Could you help give C.S. Lewis back to the Westmont professors who lost their homes in the wildfires?
During the recent wildfires in Southern California, Westmont College sustained some serious damage. Located in Montecito, a suburb of Santa Barbara in the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains, Westmont was in the direct path of the flames, which raced down the mountain and through the campus in a matter of minutes. The students were safe in the fireproof gymnasium complex, but several small classroom buildings burned, along with a pod of four small dormitory buildings.
Most serious, however, was the loss of 15 of the 44 faculty homes in the residential area for faculty members adjacent to the campus. These academics lost everything, and the burden of helping 14 families rebuild their lives is a huge challenge for a medium-small college like Westmont.
Jim Taylor, Westmont College Professor and Chair of Philosophy, was the Director of our Oxbridge 2008 Philosophy Symposium. After he told me that he had lost his home in the wildfire, he asked where the best place was for him to go to purchase all the C.S. Lewis books that he had lost.
We believe it would be a truly lovely gesture if the nationwide and worldwide associates of the C.S. Lewis Foundation were to play a key role in helping these Christian academics regain some basic Lewis texts. As they teach in their disciplines from a Christian understanding of life and reality, it is a huge help to have the wisdom and guidance of C.S. Lewis, one of the great Christian academics, at their side.
Most of the 15 faculty members who lost their homes are “Lewisians” or Lewis lovers to some degree. Our plan is to attempt to provide paperback editions of 15-20 classic Lewis texts for as many of these Westmont faculty fire victims as possible.
If you are able to help out in this effort-over and above your charitable commitments to this and other organizations-by purchasing one or more of these classic Lewis texts, please contact me via email at ganacker [at] calbaptist [dot] edu, or telephone me at my office at the College of Arts and Sciences, California Baptist University: 951/343-4363. My staff will be coordinating the effort, collecting the books, and delivering them to the Westmont professors. Thank you for your generosity.
Gayne John Anacker, Ph.D.
Vice President, C.S. Lewis Foundation
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, California Baptist University