During Bowles’ time as the museum director of Longwood University in Virginia, she was tasked with finding elements of other religious displays to incorporate on campus after “constituents” at the university took offense to a Christmas tree display in the institution’s historic building, known as the Rotunda.
She asked herself, “Was it accurate or justifiable to equate Christmas (a major holiday for Christians) to a minor holiday for another religion by juxtaposing and placing the displays in the same context?”
Though she admits that the effort to display other religious symbols is “reactionary and problematic,” she says the effort “was beneficial,” citing that the “mission in higher education should always be about learning and understanding more—and that should include holidays, too.”
“By acknowledging various holidays and religious traditions, we learned something about each other,” she concluded.
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