Marie Griffith on conclusion of her leadership of John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics and next steps
As many of you know, after 12 years as director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, I will be stepping down and returning to full-time faculty status at the end of June. While it is definitely the right move for me at this time, I cannot deny feeling wistful, as I have loved my job and feel very proud of what my faculty and staff colleagues and I have accomplished together. Within a few short years after moving to Washington University from Harvard, with the support and wise counsel of my spouse and fellow academic Leigh Schmidt, I built a small but mighty faculty, composed eventually of Tazeen Ali, Fannie Bialek, John Inazu, Laurie Maffly-Kipp, Mark Valeri, Leigh, and me. With longtime managing editor Tiffany Stanley, we launched our award-winning online journal, Religion & Politics, which has reached millions of readers over these years. Along with a phenomenal staff overseen by assistant director Debra Kennard, our group also established a popular undergraduate curriculum, spearheaded numerous major public events that attracted large local crowds as well as a national online audience, and developed a highly competitive and nationally renowned postdoctoral fellowship program that to date has nurtured more than two dozen early-career scholars in religious studies, history, anthropology, and other fields. All of these ventures have reaped extraordinary rewards and had a major impact on countless lives and institutions.
My own next move is clear: Before returning to the classroom full-time, I’ll be taking a research leave in 2023-2024 to work on my next book project. I’m focused now on the institutional abuse crisis in the US Catholic church and the Southern Baptist Convention—with the hope of contributing to a stronger and more transparent institutional culture in both bodies. I have always been passionate about my research and writing, and this project feels frankly more timely and urgent than any other I’ve yet tackled in my career. Sexual abuse has been a rampant problem in many settings, but its systematic cover-up in the sorts of religious institutions children and adults are taught to trust above all others is an evil that has wrecked, and is still wrecking, countless lives. I am honored to pursue this task in multiple archives as well as via interviews with a sizeable number of survivors, family members, whistleblowers, religious leaders, lawyers, journalists, therapists, and others whose lives have been touched by abuse and are working to repair it. As painful as the subject is to research, what drives me is a genuine hope that there are ways to ameliorate and greatly reduce this devastating scourge if enough of us collaborate to do so.
As I end my directorship, I am delighted to leave the day-to-day administration of the Center in strong hands, as longtime faculty member Mark Valeri has graciously agreed to serve as interim director. Mark, the Reverend Priscilla Wood Neaves Distinguished Professor of Religion and Politics, joined the Center in 2014 and is a renowned scholar whose sixth book, The Opening of the Protestant Mind: How Anglo-American Protestants Embraced Religious Liberty, will be published in a few weeks. He is also an excellent colleague, as anyone who works with him can attest. I have great admiration for Mark’s intellect, integrity, sense of fairness, and commitment and steadiness as a leader. I know he will make valuable contributions in this position and hope you will join me in wishing him every success.
As a final word, I want to thank all of my colleagues here at the Center for their enthusiastic assistance and alliance over these years. Tazeen, Fannie, John, Laurie, Mark, and Leigh, along with Darren Dochuk, Mark Jordan, and Lerone Martin, have been phenomenal partners with whom to work daily and laugh often. I am also deeply grateful to all of the special postdoctoral fellows who have passed through the Center and brightened all our lives with their presence (and especially mine at our recent reunion). Many thanks too to Senator John C. Danforth for his vision, generous resources, and unstinting support, as well to the Washington University administrators with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working, above all the Chancellor who hired me, Mark Wrighton, and the provost with whom I worked the longest, Holden Thorp. Among our outstanding student workers and permanent staff, Sheri Peña stands out, not only for her competence and good cheer but also her deep kindness toward others. Without a doubt, my greatest debt is to Debra Kennard, who has been a crucial planner, sounding board, and facilitator of every one of the Center’s ventures during this period and has been an invaluable part of the Center’s success. Thanks to all of you, along with our students, our audience members, our journal readers, and our donors: all of you who have made these 12 years such exciting and rewarding ones for me. I’m deeply gratified by all that we have accomplished together, and I am heartened to end my directorship when the Center is healthy and growing.
