NDCatholic aims to help students get the most out of Catholic education at Notre Dame

Professors have a crucial role on a university campus; they might help students love a foreign or previously disliked subject, and they might also take active mentoring roles. NDCatholic, a website recently launched by Sycamore Trust, strives to help Notre Dame students maximize their experience of Catholic education at Notre Dame by providing professor recommendations and related resources.

The mission of the website appears on its homepage: “NDCatholic is for students who are seeking an authentic Catholic education at Notre Dame—one that will allow them to grasp the complementary nature of faith and reason, to develop a deep understanding of and love for the truth, and to gain a clear appreciation of the Catholic moral and social vision.”

Sycamore Trust, an alumni organization that works to promote and protect Notre Dame’s Catholic identity, describes on the “Welcome” page the purpose of the website, declaring, “Its importance arises from the radical deterioration of Catholic presence on the Notre Dame faculty.”

This deterioration, according to the website, stems from the fact that “committed Catholics no longer come anywhere close to the majority required by the school’s Mission Statement.” Sycamore Trust plans to examine and publish the details of these statistics in a forthcoming bulletin.

The “Faculty Profiles” page currently consists of a collection of professor recommendations from 11 Arts and Letters departments, from Classics to the University Writing Program. Each profile contains a bullet-point summary along with an in-depth description (ranging from one to three paragraphs) of the professor’s teaching style and signature courses.

The website emphasizes that “this list is by no means complete. There is no suggestion that students should not select professors who are not mentioned.” Furthermore, students are encouraged to consult other resources as well, such as “the somewhat shorter list published each semester by the Irish Rover … and … trusted faculty and fellow students.”

The profiles, as noted on the “Welcome” page, were prepared by Father Bill Miscamble, CSC. However, according to Sycamore Trust’s November 17 bulletin, on the day after the website’s inauguration, Fr. Miscamble informed Bill Dempsey, chairman of Sycamore Trust, “that he had been directed to disassociate himself from the website.”

The following day, after being asked what explanation should be given for his disassociation, Fr. Miscamble informed Dempsey, “I regret that I can say only that I am required to end my involvement with the NDCatholic site and am not at liberty to say why.”

Commenting on this situation, Dempsey told the Rover, “It’s unfortunate that Father Miscamble has been required to withdraw. There is no one more qualified for this task, and his removal plays into the hands of those who maintain that a Catholic school cannot be a true university. But we are committed to continuing and broadening this project.”

The “Rationale” section of the website contains a detailed description of the role of the Catholic university, which NDCatholic strives to uphold. Quoting Pope Saint John Paul II’s encyclical Ex Corde Ecclesiae (“From the Heart of the Church”) on Catholic universities, the website reads, “The Catholic university, ‘under the action of the Spirit of truth and love,’ is tasked with communicating to students ‘that Wisdom without which the future of the world would be in danger.’”

This section also emphasizes that requiring a majority of the faculty to be Catholic does not promote discrimination against other faiths, but rather attempts to uphold the university’s mission in which “[e]very teacher and administrator at the Catholic university, whatever his faith affiliation or creed, must promote or at least respect the Catholic mission and identity of the university.”

The website also explains the important union of philosophy and theology in Catholic education. “Theology,” it reads, “plays a particularly important role in the search for a synthesis of knowledge as well as in the dialogue between faith and reason.”

Furthermore, theology should permeate all realms of study, as the “Rationale” page adds, “interaction with these other disciplines and their discoveries enriches theology, offering it a better understanding of the world today, and making theological research more relevant to current needs.”

The final section, “Resources,” contains references for further reading, Notre Dame’s Mission Statement, a list of student organizations dedicated to Notre Dame’s Catholic identity, and a compilation of alumni contacts, including Sycamore Trust.

The “Suggested Reading” page consists of documents that provide historical context, articulate Church teaching, reflect upon the role of a Catholic university, or comment specifically on Notre Dame’s actions. Titles include the “Land O’Lakes Statement,” Pope Benedict XVI’s “Meeting with Catholic Educators,” and Cyril O’Regan’s “The University, Theology, and the Curriculum.”

The “Student Organizations” list describes groups such as the Children of Mary, Identity Project of Notre Dame, Right to Life, and Theology Club.

“It’s too bad that the radical reduction in Catholic representation on the faculty makes guides like the Rover’s and NDCatholic’s so important to students who want an authentic Catholic education,” Dempsey told the Rover, “but that’s the cost of the decades-long drive of the university to match its secular ‘peers.’”

To learn more, visit NDCatholic at www.ndcatholic.com.

Sophia Buono is a sophomore PLS major and ESS minor. For Christmas, it is her dream to receive a pet platypus, a time machine, and an endless supply of ice cream. She has a feeling that she will need to craft her letter to Mr. Claus carefully in order to make her dream come true, so if you have any tips on persuasive writing, email her at sbuono@nd.edu.