For the first time, Guilford is choosing 2005-2006 speakers around a predetermined theme. At the request of the Initiative on Faith and Practice, that theme will be The Year of Spirit and Spirituality (YSS). Karen Armstrong, Desmond Tutu and Bill Moyers will headline the theme in the Bryan Series.

“We needed to figure out how to include in dialogues across the campus people who do not define themselves as religious,” said Eric Mortensen, professor of religious studies and member of the YSS Guiding Committee. Spirit and spirituality will extend beyond specific religions.

In the previous Year of the Arts, Guilford President Kent Chabotar came up with a theme after he had seen the speakers.

Next year Chabotar is choosing speakers, with the input of some faculty and staff, for their abilities to contribute to a central theme.

“Gorbachev is a really tough act to follow,” Chabotar said, “so we knew we wanted at least one person who was very well known and who fit within the theme.”

That person was Desmond Tutu.

Tutu is Archbishop Emeritus and Dean of the Anglican Church in Cape Town, South Africa. For battling apartheid, Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

Tutu was the first black dean of St. Mary’s Anglican Cathedral in Johannesburg, the first black bishop in Johannesburg, and the first black archbishop of Cape Town.

President Nelson Mandela appointed Tutu the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The group investigates crimes of apartheid in South Africa.

“In a lot of ways, people think of Tutu as the centerpiece of the good news for next year,” Mortensen said. “He’s such a remarkable individual.”

“Bill Moyers, now he’s all-American,” said Ty Buckner, director of college relations. Moyers is an award winning author, filmmaker and journalist.

Moyers was senior news analyst for the CBS Evening News, as well as publisher for Newsday and host on PBS for NOW with Bill Moyers.

“He has received every major journalism award and more than 30 Emmy Awards,” said the winter ’05 Guilford College Magazine.

However, Moyers is not just an accomplished media figure, he is also an ordained Baptist minister.

Much of his film work has focused on religion in America, including Amazing Grace and Genesis.

Students heavily requested Moyers in the Bryan Series surveys, Buckner explained, “but he very rarely makes public talks.”

Karen Armstrong is also an unlikely person to speak at the college because she seldom travels to the Unites States. Armstrong, a professor at Leo Baeck College in London, has expertise in several major religions, including Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

She wrote the New York Times best seller A History of God: the 4000-Year Quest for Judaism, Christianity and Islam in 1993.

Armstrong was a Catholic nun from 1962-69. Although less known in the U.S., Armstrong has aroused controversy in Europe through her criticisms of world religions.

A self-proclaimed “freelance monotheist,” Armstrong studies the similarities between religions and offers commentary on the place of religion in the modern world.

When asked why only the three Abrahamic religions would be represented, Buckner said, “The YSS is not the Year of Religion … it’s broader than that.”

Mortensen, however, shared this concern: “Some of the language, although it was toned carefully, still to me was reminiscent of monotheistic, prayer-type reflection.”

A Tibetan scholar, Mortensen responded by inviting Robert Thurman to speak at Convocation.

Thurman is a professor at the University of Columbia and the first westerner to ever be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk (and father of Uma Thurman).

“He pushes you to use your curiosity and he does so in a way that is accessible,” Mortensen said, “despite the fact that he’s talking in a paradigm that is foreign to most Americans.”

Faced with the disappointing overall attendance numbers at the Bryan Series this year, Chabotar believes the YSS will be better: “I think it’s going to be an easier sell next year because spirit and spirituality is one of the reasons why a lot of students come here.”

There are still funds available for speakers on spirit and spirituality, and students are encouraged to submit proposals to the Initiative on Faith and Practice by March 18.