The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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October 22, 2009

Your View: Spirituality Conference makes MSU laughing stock

By Vance Becker, North Mankato

Saturday’s edition of The Free Press included an article about the Women and Spirituality Conference at MSU. While the keynote speaker is a physicist and author addressing a legitimate topic — the politics of food production — the first paragraph highlighted workshops on fairies in gardens and channeling loved ones. The legitimacy of keynote speaker Vandana Shiva and of our university is called into question by their association with the related workshops.

A check of the website — sbs.mnsu.edu/women — confirms that of “more than 100” workshops at this conference on “spirituality”, not a single one has anything to do with authentic Christianity, the form of spirituality practiced by the majority in our society. And surely many of them would be considered fraudulent by the university’s own science, psychology and other faculty.

Is the goal diversity or absurdity? What is next, a conference on geography featuring Atlantis, Middle Earth and the Land of Oz, but nothing in North America? A biology conference featuring dragons, unicorns, centaurs and lollipop trees, but nothing commonly seen in Minnesota? A science conference featuring alchemy and crossbreeding with space aliens, but nothing about physics?

The Free Press article could be faulted for making this conference sound like a freak show, but the planners of the conference themselves are responsible for making our state university a laughing stock.

With the state of the economy and the American education system, I do not believe this is how our tax-supported institutions should be using their resources.

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