Christian Smith, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, published an article in First Things on February 13 titled “Why I’m Done with Notre Dame.” Smith argues that Notre Dame fails to be Catholic in her intellectual life, which he calls the “heart and soul” of the university. He details what he sees as the primary reasons behind this failure, including certain departments, conservative activists, faculty, and administrators. The following letters are faculty responses to Smith’s op-ed, which can be read in its entirety on firstthings.com.
On Not Giving Up
Professor Christian Smith made important contributions during his twenty years on the faculty of Notre Dame. I regret that his frustrations with the university made him so unhappy that he felt obliged to depart. Obviously, he did so with a rather sour taste in his mouth. I trust that over time he may come to look back on his time here with more of a disposition of gratitude. God gave Smith the opportunity to make a difference here, and he did so.
There is perhaps some irony that Christian Smith’s First Things article appeared right when there is controversy at Notre Dame over the appointment of Susan Ostermann to head the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies. Based on the criticisms Smith levels at “conservative activists who mobilize pressure campaigns” against Notre Dame, I assume that he would be critical of the efforts of those of us who have objected to the appointment of a pro-abortion advocate to a leadership position here. We supposedly distract from engagement with the Catholic intellectual tradition, and yet it is precisely knowledge of this tradition and of the Church’s moral teaching on the sanctity of life that leads us to speak up. What would he have us do—just stay silent? That supine course is an ill-chosen one. The fact that there is serious opposition to this awful appointment testifies to the vitality of the Catholic presence at Notre Dame and among the broad Notre Dame family.
Smith has been a thoughtful critic of both contemporary higher education in general and of Catholic higher education specifically. His book Building Catholic Higher Education deserved more significant engagement on our campus. This work and the criticisms he raises in his First Things essay mostly develop arguments that have been made by others at Notre Dame over the last 35 years and especially since the publication in 1990 of John Paul II’s Apostolic Constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae.
His point about the university leadership’s lack of vision and courage is presently on good display as we witness the cowardice of the administration to rescind a scandalous appointment. Words are spoken about Catholic mission, but they are not acted upon. Smith gets to the heart of the matter in addressing the centrality of hiring faculty for mission. He surely is also correct in pointing out Notre Dame’s “craving for mainstream [secular] acceptance.” Borrowing from Jacques Maritain, I call this “kneeling before the world,” and it, too, is in evidence in the Ostermann case and much else.
But some of what Smith mentions badly misses the mark. His comments on the Theology Department are particularly ill-directed. That department now serves the Church and the university with notable distinction, and we should be extremely grateful to those faculty members who have built that department up so strongly. Also, his cheap shot at the Mendoza College of Business ignores the excellent work that is going on there now to deepen the knowledge of Mendoza students regarding Catholic social teaching.
But the major problem with Smith’s article is that his lens is too narrow and self-referential. He ignores the realities that make Notre Dame—whatever its flaws and limitations—the most important place in Catholic higher education in the country. As Smith himself acknowledges, Notre Dame has major strengths. He notes rather perfunctorily that Notre Dame excels “in [Catholic] atmosphere, aesthetics, and worship.” But he passes too quickly over this and ignores the vibrant sacramental life on this campus. This is rarely appreciated by those who want to hollow out Notre Dame’s Catholicity, but it is crucially important—not only to the spiritual, but also to the intellectual life of this campus. It provides the essential food, might we say, to help faculty, staff and students to see their labors here not just as career or career-preparation but as a vocation.
Further, Smith largely ignores the contributions of so many of his one-time colleagues who labor to forge a distinctive Catholic university here. Undoubtedly, they too are frustrated at times—who could not be with academic administrators who seek to elevate a pro-abortion advocate to a leadership position?—but they don’t retreat from the fight. Their fidelity and commitment helped sustain Notre Dame before Chris Smith arrived and will sustain it going forward. Smith once explained that the many “models of faithful Catholic living and thinking” at Notre Dame had drawn him to enter the Catholic Church. They still live and teach and research here!
Yet, Smith is right to warn that Notre Dame’s ambition to secure an enhanced place among major private research universities should not be pursued at the expense of either its Catholic character or excellence in undergraduate education. Here the present trends are worrying. Notre Dame’s guiding strategic framework, prepared by the current provost, fails to set forth a distinctive vision for the university inspired by its Catholic character. It has the tone of a tepid Catholic NGO that, while appearing to elevate its religious mission, conforms overmuch to the spirit of the age. There is a disposition of accommodation running through the document. It reveals the insecurity of those who believe that Notre Dame’s mission is to gain a place at the table with what passes for the contemporary academic elite. There is no recognition that our university holds a special responsibility to challenge and, dare we say, to convert a higher education sector that, in a significant manner, has lost its way.
For Notre Dame to overcome its fixations about ratings and its insecurity regarding how we are viewed by others requires that we be deeply rooted in our discipleship of Jesus Christ. When we have Christ, the Logos, as our guiding force and central inspiration, we can go forth well-armed to meet the substantial challenges we face. Smith’s essay aids in clarifying that Notre Dame must choose whether it will be a genuinely Catholic university or if it will be driven to conform to the flawed reigning paradigm of elite American universities. The academic leaders who appointed Susan Ostermann regrettably have chosen the latter course. Fortunately, there are many faculty and students who seek more than that soulless option. They want Notre Dame to fulfill its Catholic promise and to serve both Church and society in the manner charted by Ex Corde Ecclesiae. They want to fulfill the deeper and richer promise that takes the Gospels as its inspiration and which dares to ground our enterprise in the pursuit of truth.
Christian Smith found the cost of serving at Notre Dame too heavy for him. I regret that I never shared with him Father Sorin’s words spoken after the great fire of 1879 about not giving up! Still, we must wish him well for the future and keep him in prayer. But those of us who continue to labor in this part of the Lord’s vineyard must be about the work with fidelity. And that means, at least in part, that we must demand that the administrators here be true and honest executors of Notre Dame’s Catholic mission. May we also adopt a disposition of gratitude and give thanks and praise to God that we have the opportunity to learn and study in this special place dedicated to Our Blessed Mother and her Son.
Fr. Bill Miscamble, C.S.C.
Professor Emeritus of History
Why I’m Not Done with Notre Dame
I joined the faculty of Notre Dame 42 years before Christian Smith began his 20-year tenure here. His essay explaining his departure is a well-grounded and very important contribution to understanding this university’s recent past and its present weaknesses. I am asked to reflect on why I have stayed.
In a nutshell, I am not done with Notre Dame because God is not done with Notre Dame. There have been signs along the way of these many years that Notre Dame can still be, in Professor Smith’s words, all that “it can and should be.” My experience here has been different from that of Professor Smith, perhaps because I came at another time and into a different department.
There was no family or personal history drawing me to Notre Dame. I came attracted by certain academic and spiritual features that I discovered while completing my doctoral studies at the University of Chicago. Notre Dame did not disappoint me in the first two decades here. Professor Smith acknowledges much good at Notre Dame and that there are “pockets” where the right things happen. I was blessed to come into two such pockets, a Political Science Department where political philosophy played a pre-eminent role and the Program of Liberal Studies where the disciplinary interaction and constructive dialogue that Professor Smith so sought was its very lifeblood. I experienced none of the loneliness that Professor Smith did. I found myself regularly with fine colleagues and excellent students engaged with the great books of our tradition and the big questions of human life. Our generally shared Catholic faith always was in play in those discussions. This is not, of course, to say that Political Science and PLS continue untouched by the failures of the administration that Professor Smith highlights.
In the 1980s, I and others became aware of the diminishing numbers of practicing Catholics in faculty positions at Notre Dame. This soon became a matter of public conversation throughout the university and among its alumni. I joined in these conversations and appeared in various public forums trying to get more effective administrative attention to what was happening. A majority of the faculty, however, expressed their view in a vote of the Faculty Senate affirming that academic prestige was to be preferred whenever it appeared to conflict with the Catholic mission of the university.
The faculty, alumni, and student friends made through such efforts have confirmed that the love of truth is the love of God and His grace is at work at Notre Dame. Among such true friends, one is encouraged and not at all isolated. This is where I belong, and I wish I was empowered to invite Professor Smith back and into our company.
Somewhat contrary to Professor Smith’s argument, the circles in which I move see a connection between the underlying decline of Catholic faculty and Notre Dame’s wobbly pro-life commitment. The latter, along with defiance of Church guidance, expressed so well by our learned bishop, is the fruit of a faculty disposed as it is and prevents Holy Cross leadership from being all it could be. What is worth fighting for? Clearly Notre Dame is worth fighting for, and some day, perhaps, God will grant the strength that Notre Dame can act as if it truly believed that innocent human life was worth fighting for.
Walter Nicgorski
Professor Emeritus of the Program of Liberal Studies and Political Science