Excerpt from
A
Catholic University
Vision and Opportunities
Terrence J. Murphy
© The Order of St.
Benedict, Inc., Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. No part of this
may be reproduced by any means, without the written permission of The Liturgical
Press, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321.
Contents
Preface
I. Catholic Higher Education for a Fuller Life
1. Education, Religion, Leadership
2. A Mission of a Catholic
University
3. What Is Catholic about a
Catholic University
4. Catholic Studies in Relation to
Other Studies
5. A Catholic University Reaches
out
6. Service to the Catholic
Community
I. Leadership
7. The Context of Decision Making
8. Presidents Make a Difference
9. Leadership and Core Values
10. Many Lead, One Governs
11. A Developing Administration
12. Institutional Culture and
Communication
III. Critical Decisions
13. A Study in Decision Making
14. Why Business Administration?
15. A New Campus Is Born
16. What Has Technology to Do with
the Humanities?
17. Religion in the Mission of a
University
Bibliography
Preface
Colleges and universities are intimately related to the development of people
and the well-being of society. Their rich diversity in the United States offers
a great variety of opportunities for people to develop their talents and enhance
society. They are the wellspring of democratic government, as well as a
prosperous economy, both of which require the ability, skill, and intelligent
leadership of educated people. While there is great diversity among institutions
of higher education, they have many common purposes and shared activities;
hence, the experience of one university may be of benefit to others. And so, it
is my hope that the experience of the University St. Thomas may be helpful to
other colleges and universities.
The question is often asked: Why did St. Thomas grow so much during a very difficult time in American society and in higher education, the turbulent era of the civil rights movement, Vietnam War, student protests, and Second Vatican Council? This book is an attempt to answer that question, among others. The first part deals largely with the university’s mission, its commitment to moral and religious principles; the second treats of the application of these principles in service to the community in an entrepreneurial environment. St. Thomas held to its basic religious and educational commitments which accentuated the desire to serve a broader community and an entrepreneurial spirit. In describing what went on, I had to eliminate or save for another occasion many informative insights and incidents. This is not a history of the University of St. Thomas during the twenty-five years of one presidency. Nor is it a suggestion that the path of St. Thomas should be followed by others: one size does not fit all. However, there are advantages to institutions’ sharing their best practices, their vision, and their experiences. They learn from each other.
The general public may also find this book helpful because of the fundamental importance of higher education, and hopefully, members of the higher-education community will thoughtfully consider the positions advanced here. Students may find this account useful as they look for a college or university which fits their needs and goals. There is a vast array of material published each year that advertises the strength of various institutions, so much so that it can be a burden for them to analyze it when they are choosing a college. This account may help students and their parents to decide what are some characteristics of higher education important to them and thus enable them to choose those institutions that best suit them.
As one looks at the great strength and diversity of higher education, one’s admiration grows. Our free and democratic institutions serve different segments of our population. They nourish our society and at the same time are strengthened by the freedom and vitality of that society.
The development of St. Thomas during the twenty-five
years considered in this book was a group effort. No one person can claim credit
for it. It represents the hard work, creativity, and commitment of many persons—so
many that it would be presumptuous to try to mention even a representative
sample of them. One person to whom I am especially indebted is my secretary for
many years, Mrs. Kathleen Boyd. She has spent uncounted hours putting the
manuscript on the computer, proof-reading it, and attending to the many details
necessary for publication. For her untiring efforts I am deeply grateful.
Terrence J. Murphy
I. Catholic Higher Education for a Fuller
Life
1
Education, Religion, Leadership
If a university is to be truly universal, as its name implies, religion should
have a place in its educational thrust. A secular university, whether public or
private, belies its universal character if theology is missing in its course
offerings. Religion can enrich the academic disciplines to which it is relevant.
As it influences the education of young people, it can build better people and
better communities and become an agent of change in the marketplace and the
public forum. It can be an energizing factor, moving universities to greater
service to their communities. Many private universities still hold to the
tradition of relating education and religion in the interest of enriching
academic disciplines and of enhancing life and society.
This necessarily raises questions about the vitality and depth of religious convictions and about the relevancy of religious principles and values to academic disciplines and to public life. Is religion a passive presence in the life of the university or is it in the forefront as a dynamic driving force? Is it relegated to the private lives of students and others, not regarded as a potent force for a better community and for the development of fuller lives for its adherents? If there is a place for religion in the marketplace and the public square, how does it get there?
The historical background for our present lack of religion in higher education is instructive. When Western civilization struggled to crawl out from under the cloud of devastation and ignorance left after the fall of the Roman Empire and the wreckage wrought by the invading barbarians, schools were established at monasteries and cathedrals. These schools grew into the great universities of Europe: the universities of Paris, Bologna, Oxford, and Cambridge, among others. As they grew into independent institutions, they retained the religious dimension of their curricula.
The first great universities of the new world were part of that intellectual-religious tradition. Harvard University owes its foundation to religious-minded people who cherished both learning and religion and wanted them interrelated. Harvard set the pattern which spread across the United States.
However, the nineteenth century saw a turning away from religion and its values in education. The leaders of this revolution in education were not, for the most part, anti-religious. Some saw religion as irrelevant to learning, but for most, practical considerations moved them. The multitude of denominations and beliefs made it difficult—some would say impossible—to include religious considerations in universities open to people of all religious persuasions and to those of none at all.
The people who dominated higher education after the Civil War wanted to create a unified national culture. They wanted a culture so broadly and deeply accepted that another civil war would be unlikely. Religious divisions, they thought, would hinder such unity. Higher education could promote a national culture and unity. Hence, there could be no place for religion in public universities.
Moreover, the churches were not really challenging the academy to integrate religious values and concepts with new knowledge. They and the academy were not speaking to one another at a deeper intellectual level, although they maintained pleasant associations. As universities grew and welcomed people of all persuasions, denominations which sponsored a university often found it difficult or impossible to support the university, which then had to look to nonreligious sources for financial support. Thus, the churches’ influence was further eroded. Religion was removed from the curriculum for several practical reasons and not because of any inherent conflict between religion and reason. Religion drifted to the margins of the campuses and their intellectual life. This separation continues and constitutes a major problem for universities and for our society. Religion is a major interest of the American people, as is education, yet each maintains a respectful distance from the other. As George Marsden has written: "Religion came to be regarded as essentially an extra-curricular activity."
James Burtchaell has written at length on the decline of religion in the Protestant church-related colleges. He summarizes his study as follows: "The elements of the slow but apparently irrevocable cleavage of colleges from churches were many. The church was replaced as a financial patron by alumni, foundations, philanthropists, and government. The regional accrediting associations, the alumni, and the government replaced the church as the primary authorities to whom the colleges would give an accounting of stewardship. The study of their faith became academically marginalized and the understanding of religion was degraded by translation into reductive banalities for promotional use.... The faculty transferred their primary loyalties from their college to their disciplines and their guilds, and were thereby antagonistic to any competing norms of professional excellence related to the church." The long-term result, as Stephen Carter noted, is that "law and politics have trivialized religion in the public square." Burtchaell sees some Catholic colleges and universities already on the same slippery slope that Protestant universities followed into a secular existence. Will Catholic institutions eventually lose their Catholic identity and become secular?
While religious principles find little place in public classrooms, some private church-related colleges and universities have continued, with varying degrees of success, to relate religious and moral values to academic disciplines. This book is about one such effort and pertains only to certain aspects of that effort which endeavors to reclaim for religion the ground it lost. It looks to the early European traditions of education and religion and attempts to embody their values and lessons in contemporary higher education.
If value-oriented education is to play a larger role in the academy and the community, new leadership is required—entrepreneurial leadership. Universities are complex organizations that call for a wide range of talents on the part of their leaders, especially their chief executives. Among such talents are creativity, convictions, industriousness, and especially the willingness to take risks. Educational leadership is an important topic in this book.
Much will be written about entrepreneurial leadership. Entrepreneur- ship is not a common characteristic of educational leadership, yet it can be a distinctive characteristic of a university and raise the university to new levels of excellence and service. When it embraces religion, it can create a whole new dimension that moves the university beyond the campus and enriches society. This book will deal with these two topics throughout, namely, entrepreneurial leadership and religion, especially Catholicism, that reach out to individuals and society.
Leadership embraces not just the president but also the trustees, administrators, faculty, students, and alumni. This leadership, in all its segments, must be enlightened, entrepreneurial, risk-taking, and open to new opportunities, but more importantly, it must be faith-filled and grounded in the fundamental role of religious and moral values in higher education.
Evidence of this will be seen in the growth and development of the university described in this book. The pages that follow discuss each of the elements of this vision of private higher education, positioning the discussion on a real-life campus during a quarter century. It describes how, under entrepreneurial leadership and with the conviction of the worth of its value-oriented education for the betterment of the community, one small, Midwestern liberal arts college tried to live out its commitment to moral and religious values and to the community’s well-being. In the process, growing in size and academic stature, it became a successful, comprehensive university—the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.