Back on May 7th, the headline in the NY Times read: "Pitzer College in California Adds Major in Secularism." The problem is that this headline was simply false. No major was proposed; and none was approved. The NY Times article also reported the founding of a "department of secular studies" at Pitzer College (along with the major). The truth or falsity of this second claim is more complex than the claim about the major--but this claim too is largely misleading. To start, Pitzer prides itself on not having any "departments." The closest analog to "departments" at Pitzer are odd beasts known as "Field Groups," and these "Field Groups" come in two kinds at the College. The kind that is most like a department at other colleges are known as "Type A" field groups; there are also "Type B" field groups (which I will explain in a moment). And the grain of truth in the NY Times story was that Pitzer Colle...
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