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Introduction to Dr. Puffenberger
With over 32 years of teaching experience at Elizabethtown College, Dr. William Puffenberger maintained his presence with the donation of over 200 religious artifacts. Puffenberger began his journey with Elizabethtown College in the fall of 1967 after he had made a major change in his life. Prior to working at Elizabethtown College, Puffenberger went to Bridgewater College in Virginia and became an ordained in the Church of the Brethren. After realizing that he was not meant to stay in the ministry, Puffenberger and his wife, Kitty moved to Boston, where he studied at Boston University and Harvard University to receive his doctorate degree.
Once Dr. Puffenberger started teaching at Elizabethtown College in 1967, he designed courses that focused on all of the religions of the world. Originally, he taught one world religions course that covered up to 20 religions. With too much to fit into one course, he split it into separate classes focusing on Western and Eastern religions. In addition to creating new classes at Elizabethtown College, Puffenberger also took his students on trips to many religious and cultural sites which incorporated experiences for the department of religious studies and visuals into the curriculum that Puffenberger taught in his courses. He also taught courses in ethics, using his knowledge of moral development through his study of religion.
In 1978, Dr. Puffenberger spent a sabbatical leave in India. It was during this trip Puffenberger began collecting religious artifacts. He made many more trips to India, China, and Japan in the subsequent years and continued to build his collection of artifacts. Puffenberger used his continually growing collection in the classrooms, showing students how these relics would be used in religious ceremonies. After retiring from his position as the Professor of Religion Emeritus in 1999, Puffenberger donated his collection of artifacts to the college in hopes that other professors and students will use the collection for learning about world religions. Even after retirement, Puffenberger stayed close by, currently residing at the Masonic Village in Elizabethtown, PA with his wife, Kitty. They both continue to fuel their wanderlust by traveling to many countries throughout recent years. Dr. Puffenberger's contribution to Elizabethtown College will always be greatly appreciated and never forgotten.
On January 28th, 2016, Dr. Bill Puffenberger, Professor of Religious and Asian studies at Elizabethtown College, donated over 250 artifacts to the school hoping that the artifacts would aid students' education when studying traditions from around the world. After the collection was donated, Dr. Jeffery Long, Professor of Asian and Religious Studies and Caryn Zwart, an Elizabethtown College alumni, labeled and cataloged each artifact onto a spreadsheet.
In order to make the artifacts more available for the students of Elizabethtown and beyond to explore, in the summer of 2018, Hannah Ciocco and Amal Ismail, under the supervision of Dr. Richard Newton and Carol Ouimet, created the digital curation of the Puffenberger Collection. This project was then continued by Tyler Gamble and Mahmood Mohammad in the summer of 2019.
The project's main focus is to digitalize many of the artifacts onto an accessible, interactive online website. With the creation of the website, we hope to make a database where students and faculty can reference the broad collection at any time when studying world's religions or to admire the various artifacts and their significance to their correlated traditions. In addition to the images of the artifacts, the website also includes descriptions, sacred texts links, and High Library and external resources associated with each specific artifact. The website also houses videos of Dr. Puffenberger's and other professors' commentary and background on specific artifacts seen on featured items. The "William V. Puffenberger Digital Collection of Religious Artifacts" is an ongoing project to archive artifacts from Dr. Puffenberger and other faculty in order to illustrate their importance in religious traditions and their role in education.
This website was created by Elizabethtown College students in the summer of 2018 and is an ongoing research project. For any questions or comments, please contact DHHub@etown.edu.