A Berkeley, Calif., parapsychologist renowned for his research on altered states of consciousness, near-death experiences and extrasensory perception has been hired as UNLV's first visiting professor of consciousness studies.
Charles Tart, a psychology professor with an exhaustive list of journal articles, audio tapes and lectures to his credit, will arrive in September and aims to arm students with a more sophisticated understanding of the human mind and its puzzling phenomena.
Tart, an emeritus professor at the University of California, Davis, and UNLV's new Bigelow Chair of Consciousness Studies, plans to teach two survey classes ---- one on altered states of consciousness and another on parapsychology ---- during spring semester 1998. This fall, he will help write curriculum and chart the future of consciousness studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
The professor's nine-month stay at UNLV was made possible by a $3.7 million gift to the university by local developer Robert Bigelow. Bigelow, who is fascinated by UFOs and the possibility of life after death, earmarked his donation for consciousness studies. Tart will make $100,000 for his work at UNLV.
Tart's classes will include discussions of dreams, meditation, hypnosis, out-of-body experiences, telepathy, the chance consciousness has of surviving death and drug-induced altered states of consciousness.
In job advertisements, UNLV initially sought a visiting professor who would be a part of the university's science or engineering college.
Ken Hanlon, associate vice president for academic budgeting, said Wednesday Tart will be a "free-standing" professor in the College of Sciences. His classes will be accepted as general elective credits in the first year, and university curriculum committees later will decide whether to count them toward requirements in liberal arts or
sciences.
As with many things academic, Hanlon said, there are UNLV professors who are "extremely skeptical" about consciousness studies and those who are open-minded and "quite curious."
On the lighter side, one tenured UNLV professor who requested anonymity said the appointment of a parapsychologist has been the butt of jokes on campus and, more seriously, professors are worried the university has sold out for a $3.7 million donation and marred its reputation by hiring someone whose writing is found in new-age book stores.
"Here we are at the end of the 20th century and UNLV is officially sanctioning 19th century nonsense," the professor said. "This wouldn't be done at any other respectable university in this country."
Ray Hyman, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon and a member of the Skeptical Inquirer's editorial board, called consciousness studies one of the last frontiers of psychology and said it should be the center of serious study. Having a parapsychologist lead such studies, however, is a mistake, he said.
"It's not clear they go together in any sensible way, except they're both mysterious," said Hyman, who believes such phenomena as near-death experiences can be explained away by science.
Hyman predicted Tart's classes "are going to attract a lot of flaky people."
Tart, 60, has spent his career rising above the skepticism that haunts his work. But recently "the questions of consciousness have attracted a lot of bright minds," including those of psychologists, physicists and neurophysiologists.
"The classes will explore the question, 'What really is this state of consciousness? ' " Tart said this week. "That question is vitally important. Consciousness is the biggest thing we've got. It's what makes us human."
The belief that consciousness is nothing more than a biochemical function or a product of the brain is too simplistic for Tart. "The brain is not just a machine that produces consciousness," he said. "The mind is something beyond the brain. Anyone who thinks the brain is the total answer is ignorant."
"I don't care whether the students believe in near-death experiences at the end of my class," he said. "What I want them to walk away with is a better understanding of consciousness and the variety of scientific ways in which consciousness has been and can be studied."
See Charles Tart's website at http://www.paradigm-sys.com/cttart/