration in a microcosm of what was happening in the wider Church and in the United States. Historical documents, secondary sources, interviews, and theoretical understanding of minority responses to oppression help me to describe this time of racial desegregation of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia and its implications. Critical theory gleaned from W. E. B. Du Bois and from Homi Bhabha informs my understanding of some of the implications as well as many of the actions and outcomes. Du Bois's notion of double consciousness and Bhbaba's similar term hybridity, both of which acknowledge a dual locus of identity and of power, are relevant to understanding some of the interactions revealed by primary source correspondence. I will focus on Hemlock Haven as the entry point into desegregation and on the black churches in the diocese, both before and after that critical point, adding the witness of black voices to the white narrative of this history. A historical look at the trajectory of race and race relations in the Episcopal Church informs the moment of the caesura--an interruption--the desegregation of Hemlock Haven, and the fate of the four black churches in the diocese. From the point of the rupture comes identification, the emergence of a new space, a cultural reboot.