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Ernst fills term professorship

Carl W. Ernst has been named the Zachary Smith distinguished term professor, effective July 1 through June 30, 2005, on a nine-month basis.

He teaches comparative religion and Islam in the Department of Religious Studies and joined the Carolina faculty in 1992.

Ernst has served as department chair since 1995, and on the executive committees of both the Triangle South Asia Consortium and the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS). In addition, he's the University campus director of the new federally funded North Carolina Center for South Asian Studies, a four-campus consortium that includes Carolina and Duke, N.C. State and N.C. Central universities.

Islamic mysticism, or Sufism, is the primary focus of his research, from medieval times to the present. He counts among his most noteworthy publications The Shambhala Guide to Sufism, Ruzbihan Baqli: Mysticism and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism, and Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History, and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center.

He was elected to the American Society for the Study of Religion in 1996 and has been the recipient of three grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright award and four other overseas research awards

Ernst earned his doctorate in religion from Harvard University in 1981.

He spent this summer doing research in Pakistan on a topic in Islamic studies -- print culture as it relates to the introduction of printed books in Muslim countries in the 19th century. Also, as a member of the AIPS executive committee for the past six years, he represented that organization by giving talks at US Information Service American Centers and met with the press to talk about Islamic studies in America. He also worked on academic exchanges with Iran under the auspices of the American Institute of Iranian Studies, and consulted with publishers about two books that he's edited.

The Zachary Taylor Smith term professorships for excellence in undergraduate education were established by Smith in 1993. Created during the University's Bicentennial Campaign for Carolina, the professorships are awarded for a period of three to five years to outstanding faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences. The awards are based on teaching achievement and excellence in fine arts, humanities or social sciences.

Smith, retired as treasurer and a director for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., lives in Winston-Salem and has served as a director of the University's Arts and Sciences Foundation and president of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. He's also a member of the Chancellors' Club, a former director of the General Alumni Association and former chairman of the Carolina Board of Visitors.

Smith has a special interest in undergraduate education in the humanities and endowed the professorships because, as he said, "a superb classroom teacher can be the inspiration for a lifetime."

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