Masonic Charity Foundation Gift a Strategic Move for Freemasonry!

by Robert G. Davis

In July 2008, Oklahoma State University Foundation publicly announced a gift by the Masons of Oklahoma, through their Masonic Charity Foundation, in the amount of $500,000 for an endowed faculty chair at the state’s university to be administered through the Department of Arts and Sciences. The gift will open a wide range of academic research possibilities of particular interest to Freemasonry; including academic studies related to men, their organizational and social networks, their ethics, ideals, moral attitudes, important role models, family needs, and even studies relating to fundamental differences between the sexes.

Even among the most conservative financial minds in Oklahoma Masonry, the gift from the Masonic Foundation can be seen as a remarkably good business decision. After all, the gift has been matched dollar for dollar by Texas oil man, T. Boone Pickens. Then, because the Masonic Foundation made its decision at a time when the OSU Foundation was conducting its largest funds development program in school history, the Oklahoma Legislature committed to match both the Masons and Pickens’ gifts dollar for dollar.

The result is that Oklahoma Masonry now has endowed a $2 million Masonic Chair for Gender Studies at a nationally known university. A faculty endowed chair is one where the principal is never spent. Thus, research done through this new grant can be carried on into perpetuity.

This new educational direction is receiving accolades all over the country. Mark Tabbart, author of American Freemasons: Three Centuries of Building Communities, has publicly stated that “every Grand Lodge in America should be considering the same thing. There is no question the academic world today is interested in Freemasonry. We should have a national network of academic studies taking place simultaneously.”

The endowed gift will be administered through the OSU Center for Gender Studies. The reason this route was selected by the Foundation is that it is allows interdepartmental studies to be performed around our broad fraternal interests. At the minimum, the departments of sociology, psychology, history, and philosophy are expected to be involved in academic areas outlined by the gift.

In addition to helping a lot of students learn a lot about men’s interests in general, there are several other strategic goals associated with the program. First, academic research focusing on what Masonry teaches and how it impacts the lives of men and society can give much public credibility to the fraternity. It’s akin to the old saying that an expert is someone with a briefcase who lives fifty mile away.

Freemasons can write books about Masonry until they run out of ink; but the public pays more attention to what people outside the fraternity write about us. The public perceives there is no built in bias with independent research. As an example, recent books written on the history of Freemasonry by academicians Jacob, Bullock and Stevenson, have been among the most popular books purchased by those within and outside of Masonry. Using academic research as a vehicle for communicating the values, interests, focus, and purpose of Freemasonry can go a long ways toward bringing our old fraternity into contemporary focus.

Some brethren have asked if a focus on gender studies means we will be required to spend money on women’s issues. Not at all! The Center for Gender Studies is just that—a center for the study of men and women’s issues. Obviously, our chair is directed toward the men’s side of the program.

And there are many questions to be researched about men and fraternal purpose. For example, under organizational behavior and social networks for men, the following questions are important:

• How important is it for men to have regular association with other men?
• What is the history of the “Men’s House,” or private sanctuaries for men, and their evolution to the fraternal and social clubs of the 20th century?
• Why do fraternal societies exist and what role do they play in promoting male values, ethics and ideals?
• Is regular inter-generational contact needed to pass significant gender qualities from one generation to another?
• Why is branding to a particular identity group a significant driver of male curiosity and participation? How does such branding serve healthy society purposes? When does it not?

Under the study of ethics, there are an almost unlimited number of questions Freemasons should be interested in:

• What is the situation with ethics and men? Why are ethics important to men?
• Do men need better instruction and more practical teaching venues in the area of personal ethics? Who teaches men about ethics?
• Can contemporary studies in principles and situational ethics help men to integrate accountability and responsibility into their sense of being men?

Fatherhood and role modeling are also especially important to Freemasons:

• What is male role modeling? Why is it important to men?
• What impact does the right kind of role modeling have on preservation of the family? Are there organizations whose focus is primarily on male role modeling?
• How important are men as role models to the family? In the community? In leadership roles?

You get the picture. Academic studies in these kinds of contemporary issues can greatly aid the fraternity in positioning itself to be seen as relevant in the eyes of young men, as well as educators, the community, the business world—and, indeed, the general public.

As Freemasons, we know that Freemasonry is a practical school offering timeless lessons in morals, ethics, sociality, role modeling, fraternalism and male bonding, self improvement and personal development across all generations of men. The problem is that the world doesn’t know this. What people do know is that the above kinds of questions are important to the welfare of men, their families, and our society.

The Masonic Chair in Gender Studies will help the public figure out why Freemasonry relates to so many areas of men’s lives. After all, our first interest has always been men.