Matthew V. Smith
Editor-in-Chief
IT IS CLEAR from the excellent reporting on Catholic mission hiring by Executive Editor Brian Boyd, continuing in this issue for the second of three parts, that Notre Dame is at a crossroads. With an aging majority of Catholic faculty, Notre Dame is precariously close to falling short of its mandate, set forth in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, to retain ‘a preponderance’ of Catholic intellectuals. If trends in faculty hiring do not alter substantially in the coming years, Notre Dame will face the very real possibility of becoming a place with a vibrant religious heritage and student body, and a secular faculty.
Some will not find this problematic. There is, to be sure, a “corporate culture” at Notre Dame that is more concerned with the University’s brand than with its mission. Indeed, there are convincing arguments to be made that we should embrace that culture. Yet to do so would be to depart radically from the position of opportunity that Notre Dame now occupies.
Standing now among the top twenty institutions in all of American higher education, Notre Dame is finally in a position to project its vision of what it is to be a truly Catholic university to all the world – to be a leader both inside and outside the Church and to be, as Fr. Sorin presaged, “the greatest force for good in this country.” And yet, it is precisely our distinctiveness as a Catholic university that is in danger.
In his third annual address to the faculty, University President Fr. John Jenkins laudably stated that “we must be a place where religious belief and unbelief are in dialogue,” and that “it is critical to the health of society in the twenty-first century that there is a place where religious faith is … accorded the highest level of intellectual consideration.” He also indicated, however, that the future of Notre Dame as an institution of higher education lies, quite specifically, in undergraduate and faculty research.
Fr. Jenkins is unflappably confident that emphasizing research will improve undergraduate education – and we grant this, insofar as ‘education’ is taken to mean ‘specialization in preparation for graduate studies.’ But as for the classical vision of education as paideia (which he himself endorsed but a year ago), let alone a liberal education as Cardinal John Henry Newman envisioned it, an increased emphasis on research can only diminish the average Notre Dame student’s ability to integrate the various disciplines.
Slowly, but surely, this focus on attaining recognition among ‘peer institutions’ as a research university has come at the expense of Notre Dame’s cultivation of undergraduates into more complete persons.
Less than a decade ago, a Notre Dame education was built upon a common Core Curriculum that genuinely sought to instill an appreciation for the way in which the various disciplines are integrated, and, above all, how philosophy and theology sit atop the hierarchy of knowledge. Like at so many other colleges and universities with lofty ‘institutional goals,’ however, that was abandoned for what is now a single ‘College Seminar,’ which seeks to accomplish all that the former Core did in three credit hours.
One course on ‘Exploring Gender Constructions’ does not a liberal education make.
Our great University has of course undergone moments of tribulation in the past. From the first winters braved by Fr. Sorin and his six Holy Cross brothers, to the turbulent times that saw the institution of a lay board of trustees by Fr. Theodore Hesburgh, Notre Dame has always risen to its own aspirations of greatness.
The time we are in now is no less important. At the very least, Notre Dame stands at one of only three or four moments of ‘critical juncture’ (a phrase that I did not invent) in its one-hundred and sixty-five year history. If before the trials faced by Notre Dame were elemental and institutional, they are today spiritual.
Contact Matt at msmith24@nd.edu.
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