Professors report varied feelings about university’s behavior
In response to public backlash following an administrative change to the university’s staff values, Notre Dame President Fr. Robert Dowd, C.S.C. announced to faculty and staff on November 21 that he would reinstate language on the Catholic mission of the university to the list of “core Values.”
As reported by the Observer in an article titled “ND omits support for Catholic mission from new list of staff values,” Fr. Dowd first announced a change to the values during university staff town halls on October 29 and 30.
The original list of values, instated by former President Fr. John Jenkins, C.S.C., included one that said, “Understands, accepts and supports the Catholic mission of the university and fosters values consistent with that mission.”
Fr. Dowd’s revised version of values moved the statement on Catholicism to the heading, saying, “In all that we do, we seek to advance Notre Dame’s mission as a global Catholic research university to be a force for good in the world.” Underneath the heading, Fr. Dowd listed four new values: Community, Collaboration, Excellence, and Innovation.
Several national media outlets, including Fox News, The Catholic Herald, and Live Action, picked up the story, calling the new values “pared down” and “diluting the Catholic character of the university.”
In response, Fr. Dowd reversed his change, writing, “[W]e now realize that placement is causing confusion, and that some could interpret that not as elevating our mission as we intended, but as a sign of diminishing commitment. To avoid any further confusion, we have now included the language on Catholic mission as the first of our five core Values.”
The current value now says, “Catholic Mission: Be a force for good and help to advance Notre Dame’s mission to be the leading global Catholic research university.”
Many prominent individuals took to X to voice their thoughts on the value change, with diverse reactions. Isabel Brown, conservative influencer and host on the Daily Wire, wrote, “As a current @NotreDame student, this ain’t it. People all over the world love Notre Dame BECAUSE of our unapologetically Catholic identity, not in spite of it.” Her post concluded, “Pray for courage for Catholic schools to be boldly Catholic.”
The Sycamore Trust, an independent organization formed by alumni of the university, told the Rover that Dowd’s reversal was a “damaging fumble with no recovery.”
“The elimination of the stipulation that staff ‘understand, accept and support the Catholic mission of the university’ suggests that the staff is already largely indifferent to that mission, and the failure to reinstate the provision strengthens the inference,” Sycamore continued.
Several conservative Notre Dame faculty members criticized the sensationalism that greeted the initial change. Rick Garnett, Paul J. Shierl Professor of Law, told the Rover, “In my view, the nature and significance of the recent changes to the University’s list of staff values was misreported and misunderstood. In some quarters, it was charged that Notre Dame had changed the University’s mission statement, and erased its Catholic commitments.”
“This is not true,” Garnett argued. “The University’s mission statement is unchanged, it is publicly available, and it is robustly Catholic, as it should be.”
“What did change,” Garnett added, “and what was then revised again, was a list of particular values that, for some time, have been used for human-resources and bureaucratic purposes and for evaluating staff performance. In my own experience, it was often difficult—depending on the staff position in question—to numerically evaluate staff in terms of their tangible embrace of the Catholic mission.”
Garnett continued, “The more recent change, which appears to be a response to the misreporting and the concerns that it caused among many who care about Notre Dame, makes it clear that, of course, our Catholic mission should animate and overarch all that we do. At the same time, it appears to preserve what strikes me as a sensible decision regarding the importance of fair and consistent staff evaluations.”
Fr. Bill Dailey, C.S.C., rector in Graham Family Hall and a former professor at the law school, expressed similar sentiments: “Nobody could have reasonably read the first email as a retreat from Catholic Mission or its importance in staff supervision conversations. … [It] would take bad faith to think that this internal email—restructuring a list of values as encompassed by mission rather than including mission as one value among many—was some sort of retreat.”
“The situation certainly did not warrant the national attention it received, most of which was symptomatic of a very unhealthy dynamic in the Church—people from outside of places like Notre Dame pouncing on every perceived misstep, lacking basic facts, particularly lacking any charity in interpretation,” Fr. Dailey continued. “One senses they are capitalizing on ND’s fame to boost their own social media profiles.”
“As one who celebrates the sacraments daily on this campus with so many dedicated students, faculty, and staff trying to grow in the faith, I do not feel supported by the near-constant allegation from people outside that ND has simply sold its soul or given up on being Catholic,” Fr. Dailey told the Rover. “It’s a rage-bait culture that has no place in the Church in my view but it’s fairly common. No institution is perfect nor above critique—nor is any priest for that matter. But hopefully we can have such critiques with charity and a presumption of goodwill.”
“It is a good thing that so many people care deeply about Notre Dame’s distinctive and vital Catholic character,” Garnett clarified. “That said, it is often the case, especially on social media, that people are quick to criticize the University based on incomplete information.”
Fr. Wilson Miscamble, C.S.C, Professor Emeritus of history and a Rover faculty advisor, took a more critical view of the situation: “I have seen plenty of stupid things done during my years at Notre Dame, but this was among the more stupid because it was so unnecessary. To replace well-considered staff values appropriate for a serious Catholic University with some asinine, bland ‘corporate-speak’ values that appear to have been generated by AI was a self-inflicted wound.”
Fr. Miscamble continued, “On the positive side, however, the removal of any specific mention of support for Catholic mission in the new values prompted a strong reaction among concerned alumni and generous benefactors. This revealed that there exists a deep concern for the Catholicity of the university among devoted members of the Notre Dame family and for this we must be truly grateful.”
“We also can be grateful to Father Dowd for responding promptly to the criticism and for restoring at least some mention of the Catholic mission to the staff values,” Fr. Miscamble added. “He needs to go further, however, and to restore the old list. Support for Notre Dame as ‘global Catholic research university’ sounds regrettably vague.”
Fr. Miscamble concluded, “Perhaps all those responsible for this humiliating episode, which needlessly damaged our Catholic reputation, might be asked to reflect well and hard on the actual mission statement of the university. Special consideration should be given to the concluding sentence: ‘In all dimensions of the University, Notre Dame pursues its objectives through the formation of an authentic human community graced by the Spirit of Christ.’”
Lucy Spence is a junior from McLean, Virginia majoring in piano performance and the Program of Liberal Studies, with a minor in philosophy. She can be reached at lspence@nd.edu.
Photo Credit: Notre Dame Office of Public Affairs and Communications
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