Tag: Ted Trost


Symposium Recap

Symposium recap

Last week, the Department of Religious Studies hosted its annual Undergraduate Research Symposium at Gorgas Library. Students from Religious Studies courses collaborated with advisors on written projects before presenting their work at the event. The unique topics, challenging question-answer portion, and free coffee made for a refreshing Friday morning. Professors, alumni, MA students, and undergraduates used social media to keep up with the event. […]

Read More from Symposium Recap

The Adventures of Prof. Trost

As the weather gets colder, reminiscing on warm adventures becomes enticing. Last week, Prof. Ted Trost sat down to do just that — Taking a minute to share stories of his European travels from this past summer. After years traversing the country and world for both business and pleasure, Dr. Trost settled in at The University of Alabama. Currently, he works with students in the Department of Religious Studies and New College.  Before working in academia though, Trost worked as a flight […]

Read More from The Adventures of Prof. Trost

How to Make More from More? the Large Conference Loner Challenge

How to make more from more

“Less is better” is a dictum that doesn’t just haunt Matt Sheedy. I feel as though that spectral proverb from J.Z. Smith may apply as much to conferences as the classroom. The phrase resonates with my cultural heritage, too.  There’s a cookbook title, famous among certain generations of Mennonites, that encapsulates the bent of that culture: “More-with-Less.” Conferences come in a variety of sizes. Some are attended in the dozens to hundreds whereas others tip past the thousands. Each conference ranges between […]

Read More from How to Make More from More? the Large Conference Loner Challenge

Summer Plans: Prof. Trost

We asked the faculty what they were up to this summer; after all, just because the Spring semester is done doesn’t mean they’re all off gardening. And so this is what we learned… This summer, Prof. Trost will be traveling to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, to ponder a possible project on pilgrimage and to meet with a person who is writing a chapter for the volume that he is editing. Then he will be in Thessaloniki, Greece, with Catherine Roach, […]

Read More from Summer Plans: Prof. Trost

A Lesson on Origins at #REL50th

Our 50th anniversary celebrations have come to an end (but we’ll post a fun fact each Monday for the rest of the semester) — and, if you ask me, it was a great success. We filmed parts of it (i.e., the two faculty lectures, by Profs. Altman and Trost, and the opening to the next night’s Grad Tales panel — featuring five grads who returned to help mark the occasion [scroll down here to see who they were]); these movies […]

Read More from A Lesson on Origins at #REL50th

REL’s New Undergraduate Director

Prof. Ted Trost will be taking over as the Department’s Undergraduate Director, (so students, be sure to schedule your next advising session with him!). In case you were wondering what the role of Undergraduate Director entails, Dr. Trost has taken the time to answer a few questions about his position. What exactly does an “Undergraduate Director” do? The undergraduate director works with the chair and the faculty to determine what courses will be offered each semester.  My primary responsibility is to assist […]

Read More from REL’s New Undergraduate Director

Report from the Public Universities Chairs Workshop

Dr. Kevin Schilbrack (pictured above, right) is a professor of Religious Studies and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University. He was recently at the University of Alabama for the inaugural workshop for public university Religious Studies department chairs and offers the following report. Like many other department chairs, I suspect, I became chair after years of teaching, writing, and generally being collegial – but I received little or no training on how to be […]

Read More from Report from the Public Universities Chairs Workshop