Ben O’Brien
Managing Editor
MOST PEOPLE who visit Notre Dame’s sprawling campus dotted with chapels, shrines and religious statues assume that the Catholic identity of the university is and always will be as much a part of its character as its iconic golden dome. In an article in the September 10th issue of America magazine entitle “The Faculty ‘Problem,’” however, Notre Dame history professor Wilson Miscamble, C.S.C argued that unless drastic measures are taken to increase the percentage of Catholic faculty, Notre Dame’s proud Catholic identity will soon amount to nothing more than a façade.
Miscamble’s thesis may seem odd to someone who has attended the packed-full Sunday Masses in the Basilica and knows that students live in single-sex dorms and are required to take two theology courses. Comparing these things to many of Notre Dame’s Catholic peers such as Georgetown and Boston College, Notre Dame appears to be a relic of the Middle Ages. So how can it be that Notre Dame is not Catholic enough? Are Miscamble’s warnings simply the rantings of an alarmist crank? Or is there a real need for action?
To anyone who is at all familiar with Notre Dame faculty politics, however, Miscamble’s argument is nothing new. Faculty and administrators have made the same warnings about the decreasing percentage of Catholic faculty many times before.
Miscamble begins his article with a critique of American Catholic universities in general. “Catholic universities in the United States,” he writes, “possess a certain ‘Potemkin Village’ quality. While their buildings are quite real, what goes on inside them has increasingly lost its distinctive content and come to resemble what occurs in secular institutions of higher learning.”
Citing a recent book called Catholic Higher Education, which predicts a looming crisis in American Catholic education, Miscamble says, “It will be increasingly difficult to maintain even a Catholic façade in the academic life of these institutions.”
While the dangers of secularization are present at all Catholic universities, they are even more pressing at Notre Dame, because of its status as a model of Catholic education, Miscamble writes. Here at Notre Dame, according to Miscamble, a “tipping point is at hand.” He quotes Notre Dame’s provost Thomas Burish, who explains, “When the prospective rate of Catholic retirements is plotted against the contemporary rate of Catholic hires as a constant, it is clear that Notre Dame will no longer have the predominant number of Catholic faculty members whom we require.”
Why exactly is a predominant number of Catholic faculty members so important at Notre Dame? Miscamble cites Notre Dame’s mission statement which draws on Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Ex Corde Ecclesiae, requiring “a predominant number of Catholic intellectuals.” Notre Dame’s percentage of Catholic faculty as of 2006, Miscamble points out, was 53 percent, though this number is somewhat misleading because it does not take into account that many of those included are only of “nominal” Catholic affiliation.
While academic departments, who are responsible for new hires, often complain of a lack of qualified Catholic faculty applicants, Miscamble cites a report that demonstrates there are plenty of Catholic scholars. He mentions several instances, moreover, when well-qualified Catholic scholars have been turned down for positions.
In one case in 1999-2000, Miscamble writes, a the History Department decided against appointing a prominent Catholic scholar from Cambridge because it seemed his faith was too outspoken and polemical. Around the same time, the English Department appointed another scholar, also from Cambridge, who was a strident atheist.
“Occasionally, of course,” Miscamble admits, “fine appointments are made.”
In order to reverse the trend of decreasing Catholic faculty, Miscamble stresses that strong action is needed. “A major change in the hiring process is required, and the need for it must be approved at the level of the board of trustees and implements with courageous leadership, whatever faculty resistance it generates.”
Not long after Miscamble’s article was published, a response entitled “Catholic Enough?” came from Professor John McGreevey, chair of the Notre Dame History Department in the September 28th issue of Commonweal. McGreevy defended his department’s hiring policies and its commitment to Notre Dame’s Catholic identity. He criticizes Miscamble for his “rush to paint the glass as more than half empty” and focusing on statistics at the expense of other more subtle considerations.
McGreevy takes issue with Miscamble’s claim that there are plenty of available Catholic scholars, citing another report which suggests “only 6 percent of tenure-track scholars in the arts and sciences or business self-identify as Catholic.” The situation is not as simply as Miscamble claims, according to McGreevy. “One might applaud Notre Dame for doing so well in Catholic recruitment” when the university’s hiring is compared to that of other Catholic universities and the lack of Catholic scholars is taken into account together with other factors such as faculty recruits’ reluctance to move to northern Indiana.
The question arises, however, if Catholic academics are indeed scarce and difficult to attract would this not only heighten the need for the type of drastic measures for which Miscamble calls? McGreevy did not respond to emails from The Rover.
McGreevy also stresses the contribution of non-Catholic scholars to Notre Dame’s Catholic identity, something which he says Miscamble overlooks. Listing an impressive sounding array of scholars in the History Department who teach and study issues surrounding Catholicism, McGreevy claims that excellent scholarship benefits students regardless of the faith of the professor. Only 12 of the 32 professors in the History Department are Catholic.
In his argument McGreevy drives a wedge between spiritual and intellectual formation. “Campus ministers attempt to nurture the spiritual lives of students, McGreevy argues, “…but students need intellectual formation too.” Many students come to Notre Dame with provincial and uninformed religious views, according to McGreevy. It is part of Notre Dame’s duty as a Catholic university to expose students to different viewpoints to make them thoughtful, well-informed Catholics.
In an email to the Rover, Miscamble responded to McGreevy’s charge that he was “ungenerous” to overlook the contributions of non-Catholic scholars: “I value highly the contribution of those non-Catholic and non-Christian scholars who have come to Notre Dame precisely because of their commitment to its Catholic mission. They contribute in important ways to the fulfillment of that mission. Nothing in my article says otherwise, but Notre Dame’s integrity as a Catholic university and the furtherance of its mission will only be secured with a solid majority of committed Catholic faculty. I am not saying anything new here, this is included in the University’s mission statement. It is crucial that Notre Dame hold to it.”
Contact Ben at bobrien5@nd.edu.
| 
