House funds center on religion, public life

Christian Century, June 5, 2002

Not with a large foundation grant but with a federal appropriation, the University of California, Santa Barbara, plans to open this fall the Walter H. Capps Center for Study of Religion and Public Life. A visiting professor each quarter will foster academic programs, internships and community dialogues at the oceanside campus, announced Wade Clark Roof, chairman of the university's religious studies department.

The center, which will also send pairs of students periodically to the multicampus University of California's existing center in downtown Washington, D.C., is being funded primarily through a $500,000 appropriation from Congress.

"It's Congress's way of remembering their deceased members," said Roof in announcing the center in mid-May. "Walter Capps was on the UCSB faculty for 32 years and served in the House for only ten months before he died in 1997, but he made a big impact while he was there." A tree was also planted on Capitol Hill in memory of Capps, said Roof.

Not to be confused with the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, with co-chairs in Washington and Chicago, the Capps Center will attempt "to capitalize on its West Coast location," Roof said, to address such issues as "environmental problems, immigrant issues and religious pluralism from a different regional perspective."