One faculty member in the Department of Religious Studies and Classics has been promoted, demonstrating excellent performance in teaching, service and research.
Dr. Konden Smith Hansen is promoted from Lecturer to Senior Lecturer.
Dr. Smith Hansen (Ph.D. in Religious Studies, Arizona State University) specializes in American Religious History, with a particular expertise in Mormon Studies. He is the author of award winning Frontier Religion: Mormons in America, 1857-1907 (University of Utah Press, 2019) and the co-editor of the award winning The Reed Smoot Hearings: The Investigation of a Mormon Senator and the Making of an American Religion (Utah State University Press, 2021). He teaches courses on American and world religions, film and religion, religious violence and terrorism, Mormonism, and religion and popular culture. He was the Burns Faculty Fellow for 2014-2015.