first secular college with a Mormon-studies professorship.

CLAREMONT, Calif. Claremont Graduate University will become the country's first secular college with a Mormon-studies professorship.

The school kicked off a six-million-dollar fund-raising campaign for the Howard-W-Hunter Chair for Mormon Studies.It's named after the only California-born president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.School officials say the Mormon-studies classes will start in fall 2007.Claremont already offers courses on the Indic, Jewish, Islamic, Catholic, Protestant, Middle Eastern Orthodox and Zoroastrian faiths.Officials say its push to offer a comprehensive study of comparative religions is important because of increasing diversity in the United States, and increasing violence over religious differences abroad.