I think I can answer your closing question, and this goes to the heart of the issue. First of all, the ND Mission Statement is, like most other mission statements, taken as a piece of PR. I am not aware of anyone who actually pulls it out to reflect on it and form his behavior by it. More important than this, however, is that the typical academic does not choose first and foremost to identify with his school on the basis of what that school stands for. The primary identification is disciplinary. I am a philosopher and my career is in philosophy. Someone else's is in sociology or German literature. Why is Dr X at Notre Dame? If he (or she) is young, this is the most promising entry position into a career. If Dr X is older and established, it's because ND offers good facilities and a chance to establish his reputation. Most professors could care less what Fr Jenkins thinks of their work. They are judged by colleagues in their academic discipline. Your career depends on your publications, especially in the best journals, not on your supporting a mission that you see tangential to your work. Of course, you want to teach well, but not to develop the next generation of Catholic laity but to introduce young minds to the joys and mysteries of philosophy or sociology or biology. So what you (an a lot of other people who post to this blog) are really calling for is conversion -- putting something else higher than career. At least that's how I see it.