In FY 2010-2011, Metanexus Institute continued to publish its online journal, even as we began a lengthy process of redesigning and porting the website into Drupal in order to upgrade the content management system and reduce the carrying costs.
During this period, we also completed the process of moving all of our operations into the Internet Cloud, reducing costs and improving services. See http://philanthropy.com/article/How-a-Small-Group-Saved/126404/
In October of 2010, we hosted David Christian from Macquarie University in Sidney, Australia for a series of lectures on Big History at the New York Academy of Sciences, the National Science Foundation, and Villanova University.
In November 2010, William Grassie’s book, The New Sciences of Religion, was published by Palgrave Macmillan to critical acclaim.
In February 2011, Metanexus published a collection of sixteen essays entitled H+/- Transhumanism and Its Critics.
Over the spring and summer, we were also busy editing and producing a book by Metanexus Senior Fellow, V.V. Raman, entitled Indic Visions in an Age of Science, which appeared in print in October 2011.
In May 2011 we hosted a living room salon in New York City with Evan Hadingham, Senior Science Editor for NOVA.
Metanexus continued a process of reorganization. The board deliberated on the future of the organization, its mission, and its means. New board members were elected, a number of board members stepped down, the bylaws were revised, and the official name of the organization was shortened to simply “Metanexus Institute.” A new mission statement was adopted:
Metanexus promotes scientifically rigorous and philosophically open-ended explorations of foundational questions. Metanexus publishes an online journal and hosts events designed to promote the exchange of innovative and transformational ideas. Metanexus believes that this integrative and exploratory approach is vital to our future wellbeing at this unique moment in the natural history of our planet and the cultural evolution of our species.
The board of Metanexus also decided to grant 20 percent of our cash assets to Chestnut Hill College, where former board member Kathleen Duffy will set up the Institute on Religion and Science at Chestnut Hill College to continue the Philadelphia regional work pioneered by Metanexus. A celebratory event was held in May 2011 at Chestnut Hill College to mark this occasion.
In anticipation of closing our Philadelphia offices and operating henceforth out of New York City, Metanexus also registered as a non-profit in New York State. In order to further reduce expenses, we closed the Philadelphia office in June 2011 and sadly laid off the remaining staff -- Elizabeth Kenny, Joe Monaco, and Erica Vinskie.
Throughout this period, Metanexus continued to publish its online journal, even as we made plans to completely overhaul the website, rebuilding it in Drupal, as a step in reducing the carrying costs and improving the product. In the FY 2010-2011, our website had 219,589 visitors from 209 countries for a total of 370,717 page views.
With the help of contributing editors Marc Kaufman and Heather Wax in Boston, web designer Stephen Hopkins in Long Island, and the Drupal development team at Zivtech in Philadelphia, we worked throughout the spring and summer in redesigning and rebuilding the institute’s website, set to launch in November 2011. Former employee Julia Loving from Pennsylvania has also returned as a contributing editor for the new publication which operates under the banner BIG History | BIG Problems | BIG Questions.
We have great hopes for the new website and ambitious plans for the future. Our unofficial motto is taken from Walt Kelly’s cartoon character Pogo, who pronounced that “we are faced with insurmountable opportunities.”
