TDR Interview: Rev. Richard Crocker

By Daniel F. Linsalata | Friday, July 22, 2005

Editors' Note: The Reverand Richard Crocker is Dartmouth's Chaplain and Associate Dean of the Tucker Foundation. A native of Alabama, Crocker was educated at Brown, Vanderbilt, and Oxford.

The Dartmouth Review: Rollins Chapel, as you know, contains a number of beautiful and historically significant stained glass windows that are currently covered from public view because they depict religious themes mainly from the Christian tradition which can be considered offensive to some people. Have you personally heard any of these objections, yourself, and if so from whom, or from any particular student group?

Reverend Crocker: This is something I know a good deal about, so I'm very happy to set the record straight and give you information about the subject. Yes, this situation was brought to my attention when I first arrived two and a half years ago. Dean Lord and I brought this to the attention of the Provost, Barry Scherr. The provost is our boss. There was a Student Assembly committee that did some investigation into the issue, and asked me to take it forward. The Provost authorized me to create a committee to study this issue, and I did. It contained, comprised, several students, some of them were on this Assembly committee, and some from the Hop and the Art department, and the College architect.…We studied the issue, wrote a report, and what we recommended, on the basis of both architectural and artistic integrity, was that the windows be uncovered and restored because they're in danger of collapsing as they are now… and that a system for covering them temporarily, when needed, as simple as a drapery over them when they are not needed; either for religious reasons or because we do performances in Rollins, and sometimes it would be appropriate to cover them at times for the lighting or aesthetic or other kinds of reasons.

The Provost has accepted our report and has told me that he has plans to implement it. The Chapel will be closed next summer, July, August, and September, and this work will be started. I'm not sure it will be completed, because the restoration of the windows will take some time. What they do is take each window out separately and fix it and put it back. But, it is my understanding from the Provost that this action will be taken and the windows will be uncovered and that a system of temporary covering will be devised.

Just to question something that you said, that the reason they were covered was because of their Christian symbolism. I think that in the course of the report, I neglected one step, a report was first written by a student intern of mine, Noah Riner, who was working in the summer. I asked him to research the situation, which he did, which became the basis for our committee. And in the course of doing that he spoke with Richard Unsworth who was the chaplain here at the time that this decision was made in the 1960s. It's probably accurate to say that Christian imagery was one factor in covering the windows, but that there were other factors as well. The whole chapel underwent a renovation, they turned the chairs around, the chairs used to face one end and they turned them to face another. Apparently, because the windows were in the east end of the building in the mornings the light coming through them was so bright that it affected some people in such a way that they wanted to cover them up. That's what we've been told.

TDR: In the academic study of religion, do you believe that it is important for professors to have some sort of faith? One other point: what is your feeling about the prevalence of self-professed atheists or agnostics in Dartmouth's Religion Department?

RC: I think it's naive to assume that there's anyone who doesn't have 'faith.' People just have different kinds of faith. A person who calls himself or herself as an atheist is making a faith claim, as much as a person who describes himself or herself in a conventionally religious way. Both are making faith claims. I know that the Religion Department at Dartmouth is very concerned that is perceived as objective, not promoting any particular religious interest or concern. They're extremely concerned about that. And, I think it would be inaccurate to assume that that public stand of objectivity means that they have no faith—that the individual members of their department have religious perspective. But I know it's often interpreted that way by students, which is unfortunate.

TDR: And do you think that that is a good approach to have a public standard of being of no particular persuasion?

RC: I disagree with that stand. I think there are so many examples of people who are able to combine an objectivity and an appreciation for difference with acknowledging their own convictions. I know I've been taught by many people who had religious convictions very different from my own, they were clear about that, but they were still wonderful teachers. I would hope that eventually the Religion Department at Dartmouth would be able to see the acknowledgement of different convictions as a gift instead of a threat.

TDR: This sort of perception or public stand now is certainly a large contrast to the College's original mission, which was of course educating and converting Native Americans to Christianity. Do you believe that this sort of mass secularization over the last two and a half centuries at Dartmouth and older universities, in general is a positive change?

RC: It's an inevitable change. It is true that most of the Colonial Colleges, almost all of them, had religious motivations at the center…as a large part of their driving motivation. And Dartmouth is no exception to that. But at that time, those kinds of motivations were central to the culture that these colleges reflected. American culture has changed, and the colleges—the Ivy League colleges and other ancient colleges—have reflected the change in culture. If Dartmouth maintained its original religious stance, it would have a very small student body. So, it was simply a matter of accommodating the kind of cultural changes that have occurred. What makes this interesting, at this point, is that we are in the middle of another cultural change. And whether or not conservative religious beliefs of whatever faith are truly as numerous as generally reported or are over-estimated, I really don't know.

But what I think we're experiencing at Dartmouth, and other places—witness the article in the New York Times (May 22, 2005) about evangelicals at Brown—is a resurgence of interest in evangelical Christianity, which is certainly not a majority point of view, but it is a more significant minority point of view than has occurred in the past few years. And the College is once again reflecting that cultural change, and the fact is we have a number religious groups which are quite evangelical in their outlook and expression, and this is simply a reflection of who people are. Is it a dominant point of view at Dartmouth? Not at all. But is it significant? Yes it is, and it has more resonance with Eleazar Wheelock than many people are aware of.

TDR: I'm glad you brought up that Times article. It mentioned that Brown Unversity's Chaplain Office—your alma mater—recently recognized "heathen/pagan" as it's own "faith community." What do you make of this action? And if a student group at Dartmouth approached you asking for similar recognition, how would you handle the situation?

RC: Well this is obviously not a far-fetched issue, because there are people at many colleges who identify themselves, with integrity, as pagan. That is, they take a careful and sincere approach to their religious convictions and describe them as "pre-Christian," which in many ways is pagan. That's the way they use the term—pre-Christian, northern European.

It's not a theoretical question at Dartmouth because there are students who have occasionally identified themselves that way, and have asked what would be the procedure for organizing members for a recognized group. We have a standard procedure…it is on our webpage. [http://www.dartmouth.edu/~tucker/docs/ucm-professional-guidelines.doc] Any group that wants to organize itself as a recognized religious group should follow those procedures. And if it organizes itself and meets the conditions of the guidelines, it would probably be recognized….If there is some factor which would cause us to call this group into question, we would deal with that and consider it. But if it is a purely religious reason—this group has a conviction that we disagree with, I disagree with, you disagree with—that would not be a legitimate reason for denying it. What we would require, as part of our guidelines, is that every group has to respect the others and appear in the spirit of cooperation with them and not, in any way, denigrate them publicly, or try to proselytize people from other groups.

I have said some people have approached me. It's been a very small number of people. They have not wanted to organize; they were more concerned about networking with other people who share their views. But organized paganism is actually fairly contradictory.

TDR: Do you believe the resurgence of evangelical and Christian impact groups, both at Dartmouth and across the Ivy League, is a positive shift? Also, why does it seem to be an almost exclusively Christian phenomenon?

RC: I would not characterize it as positive or negative; I would simply say it's a fact. This is what is happening in our culture. It's reflected in the election results from 2004. Many people—about a quarter of voters—identify themselves as evangelical Christians. This is simply where our culture is right now. And it would make sense that our colleges would reflect that as well.

But I don't think it's an exclusively Christian phenomenon. Particularly, we observe here, at Dartmouth, the founding of Chabad a year and a half ago. Chabad is a very traditional orthodox expression of Judaism. Evangelical is not the word they would apply to themselves, but they are certainly concerned with outreach. Chabad is a kind of Jewish renewal group, which in many ways is to Hillel as some of the evangelical groups are to mainline Catholic and Protestant faiths. So I think you see this same tendency in Judaism, and probably in other faiths—I expect you see it in Islam as well—but we are not as familiar with those.

TDR: Do you feel that Dartmouth provides a friendly environment for religious conservatives? Is one favored more than others?

RC: I think many conservative religious students find communities of welcome and support at Dartmouth. So if you ask the student who is religiously conservative, whether he is Christian or Jewish, those two in particular, do you find Dartmouth a welcoming place. I think most would say, "Yes, there are groups where we feel very much at home, we can practice our faith, we have friends who we can share our faith with, who we can associate with." On that level yes, they are comfortable.

But there is a level of discomfort as well which comes from the fact that the College, as a whole—by which I mean the administration, the Trustees, and the majority of faculty—do not share that particular religious perspective. They simply do not. And the fact that the College does not endorse that perspective makes some conservative religious people feel beleaguered.

But that's simply the fact that the College, despite its founding, its history, is currently a secular institution. An institution at which religion of various kinds is supported, and we would like for everyone to be able to practice their faith in the way that they choose. That is the extent of the College's support.

TDR: Do you believe that religion is excluded from any part of Dartmouth life where it ought to receive more attention? And conversely, are there any parts of Dartmouth in which religion plays too large a role?

RC: I am not aware of either of those. I do not think it is excluded, nor I do think it plays too large a role in any part of the College that I am aware of. Where would it be excluded? Certainly people who have religious perspectives are found in every part of the College, including the faculty, including Greek life, including athletics, including science labs. They do not dominate any of those, but they are found in all of them. I do not think there's any exclusion. Nor is there a place where religion dominates the perspective.

From my perspective, religion is really important. It's very important. I hope that the importance of religion would become more apparent in our intellectual endeavors at Dartmouth. If there is a mistake being made, I think it is from an intellectual, educational perspective, in paying too little attention to religion.

TDR: Finally, if you could make one concrete, observable change to Dartmouth, either as a whole or selective parts of it, what would it be?

RC: I would make it free. I would use its endowment to provide scholarships to every student who attends, so that there is no financial constraint for anyone. I know that we say we are need blind, but that is very different from saying the College imposes no financial constraint on anyone.

TDR Interview: Rev. Richard Crocker

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