What's more important, Catholic identity or pride of position in the U.S. News & World Report hierarchy?
Some, perhaps many, will argue that it's more important to pursue scholars with the most impressive academic credentials than it is to maintain a Catholic majority on the faculty. They regard Father Jenkins's goal of boosting Notre Dame into the top ranks of research universities as more important than his goal of ensuring its Catholic identity. Father Jenkins insists that the goals are compatible. Maybe so in the long run, some will say, but maybe not in the short run. Hasn't Notre Dame's rise in the U.S. News & World Report rankings been largely due to adding mostly non-Catholic scholars with degrees from elite secular universities? Why stop now, the argument goes. In short, hire on the basis of credentials only, as they are judged by secular academe. There will always be enough Catholics in the mix to staff a Catholic studies program for those who want it.
So goes an argument that appears to have considerable support among the faculty. As a 2003 Baylor University Study discloses, most of the faculty oppose taking an applicant's Catholicism into account in any way in the hiring process. But this is the road to full secularization. As Note Dame scholar George Marsden reported in The Soul of the American University, "Once a church-related institution adopts the policy that it will hire simply the 'best qualified candidates,' it is simply a matter of time until its faculty will have an ideological profile essentially like that of the faculty at every other mainstream university."
That's why this insidiously appealing "hire on merits only" policy is fundamentally at odds with Notre Dame's storied history and tradition as a sturdily Catholic institution, a heritage that is repeatedly invoked by its spokespersons today. Notre Dame's declared mission in substance has been to be the best truly Catholic university in the world. Father Jenkins and his top associates reconfirmed this goal in their interview in the current Notre Dame Magazine (though they did not discuss how the radical change in hiring necessary to meet it is to be accomplished). Measured by standards proper to a Catholic institution, if Notre Dame achieved this goal it would then in fact be the finest university in the world.
Moreover, I suggest that this is really the only goal within reach in the long run. As Dean Roche said in the Winter Notre Dame Magazine, Notre Dame's Catholic identity "was by far the strongest" reason cited by a group of outstanding new faculty members for their coming to the University. One of them who left a tenured position at Stanford, Dr. Brad S. Gregory, told The Wall Street Journal that Notre Dame's Catholic character was decisive for him, adding, "By any ordinary measure, you'd be crazy to leave Stanford for Notre Dame."
In sum, the most likely result of subordinating Catholic identity to secular recognition would be the worst of all: a second rank, weakly Catholic university.
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Comments
Re: Rank Over Religion
by
John C. Soucy, Jr., M.D.
on Sun 12 Aug 2007 11:58 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link
From personal experience and that of others "the most impressive credentials" do not necessarily make the best teacher. One also has to consider in whose opinion are the academic credentials impressive. Are we not chasing a false idol when we decide to trust the moral integrity to a group that secularists deem most impressive and for whom moral integrity and values are not held with the same esteem as academic and intellectulal prowess. And it seems the basis on which impressive academic credentials is arbitrary and is open to debate, they are not objective in the scientific sense. As it has turned out the faculuty has consistently hired faculty that share their own views and philosophies, which destroys the diversity that the University claims it must adhere to in controversial issues. The mission statement does not endorse rank over religion.
Re: Re: Rank Over Religion
by
Bill Dempsey
on Fri 17 Aug 2007 03:54 PM EDT | Profile | Permanent Link
I see several points here, all sound in my view. The first is the difference between "teacher" and, if you will, "credentialed scholar.” Frank O'Malley, without a doctoral degree or a book or even a collection of scholarly articles was nevertheless one of the great teachers in the history of the University. He would most assuredly not be hired today. I'm afraid there is no turning back in that respect; but at the least, as you indicate, one should look beyond academic credentials as judged by secular universities for the qualities of mind and spirit of a Frank O'Malley. And in that search, as one of the participants in the panel discussion during Alumni Weekend observed, why should not the person with his graduate degree from, say, Marquette be accorded at least as much attention as the person from, say, Harvard? Secularists will greatly prefer the latter, but why should a Catholic University intent upon bringing to bear in the classroom the Catholic intellectual tradition? There is no question here about impairing the quality of teaching. No one has suggested that there is not an ample supply of Catholic scholars fully capable of maintaining existing teaching standards. And your point about the Mission Statement's not endorsing rank over religion is right on target. Indeed, this puts it very conservatively. The fact is that Catholic identity is_placed at the center and rank is unmentioned. As matters stand, the fundamental stated policy of the school is to accord Catholic identity first position. What needs to be done is to translate that policy from paper to practice in the hiring practices of those departments that have consistently ignored it in the past.
Re: Re: Rank Over Religion
I'm not at all convinced that Notre Dame (or any comparably competitive university, for that matter) needs to concern itself with attracting the best teachers. There is nothing wrong with trying to attract the best scholars, provided that they will make an effort to teach well and to teach at all levels (i.e. not just seniors and grad students).
There are two reasons for saying this. First, Notre Dame students don't need teachers who are first-rate pedagogues. My experience has been that they are extraordinarily bright, and most can rise to the intellectual challenge, even if the professor's personality and instructional methods are uninspiring and unoriginal. This is not to excuse slipshod teaching. Rather it is to say that even if a first-rate scholar may be a second rate teacher (despite his best efforts), he or she may well be more appropriate for ND than a first-rate teacher who is making no significant scholarly contributions. The second is that Notre Dame is so well situated to foster and support important scholarly work—study and research that advance the arts and sciences. If our vocation as Christ's lay faithful is, according to Vatican II, to be the "authors and artisans of the culture" and thus to fulfill our duty to "build a better world based upon truth and justice" (Gaudium et Spes §55), then the University should hire those who are gifted for research and scholarship, even if their gifts as classroom instructors are mediocre. If Fr Hesburgh is right that the University is the place where the Church does its thinking, then it should be a place that attracts and, indeed, recruits, the best Catholic thinkers. We need universities — and may Notre Dame prove itself to be one — where Catholic scholars are encouraged and supported in doing careful, rigorous research that both respects the legitimate autonomy of their academic specialty and is carried out according to the mind of Christ. Notre Dame doesn't need the best teachers. Schools with weaker student bodies need them. But Notre Dame does need the best Catholic scholars. At least that's what I think. |
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