Mary Sanderson

Sometimes it must seem as if humanists are fighting an uphill battle in Utah-trying to spread humanist principles in an environment where the predominant culture emphasizes mindless obedience to authority and discourages independent thinking. Reinforcements in the battle, however, are arriving at an increasing rate.

The spotlight this month is on Mary Sanderson, who came to Utah in mid 1998 because of her husband's work. Mary has a broad educational and professional background, and is currently devoting her full attention to raising four children. She feels this is the most important way she could spend her time at this stage in her life, and is a bit scornful of the mentality so common in Utah that getting the babies born is all that counts and that after that, they are on their own!

She developed a questioning attitude toward received religion early in life, through attending Roman Catholic grade and high schools run by the Dominican order. She contrasted the anti-Semitic views prevalent in those schools with what she observed in her own Queens, N.Y. neighborhood, which had a large population of Jewish refugees.

One summer she ran a N.Y. City playground, frequented by the children of working parents from rat-infested neighborhoods, and observed that problems such as pre-teen drinking had little to do with religion and much to do with economics. Her empathy for the poor and neglected derives from that period of her life, and has never wavered.

She notices that in Utah, the predominant culture focuses on religion and contains the implication that people are poor because they are not righteous. She considers this absurd and actively harmful. In addition to being an excuse for not doing more to alleviate poverty and suffering, this attitude tends to cause the middle class to not take adequate financial precautions. There is a reason why the bankruptcy rate in Utah is so high, family net worth so low, and pawn and paycheck-loan shops so prevalent - and that reason is that many here spend more time praying than they do analyzing family finances.

In addition to raising her children and helping to energize many community activities, Mary finds time for independent study in philosophy, comparative religion, and foreign languages.

Her formal educational background is impressive. She earned a bachelor's degree in physical anthropology at Cornell University, and a JD at the University of Rutgers School of Law. Tiring of practicing law, she returned to school and took courses in the General Studies program at Columbia University in NYC, focussing on hard sciences as a career change. Next, she earned a BS In physics at New Paltz State University, New Paltz, N.Y. Following that, she began a Ph.D. program in physics at New York University but did not complete the program because the family she and her husband had long wished for suddenly materialized in the form of four children in rapid succession.

Mary is a welcome addition to the ranks of those who will help to open closed minds.

--Marilyn Welles