Published: March 14, 2018
UT Writes Presents Reading on Organized Secularism March 22
On Thursday, March 22, The University of Tampa will host a reading and reception, titled "Madalyn Murray O'Hair Would Not Have Been the Most Hated Person in America … If She Were a Man: Organized Secularism in the US," featuring Ryan Cragun, associate professor of sociology. The program, which is part of the University's UT Writes series, begins at 6 p.m. in the Macdonald-Kelce Library, AV Room 2. It is free and open to the public; refreshments will be served.
Cragun will read from Organized Secularism in the United States: New Directions in Research, a new collection of essays about the rise and structure of organized secularism in the U.S. that he co-edited.
Cragun specializes in the sociological study of religion, focusing on Mormonism, the nonreligious and secularization. He is also the author of several books, including What You Don't Know About Religion (but Should) and How to Defeat Religion in 10 Easy Steps: A Toolkit for Secular Activists.
Cragun has twice received the Excellence in Research and Scholarship Award from the College of Social Sciences, Mathematics and Education at UT. He is a member of the American Sociological Association, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Mormon Social Science Association, the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network and the Center for Atheist Research.
The event is sponsored by The Friends of the Macdonald-Kelce Library. For more information about the event, contact Leslie Vega, reference instruction librarian, at lvega@ut.edu or (813) 257-3244.
On Sunday, April 8, The University of Tampa’s 2017-2018 Sykes Chapel Concert Artist Series will conclude with a performance by the Philadelphia Brass, called “one of the gems of Philadelphia’s cultural life” by NPR’s Martin Goldsmith. The concert begins at 2 p.m. in the Sykes Chapel and Center for Faith and Values and is free and open to the public.
The concert will have a special emphasis on American music, featuring works by Jennifer Higdon, Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington and Frank Loesser, among others.
On Friday, March 30, The University of Tampa will welcome pianist Frederick Moyer — hailed by The New York Times as “first-class” and The Milwaukee Journal as “a superstar pianist” — for a guest recital. The concert, which is free and open to the public, begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Plant Hall Grand Salon.
The program for the performance will include works by Franz Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Oscar Peterson.
“There are a lot of stereotypes and studies that say boys aren’t as good in second language acquisition as females,” said Harrington, who worked with Assistant Professor Andrew DeMil on the research project, “Gender differences in Spanish Language Learning: Speaking Exams,” which they presented at the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference in February and to the UT Board of Trustees March 22.
“We wanted to do a study of our own here at UT. In the previous year (DeMil) had studied reading comprehension of girls versus boys, so we wanted to study speaking this year,” said Harrington, of Maple Grove, MN. “The results were the same though. The boys aren’t any worse, if not the same, as females. They are just extremely underrepresented.”