NEW BERN — Meeting with Craven-Pamlico Christian Coalition members this week, Craven Community College leaders said the college library has a list with “pages and pages” of books on Christianity.
The number of Christian books is large in comparison to books on Islam even with the addition of a new Islam collection secured through a National Endowment for the Humanities grant.
CCC Board of Trustees Chairman Carol Mattocks and CCC President Catherine Chew met with the group after being invited to speak following a letter by U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, R-Farmville, in early January calling on them to provide “balanced” resources for library patrons.
Jones asked them to give equal exposure to books about Christianity and America’s rich Judeo-Christian heritage and called on acting coalition leader Jerry Schill for that group to help make that happen.
The coalition voted at its January meeting to pay for and help select Christian books if needed to create such balance and issued the invitation to the community college leaders, which Schill said Monday, “I have to admit, I was surprised you accepted so quickly.”
“I don’t have a problem with people learning about other cultures; I have a thing about grants,” said Schill.
He said he spent time in the military in what is now Pakistan and sought out the cultural exposure of Muslim people there.
Mattocks, who has been on the college board for about six years, said “Catherine and I were delighted to come and speak tonight.” She prefaced Chew’s remarks by holding up a stack of papers with Christian book titles, lists provided her by Cathy Campbell, director of library services at the community college.
“I appreciate the opportunity to come,” Chew said. “I think open dialog is a good thing. We pride ourselves on everybody having an opportunity to learn” and, with budget cuts, grants are one of the ways the college is filling in its funding deficit.
The college previously did not have a grant writer, she said, but now does and it is enhancing the humanities and technical offerings of the “medium sized” community college, one of North Carolina’s total of 58. A recent $1.8 million grant has been used to get a robotic arm for the manufacturing program and another gift of a hand-built helicopter is helping students in the Institute of Aeronautical Technology at the college’s Havelock campus.
She brought along for their review some of the Islam collection which includes books, DVDs, and a database.
“Understanding cultural nuances is really important,” Chew said. “This is not about trying to convert somebody to Islam. It is to help students explore ideas, expand people’s knowledge. I hope you can respect that our mission is to expand people’s minds and exposure.”
Coalition members questioned whether the titles in the collection were properly vetted and Mattocks said, “they were screened very carefully. The librarian is very careful about the resources they get and they came from the National Endowment for the Humanities.”
Chew said they were also vetted by different, reputable universities before selection by the Endowment.
Carol Leake said, “My concern is not how many books but if religion is taught at all and from what perspective.”
Chew said no course on Islam is planned other than what is imbedded in humanities courses or part of survey courses.
Ralph Scott, who said he had long studied Islam, said the books being provided to universities are part of a long and patient “Islamic jihad, a war being waged in America for decades. I think the material should not be in the library.”
Craven County Board of Education member David Hale said, “Our young people have to become educated because of or in spite of such a movement.”
Sue Book can be reached at 252-635-5665 or sue.book@newbernsj.com. Follow her on Twitter@SueJBook.