Last May, the chancellor of Boston University, John Silber, published an editorial column in a Boston newspaper headlined “Silliness Under Seattle Stars,” in which he declared: “It is inexcusable for the government the granting of degrees in nonsense.” Silber, a well-known conservative figure in the academic world, compared the certification of Kepler to the hanging of witches in Massachusetts both, he said, legitimized superstition. Scientists, religious leaders, and academics have long reserved a special hostility for astrology, and, not surprisingly, this school has generated controversy. This week, the school’s inaugural class is back in town for the first symposium of their sophomore term, and a dozen new students have arrived as freshmen.
But three times a year, the students and faculty gather in Seattle for a weeklong symposium. The school is mostly a “distance learning” program, in which students read on their own and consult instructors by e-mail. Kepler claims to be the first institution of higher learning in North America authorized to offer degrees in astrology-an authorization it received from the Washington state Higher Education Coordinating Board last year. Kepler College of Astrological Arts and Sciences is now in session.
This week, in a central Seattle classroom, several dozen students and teachers are reviving an academic subject that’s been scorned, vilified, and banned from universities for the past four hundred years or so.
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