Rationale 90045 Best Practices Part I

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PartI
BestPractices:
RecruitingandHiringFacultyforMission
Preparedby
AbbieRobinson‐Armstrong,Ph.D.
VicePresidentforInterculturalAffairs
OneLMUDrive,Suite4820
LosAngeles,CA90045
310.338.7598
arobinso@lmu.edu
RobertCaro,S.J.
VicePresidentforMissionandMinistry
OneLMUDrive,Suite4844
LosAngeles,CA90045
310.338.2987
rcaro@lmu.edu
September 2009
ii
iii
TableofContents
Section I.
• Loyola Marymount University’s Catholic and
Jesuit/Marymount Identity .………………………………………….………. 1
• LMU History………………………………………………………………….. 2
Section II.
• LMU’s Mission and Catholic/Jesuit/Marymount Identity …………………… 4
Section III.
• The Catholic Intellectual Tradition ………………………………………….. 6
• Catholic Identity: Emerging Consensus ……………………………………. 15
Section IV.
• Ethnic Diversity and Religious Identity in U. S. Catholic
Higher Education……………………………………………………………. 26
• Benefits of a Diverse Faculty……………………………………………….. 46
• Hiring for Mission: An Inclusive Term……………………………….. …… 60
Section V.
• Improving Faculty Selection: The Critical Indices Approach………………. 62
• Questions to Ask and Not to Ask ……………………………………………68
• Principles of Good Practice for Department Chairs,
and Search Committees …………………………………………… ………..74
Section VI.
References……………………………………………………………..…….79
jesuitandmarymountcatholicidentity
Loyola Marymount University shares in a rich intellectual heritage dating from the earliest
centuries of Christianity. This Catholic intellectual tradition sees a mutually fertile relationship
between faith and reason and thus seeks to promote dialogue between culture and religion.
Governed by an independent Board of Trustees, LMU cherishes its Catholic identity while at the
same time welcoming people from diverse backgrounds and promoting ecumenical and inter-
religious understanding.
The distinctive character of Loyola Marymount is enhanced by the educational heritage of its
founding and sponsoring religious orders—the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), the Religious of the
Sacred Heart of Mary (Marymount Sisters), the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange—and many
dedicated lay men and women. The members of the religious orders, together with their faculty,
staff, and administrative colleagues, share a common dedication to academic excellence, spiritual
growth, and social justice as hallmarks of a contemporary Catholic university.
ReligiousCommunitiesatLMU
SocietyofJesus:JesuitCommunity
MarymountSisters:RSHMCommunity
SistersofSt.Joseph:CSJCommunity
OfficesandInstitutes
CampusMinistry
CenterforIgnatianSpirituality
CenterforReligionandSpirituality
CenterforServiceandAction
PLACECorps
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TheHighlandParkbungalowswhereitallbegan.
LMUhistory
The names “Loyola” and “Marymount” have long been associated with Catholic higher
education in countries around the globe. Saint Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus,
sanctioned the foundation of his order’s first school in 1548. The Religious of the Sacred Heart
of Mary have conducted educational institutions since their establishment in France in 1849 by
Father Jean Gailhac. These two traditions of education have come together in Los Angeles as
Loyola Marymount University.
The present University is the successor to the pioneer Catholic college and first institution of
higher learning in Southern California. In 1865, the Vincentian Fathers inaugurated St. Vincent’s
College for boys in Los Angeles. When this school closed in 1911, members of the Society of
Jesus opened the high school division of their newly founded Los Angeles College.
The collegiate division opened a few years later. Rapid growth prompted the Jesuits to seek a
new campus in 1917 and incorporated as Loyola College of Los Angeles in 1918. Relocating to
the present Westchester campus in 1929, the school achieved university status one year later.
Graduate instruction began in 1920 with the foundation of a separate law school. The formation
of a distinct graduate division occurred in June 1950.
In separate, though parallel developments, the religious of Sacred Heart of Mary began teaching
local young women in 1923. In 1933 they opened Marymount Junior College in Westwood,
which by 1948 had grown to a four-year college granting the baccalaureate degree. The school
later transferred classes to a new campus on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in 1960.
Eight years later, Marymount College moved again, this time to the Westchester campus of
Loyola University as an autonomous institution. At this juncture, the Sisters of Saint Joseph of
Orange joined the Marymount Sisters as partners.
After five years of sharing faculties and facilities, Loyola University and Marymount College
merged and formed Loyola Marymount University in 1973.
2
During the intervening decades, and under successive administrations, the University has grown
in size and stature. Conscious of its history and heritage, LMU looks to its future as one of the
nation’s distinguished Catholic universities.
In1968,Rev.CharlesCasassa,SJ,andSr.RaymundeMcKay,RSHM,jointlyannouncedtheaffiliationbetween
LoyolaUniversityandMarymountCollege,bringingwomenandmenstudentstogetherontheWestchestercampus
forthefirsttime.
3
LMU’s Mission and Catholic/Jesuit/Marymount Identity
Founded in 1911 and located in Los Angeles, Loyola Marymount is the only
Jesuit/Marymount university in the southwestern United States. It is institutionally committed to
Roman Catholicism and takes its fundamental inspiration from the traditions of its sponsoring
religious orders. At both the undergraduate and graduate levels, Loyola Marymount has always
been, above all, a student-centered university. It understands and declares its purpose to be:
• The encouragement of learning
• The education of the whole person
• The service of faith and promotion of justice
Each of these phrases takes on special significance when considered in light of the
university's Catholic and Jesuit/Marymount identity.
The Encouragement of Learning
At LMU the encouragement of learning occurs in the context of an intellectual and
cultural tradition that is marked by characteristics such as these:
• It views the world as sacramental and seeks to find God in all things.
• It esteems both imagination and intellect.
• It takes philosophical and theological thinking seriously.
• It engages in ethical discourse and pursues the common good.
• It shuns the supposition that there can be value-free facts.
• It seeks an integration of knowledge in which "faith and reason bear witness to the unity
of all truth" (Ex Corde Ecclesiae, 1990, par. 17)
As foundational for inquiry and learning, and consistent with Catholic emphases since
the landmark Vatican Council I1 (1962-64), Loyola Marymount intentionally strives to build an
intercultural community, actively recruiting students, faculty, and staff from ethnically diverse
backgrounds. In a similar way, the university places a premium on ecumenical interfaith
dialogue. All religions are taken seriously, and a genuine welcome is extended to faculty, staff,
and students from diverse faith traditions. This means that at LMU the encouragement of
learning is a radical commitment to free and honest inquiry in teaching, research, and creative
projects—but always with reverence before the mystery of the universe and openness to the
Transcendent.
The Education of the Whole Person
With roots in the spiritual humanism of the renaissance, the university's Jesuit and
Marymount traditions have as one of their chief characteristics an abiding concern for the
education of the whole person. Growth in knowledge and mastery of a discipline are only part of
the total educational experience. As one alumnus has remarked, "I consider my time at LMU a
rite of passage to adulthood when I grew intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually." This kind
of integrated personal growth reflects what is traditionally understood by the education of the
4
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whole person. It takes place not only in the classrooms, laboratories, and library, but also in the
chapels, residence halls, and recreation centers, on the athletic fields, in off-campus service
projects, in campus-ministry retreats, and, indeed, wherever students gather. Faculty and staff all
contribute to it when they establish a personal relationship with students, listen to them, respect
their individuality, and help them to develop their unique talents for lives of freedom and
responsibility, leadership and service.
At its best, the education of the whole person comes to fruition not simply in personal
integration but in a transformational sense of one's place in the global village and a concern for
those living on the margins of society. From LMU's perspective, today's whole persons are men
and women with and for others—visionary men and women able to see beyond the bounds of
culture and class and eager to work for the common good wherever it is thwarted by economic,
political, or social injustice.
The Service of Faith and Promotion of Justice
In linking active concern for the disadvantaged to the service of faith, Loyola Marymount
follows the lead of its sponsoring religious communities and the post-Vatican II Church in
acknowledging that work for social justice is a requirement-not simply an option—of biblical
faith. Even while making common cause with me and women whose work for social justice is
motivated by noble secular values, LMU finds its deepest inspiration for the promotion of justice
in the concern of the Hebrew scriptures for "the widow, the orphan, and the stranger in the land"
and the preference of the Gospels for the "least" of Jesus' brothers and sisters.
There are many opportunities for members of our community to reach out to those in
need, but doing good for the poor without a change of heart falls short of the university's faith-
and-justice mission. The student who returned from a spring-break immersion to report that "I
went there thinking I would serve the people of Appalachia but had no idea how they would
change my perception of materialism" speaks to this distinction -- and verifies an important
pedagogical insight: "When the heart is touched by experience, the mind may be challenged to
change." As a pillar of our mission, the service of faith and promotion of justice thus looks
toward attitudinal change as a prompt for students—and all associated with LMU—to
understand the causes of injustice and to work for humanizing changes in society.
THE CATHODC INTELLECTUAL TRADITION
Transcript of address by
Margaret O'Brien Steinfels
n 1988, I gave a talk in this very city to this very organization, or
at least a subgroup, the presidents of Catholic colleges and universities,
not on this very topic but closely related: "The Church and
American Culture: The Challenge to the Catholic Intellectual Community.
" Seven years have passed. Most of you are too young to have been
I
in the audience, and most of you don't look like presidents—yet. The
temptation to repeat myself has been strong.
I dug out that seven-year-old talk. It looked to be one of my very first
encounters with a computer. From my errors, I infer that Larousse instead
of the American Heritage Dictionary was on my spell-check. My talk
was very long, as only computer-generated talks get to be, which
probably explains why I have been given a strict time limit this evening.
I went over the usual suspects: John Tracy Ellis and Thomas O'Dea and
a few unusual ones, Richard Hofstader and the Vatican. That talk had the
usual rhetorical strategies: a golden age of Catholic education (including
a glowing account of my education at Loyola University) and a leaden
age dulled by the difficulties faced in 1988. In concluding I offered the
usual solutions and some unusual advice: Catholic colleges and universities
should take Commonweal as a model of critical engagement with
Catholic intellectual life, and for only $39 a year.
As I reread that talk I said: This is good! Then came a voice from
heaven: But is it true?
My analysis in 1988 rested on two controversies whose trajectories were
then unclear. Since then, each has taken a decisive direction.
The first controversy: Was the Catholic identity of Catholic colleges and
universities a question that would be or could be taken seriously? Many
people wanted to address the issue, but concern for academic freedom
along with a certain defensiveness led them to suppose that an effort to
study Catholic identity would be defined primarily by episcopal control,
theological narrowness, and moral overreaching. The Curran case was
still being adjudicated in 1988, and The Catholic University was a living
example of the tensions and dilemmas. It is not surprising if some people
__________________
Margaret O'Brien Steinfels is editor of Commonweal NOVEMBER 1995 • ACCU
6
felt that addressing the Catholic identity of their institution would be like
embracing a porcupine or maybe a skunk.
This anxiety distracted attention from other pressing issues: The erosion
of Catholic identity because academic disciplines and accrediting
agencies were shaping faculty and curriculum; because faculty and students
were becoming more religiously and diverse; because of the decline
in the numbers of religious and priests who expressed that identity;
and because there was competition for students. (In defining its
market niche, a Catholic school did not usually emphasize its Catholicity,
but rather advertised a tradition of service and learning in the spirit of its
founding religious community. Thus we have schools in the Jesuit,
Benedictine, Mercy, Ursuline, Vincentian, Dominican, Holy Cross traditions,
all managing to sound both more benign and more universal than
the Catholic tradition.)
Seven years and many discussions later, it has become clear that,
despite those anxieties, the Catholic identity question is being taken seriously.
Whatever uncertainty lingers around Ex corde Ecclesiae and its ordinances,
groups and individuals have pressed ahead to look at how colleges
and universities see themselves as Catholic. Inevitably some find
that they are Catholic in name only, while others are striving to sustain or
reappropriate their Catholic identity. Your presence at this meeting and
your numbers certainly suggest a willingness to talk about this neuralgic
subject.
There was a second unresolved controversy in 1988: How should
Catholics understand this identity issue in the context of American intellectual
life generally: Were we now mainstream? Or irretrievably subcultural
despite the efforts to pursue excellence as defined by the nation's
premiere schools? How would loss of Catholic identity affect the church
and ordinary Catholics, especially those who attended Catholic colleges
and universities?
We have an object lesson in the secularization of the nation's once Protestant
universities, traced in such powerful detail by George Marsden
in The Soul of the University. I do not think that Professor Marsden makes
any explicit link between the current perilous condition of mainline
Protestantism and the readiness of denominational bodies over the last
century to give up their colleges and universities because they felt so congruent
with the culture. But it is hard to imagine that the connection is not there.
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On the other hand, another Protestant historian, Mark Noll in The
Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, sees one symptom of evangelical
Protestantism's debilitating anti-intellectualism in its inability to sponsor
a single genuine university rather than strictly confessional colleges. Are
Catholic institutions ambling along the same garden path to secularization
or in a few cases, along the alternative path to sectarianism, with the
same deleterious consequences, in either case, on the church's life and
mission?
Today, how we fit in is no longer quite the right question. It has
become clear or clearer, I think, that American intellectual life, depending
on your perspective, has broken open or broken down. Conservative
ideas and intellectual forces that once seemed marginal even to conservative
politics have achieved an influence and coherence that many liberals envy.
This influence brings with it a resurgence of talk about traditional values,
attacks on the Enlightenment project and a spirit of anti-modernity.
Conservatives in the academy, in think tanks and at journals of opinion
work diligently to fill the vacuum created by the fragmentation
of the political consensus, largely liberal, that has governed America
since the New Deal and our intellectual life since the progressive era.
This fragmentation opens American intellectual life to new questions,
new cultural and political configurations, an altered mainstream, if you
will. All of us, including Catholic colleges and universities, are in a new
ball game, though with the ascendancy of conservative ideas perhaps we
face some of the same old "Catholic" temptations.
So seven years later I think there is something new to say (Surprise!),
and it is this: Among many; though not all, American Catholic institutions
there is now a readiness to take the issue of Catholic identity seriously.
And about time! Or perhaps better to say, good thing, because the time
frame in which this can be done becomes increasingly narrow.
Most dramatically, religious and clergy are fast disappearing from both
classrooms and administrative offices. Who will be invested with the mission
of fostering a school's Catholic identity and its connections to the
Catholic community? Then there is the generational shift from pre- to
post-Vatican II educated Catholics who are moving into those teaching
and administrative posts. Without prejudging the outcome, we all know,
whatever our age—from our peers, our siblings, our children, our grandchildren,
our friends—that this represents a dramatic shift in attitudes
wider church, and basic understanding of "the Catholic thing."
NOVEMBER 1995 • ACCU
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I believe we have a decade—ten years—in which this question of identity
must be honestly addressed and definitively taken on as a commitment
and core project of institutions that hope to remain Catholic.
And let me be clear about that: Such a project cannot simply be the
work of a few individuals, of small groups, or of special institutes. The
whole institution must make a substantial commitment to fostering a
Catholic tradition of intellectual life.
Coming at this question as I do from the editorial trenches, I see this
project as both exciting and perilous, and I will focus most of my remarks
on Catholic intellectual life in general, leaving to Peter the simple task of
talking about the specifics of higher education.
Catholic intellectual life is central to Catholic identity. It is fundamental
to the life of the church, big C and little c, cathedral and congregation—
to its continued vitality and to the church's mission in this culture.
This is not a narrow ecclesiastical tradition, but a broad and infinitely useful
one. Commonweal has fostered and questioned that tradition. Our
writers and readers reflect that affection and that criticism. They are university
people and journalists, book editors, lawyers, physicians, scientists,
politicians; they are bishops, clergy and ordinary Catholics, who in their
daily lives practice and depend upon the kind of thinking, reasoning,
reflection that make up the Catholic intellectual tradition. Furthermore,
this tradition also is explored and appreciated by writers and readers who
are Methodists, Episcopalians, Orthodox as well as Catholics, and not
only by Christians—Jews, secular humanists, and those lapsed from every
religion known to humankind.
This tradition is carried on, pursued, criticized, developed, wrestled
with by people from many different backgrounds. The way they think and
write, read and reflect very frequently rests on their education in
American Catholic colleges and universities. So along with the preservation
of knowledge, the scholarly work of retrieval, the building up of bodies
of knowledge and the education of the young, your schools are central
to the practice of the Catholic intellectual life. Colleges and
universities cannot claim to be Catholic if this tradition is not part of
their core understanding; this tradition cannot survive if Catholic colleges
and universities do not renew it, maintain it, nourish it, support it,
and pass it on.
In the past several decades, Catholicism in the United States has
become more charismatic, more Pentecostal, more experiential, open to
ACCU. OCCASIONAL PAPERS
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intellectual life both old and new currents of spirituality and meditation; it absorbs
individualistic and congregational attitudes from American religion generally.
But Catholicism is also and always has been a church with a brain,
with a mind. So as important as these new manifestations may be, it is
essential to the church, to its mission in the world, to the lives of
ordinary people that there be a vigorous and Catholic intellectual
life. And Commonweal can't do everything!
Of course, the Catholic identity of Catholic colleges and universities
can have many expressions: honoring the founding mothers and fathers;
worship and prayer; service projects; works of social justice like basketball
and football; campus ministry; statues, medallions and endowed lectureships;
the work of notable alum and prestigious faculty. But all of this would be
a thin facade if it did not include at its core a living experience among
students and faculty of Catholic intellectual life.
Yes, carrying on this tradition is an enormous challenge. You have to
overcome bigotry and bias, including especially the prejudices Catholics
themselves have against their own tradition. A Catholic intellectual is not
an oxymoron. You do not have to be a Jesuit to be a Catholic intellectual.
Yes, Catholicism and Catholic ideas have a checkered history. What institution,
tradition, idea does not? From Plato to Foucault, from nominalism
to deconstructionism; if human ideas have consequences, we can be
sure some of them are bad. We have our fair share.
Many people, perhaps some of you, consider that the Catholic intellectual
tradition is singular in its intellectual repression and oppression, its
narrowness and dogmatism. Well, I say go read a history book! Some of
you may be skeptical that the adjective Catholic adds anything to an institution
or discipline except the judicial authority of ecclesiastical officials.
I disagree. For 2,000 years, Christians have struggled in multifarious ways
with everything from body and soul to kingship and regicide, from usury
to voluntary poverty, and today still struggle with everything from
medical decision-making to political theory, from child care to spiritual counsel,
from race to gender. It is this tradition that pressed through the
centuries—and reminds us in the Gulf War, in Bosnia—the idea of civilian
immunity. The distinction between ordinary and extraordinary care
of the sick and the dying remains a viable one because this tradition
teaches it.
It is a deep and rich tradition; it is a tradition worthy of our attention
and study. If this tradition does not have a place in Catholic colleges and
universities, what is it that you are doing? What tradition has a better claim?
NOVEMBER 1995 • ACCU
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All thinkers and thinking are based in some tradition. A tradition is not
a browned and dried-up certificate of deposit in the bank of knowledge,
but a locus for questioning, a framework for ordering inquiry, a standard
for preferring some sets of ideas over others. Tradition is the record of a
community's conversation over time about its meaning and direction. A
living tradition is a tradition that can raise questions about itself.
What am I talking about? Let me at least sketch what I think the
Catholic intellectual tradition looks like.
"The joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the women and men of
our time, especially those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy
and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well.
Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts....
Christians cherish a feeling of deep solidarity with the human race and its
history."
That opening paragraph from Gaudium et Spes speaks of our
Responsibility for all that is genuinely human, for what draws the minds and
hearts of women and men. The Catholic intellectual tradition is universal
in its breadth and its interests; that is a notion set forth, defended,
repeated, and encouraged throughout the Pastoral Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World.
I quote the quote because there is an odd nostalgia for something like
neoscholasticism, if not neoscholasticism itself—a nostalgia for a framework
that provided the high level of integration said to have been the guiding
light of preconciliar Catholicism. From my post at Commonweal, I am inclined to
think that we are a long way from holding or even recovering, at least with
any integrity, that kind of framework. In a post-positivist, post-Enlightenment
world, no body of human knowledge enjoys that degree of authority.
But if we do not have such an integrated system, we do have ideas,
habits of mind and heart. We have preferences and predilections, intuitions
and practices. We have a history. As Gaudium et Spes says, our tradition
is not set against the world. But neither is it naively accepting of
every current of opinion that washes up on the shores of a pluralistic culture.
It helps us to maintain a robust and refreshing level of skepticism.
What do I find of value? A tradition where reason and discourse based on
reason are honored and practiced.
Let me describe just a few of its characteristics.
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First, reason and faith are not antagonistic or unconnected. In the
Catholic tradition we do not accept what we believe blindly or slavishly,
we are urged to think about and to understand what we believe. This is in
some contrast to the society in which we live. American culture, with its
Protestant history, tends to see religion as an expression of the individual,
the subjective, the emotional, the immediate. In public life, religion and
religious belief are confined to the realm of the private and personal,
sometimes in an absolutist reading of the First Amendment, sometimes
with the prejudice that religious thought has nothing to contribute. For
the revivalist, faith is a personal and private encounter. For many in the
cultural elite, as Stephen Carter argued in The Culture of Disbelief, faith is
understood as a curious avocation, a personal hobby.
It is a loss to the whole society when any religious group accepts that
role. In contrast, Catholics—the bishops, but many Catholic politicians
and citizens as well—have often brought a philosophical and linguistic
sophistication to public policy issues. If, for example, laws that would permit
euthanasia and assisted suicide are kept at bay in the United States, it
will be because the bishops, Catholic institutions, nurses, doctors, lawyers,
ordinary citizens have been willing to express their deeply held beliefs,
religious and philosophical, in a reasoned discourse that can build consensus
across the whole society.
A second and closely related characteristic: Catholics have a tradition
that takes philosophy and philosophical thinking seriously. This meant
that from the beginning Christianity had to adapt systems of thought that
were alien and even contrary to its religious beliefs and yet were crucial
to its mission: that is, rendering its knowledge of God's presence and
action in the world in a way that would make sense to others.
We don't usually think of Paul of Tarsus as a philosopher, but there he
was in the agora debating Epicureans and Stoics, and in front of the
Areopagus explaining the heretofore unknown God. Nor did it stop
there. Eusebius, Bede, Augustine, Ambrose, Anselm, Thomas, Catherine,
Teresa, etc., right down to our own time: American Catholic colleges and
universities in the years after World War II were often the home to diverse
philosophical schools—phenomenology, existentialism, Hegelianism,
liberalism, pragmatism and Thomism—at a time when secular schools
prided themselves on a univocal voice in their philosophy departments.
The sometimes imperfect hospitality in our tradition expresses the conviction
that a disciplined mind and systematic thought can help discern
important things about what is real.
NOVEMBER 1995 • ACCU
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A third characteristic: Our tradition challenges the belief that facts
come in pristine form—no baggage, no assumptions, no preconditions,
no ends, no language that fills it with meaning. Our culture likes to treat
facts as a given, as autonomous, unadorned objective realities; but a fact
is an abstraction from something thicker and deeper containing implicit
ends, whether or not the researcher, commentator, or scholar acknowledges
them. There are virtually no value-free facts, from the construction
of public opinion polls to descriptions of brain synapses or histories of
the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. The Catholic tradition
reminds us that the fact/value distinction is practically a nil one,
although our tradition is tempted sometimes to think there can be fact-free
values.
Nonetheless, in our tradition epistemology and ethics are always inter-
related. So, for example, the notion that education can be a value-neutral
process in which teachers simply convey facts and the students simply
receive them, in which behavior is neither right nor wrong but a matter
of personal choice, in which judgments are neither better nor worse but
simply someone's opinion, is nonsense, as the condition of so many
schools grimly illustrates. This same analysis could be applied to psychotherapy,
opinion polling, political analyses, medical decision-making, etc.
This brings me to a fourth and last point: It is a characteristic of our
tradition, at its best, to resist reductionism; it does not collapse categories.
Faith and reason are compatible but not equivalent. Our tradition rejects
fundamentalistic readings of Scripture; the human person is neither radically
individualistic nor socially determined. Empirical findings are not
solely determinative of who we are and what we do. Yes, absolutely:
Findings in psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, neurobiology
enrich our understanding of the human person and the human project,
but they do not exhaust that meaning or determine that trajectory. We
are neurons and neuroses, but not only neurons and neuroses; neither
DNA or TGF fully determined who we are or what we will do this weekend.
There is space for grace and free will, thought, conscience, choice.
Time flies, and the list goes on: Symbolism is taken seriously, so is
Analogical reasoning; images provide us with alternative ways of knowing. All
of these are implanted in minds and hearts by our sacramental and liturgical
practices. Our tradition takes mysticism seriously, so we know that
ordinary everyday consciousness is not the last word about reality. The
practice of caring for the poor and thinking about caring for them
shapes political philosophy and social theory. The struggle everywhere to
link faith and culture blesses us with an abundance of fictional worlds
from Shusaku Endo's Deep River to Isabel Allende's Eva Luna.
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To sum up: Yes, these characteristics can be found in other traditions.
Yes, the Catholic tradition has been untrue to them at times or embraced
them only kicking and screaming; but finally they have been embraced
because our tradition becomes part of the cultures in which it finds
itself—it must become part of the culture intellectually as in all other
ways. Why? Because of its mission to transform the world, as we read in
Gaudium et Spes (No. 40): The church, a visible organization and a spiritual
community, "travels the same journey as all humankind and shares
the same earthly lot with the world; it is to be a leaven and, as it were, the
soul of human society in its renewal by Christ and transformation into the
family of God."
Today in our culture, where the commodification of human life,
human relationships, and body parts goes on everywhere, that engage-
ment, that mission, means keeping the human person at the center of
our inquiry. The human person must be seen in his or her social context,
where an implicit and shared understanding of the good can be found
and expressed.
All of this is deeply congruent with a religious tradition that is
incarnational and sacramental, that keeps before us the idea of a God
who acts in history on our behalf, a God who sent Jesus, who lived among
us, who taught, who died for us, who rose from the dead and is present in
the Eucharist. We are to love the Lord and love one another as he has loved
us.
And there's the rub and that's the challenge. Catholic higher education,
Catholic identity, Catholic intellectual life, the Catholic Church and
its work in the world must finally be the work of a community of believers.
In our culture that is a suspect category, nowhere more so than in the
university.
NOVEMBER 1995 • ACCU
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CATHOLIC IDENTITY: EMERGING CONSENSUS
Transcript of address by
Peter Steinfels Reprinted from Association of Catholic Colleges and
Universities, Occasional Papers on Catholic Higher
Education 1.l (November 1995): 11-19. Also in
Origins25.ll (August 24, 1995): 174-78.
wenty-eight years and two weeks ago, about two dozen
dis
at L
tinguished Catholic educators, bishops, and religious leaders gathered
and O'Lakes, Wisconsin, and issued a statement declaring
that "the Catholic university today must be a university in the full modern
sense of the word, with a strong commitment to and concern for academic excellence."
T
The Catholic university, the statement continued, "must have a true
autonomy and academic freedom," but it must also be an institution
where "Catholicism is perceptibly present and effectively operative."
No book on Catholic higher education, indeed no history of American
Catholicism, is complete without reference to this Magna Carta for modern
Catholic higher education. It is there in the record books, so to
speak, like the Third Council of Baltimore with its decree on parochial
schooling or the founding of The Catholic University of America in 1887.
My thesis today is a simple one: You are attending a gathering that is
potentially as important as Land O'Lakes--a gathering that, if you so
choose, has every likelihood of entering the history books as signaling a
new moment in Catholic higher education, in American Catholicism and,
just maybe, in our society's effort to achieve an authentic pluralism.
If this meeting is to be historic, it will not be due to anything that we
can cram into the next 67 hours. It will be a landmark because more than
450 educators, many of you presidents—key people in a web of over 200
schools across the United States and by that very fact key people in a
church of 56 million members--because you leave here not with a statement,
not with all the answers, but with a collective will to focus on a common
set of questions.
Land O'Lakes, we should remember, did not just happen at a four-day
meeting. It was the crystallization of a process long under way. We can
trace it in the title of Philip Gleason's forthcoming history of Catholic
__________________
Peter Steinfels is senior religion correspondent for The New York Times.
NOVEMBER 1995 • ACCU
15
higher education in the 20th century, "Contending With Modernity," and
we can trace it in the subheadings of his closing chapters: "Self-Criticism
and the Search for Excellence," "The Splintering of the Scholastic
Synthesis," "The Contagion of Liberty," and "The Acceptance of
Modernity."
Every step in that process was subject to misrepresentations and
exaggerations. Every step elicited fears and accusations. Not all those fears
were baseless. No great change comes about without introducing or
skirting serious problems, problems that the beneficiaries of that change
will eventually have to address.
Nor was that earlier process ever unanimous. It was carried forward by
a core of farseeing, risk-taking educators and church leaders. There were
only 26 signatories of the Land O'Lakes statement, all male and representing
only nine universities.
I believe that a similar process is now taking place. Well over five years
ago, I began an investigation that, after many months of interruptions,
became a front-page story in The New York Times. I began with the intention
of reporting on the challenges faced by all sorts of colleges and universities
in maintaining a religious identity: Southern Baptist, Baylor and
Southern Methodist; Mormon, Brigham Young; and Jewish, Yeshiva; no
less than Catholic, Fordham, DePaul or Santa Clara. In the end we limited
the story to Catholic schools. That was where the action was, where a
whole family of schools seemed to be tottering on the edge of fateful
change.
Frankly, what I discovered as I spoke with deans and presidents and faculty
members left me stunned.
At the higher levels, there were repeated assurances that the commitment
to Catholic identity had in no way weakened, although there was
widespread admission that it might be more difficult to implement under
current circumstances.
At the faculty level, in some quarters I found frustration and anger at
the perceived loss of Catholic identity. Among other faculty members, I
found resentment at the very idea that the Catholic identity of their institution
meant anything beyond what they considered one or two vestigial
theology courses and certain ceremonial flourishes—in other words,
meant anything that might actually bear on their own teaching and
research.
ACCU • OCCASIONAL PAPERS
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I found a non-Catholic political scientist wondering why, in view of the
richness of Catholic thought and experience in relating God and Caesar,
the government department at his Catholic university should be interchangeable
with that of any first-rank secular school.
I found faculty members who said that job candidates with Catholic
backgrounds or known interests in relating their research to religious or
ethical questions would actually be at a disadvantage, because the philosophy
department did not want to look too Catholic or the biology department
did not want to give the impression of letting religious considerations
intrude into strictly scientific decisions.
Above all, I found confusion and euphemism and evasion and a
tremendous sense that the subject could not be discussed openly and
candidly.
So it came as no surprise to me when I later read a speech in which
Father Malloy of Notre Dame warned there was "no guarantee at all" that
within the next 50 years most Catholic institutions of higher education
would not "shuck off their religious identity as they become more academically
sophisticated."
"If it happens," he added, "it will not be by way of a vote, but simply by
default."
My 1991 article reported the agitation and debate over this issue
already under way, but I may have underestimated what is today obvious.
Slowly, steadily, a consensus about this new set of challenges for Catholic
higher education has been emerging—by no means among everyone but,
as at Land 0 'Lakes, among a core of thoughtful leaders.
It is noteworthy how many different ways the issue is described: People
speak of the Catholic identity or mission or character. They speak of
many Catholic institutions being at risk, or threatened, or uncertain, or
problematic, or in need of clarification or reassertion, or in danger of
becoming purely formal or ritualistic, and so on.
Those variations reflect, first of all, the wide variety of Catholic
Institutions and the corresponding differences in which their concern about
Catholic identity is manifest.
A campus like Notre Dame, a kind of island unto itself with an over-
whelmingly Catholic student body, differs even from a Georgetown,
immersed in the life of the nation's capital and with a much smaller proportion
NOVEMBER 1995 • ACCU
17
of Catholic students. And both differ radically from a school like New
Rochelle with its multiple campuses and its mix of a traditional college-
age, liberal-arts student body with a far greater number of adult degree-seekers,
many of them part-time, from minority groups and not Catholic.
Large universities with national aspirations, with extensive graduate
programs or with prominent professional schools, confront a very different
dynamic than small liberal-arts colleges.
The multiple ways of stating this concern also reflect the sensitivity surrounding
it. What are the right words to indicate urgency but not alarmism or panic? To many
educators, suggestions that their traditional religious mission was in any way at risk
seem to disparage all that they have devoted their lives to and to ignore the very real
accomplishments of recent years. Indeed concerns about Catholic identity have not
infrequently been advanced with an accusatory edge--as though, who is to blame
were a more important question than what can we do-and with a dubious nostalgia
for a lost golden age.
No wonder savvy and sensitive educators have groped for tentative language,
shied from sweeping and dramatic claims, even at the risk of underplaying the urgency
of the problem.
But the new consensus goes beyond this core concern. Let me suggest
eight more components of it:
1. You can't go home again. A return to the past is neither desirable
nor possible, not in terms of the long-lost homogeneity of students' religious
knowledge and background nor in terms of the embarrassing conformity
once enforced by fiat.
2. The intellectual and academic environment has changed. Peggy has
described some of those changes. They include what has been described
as the shift from epistemology to community as foundational for inquiry.
In "Exiles From Eden," Mark R. Schwehn, professor of humanities and
dean at Valparaiso University, writes: "The answers to basic human questions
such as what we know, or how should we live, or in what or whom
shall we place our hope have come to depend, for a large number of
intellectuals, upon the answer to a prior question, who are we?"
This is another form of the realization, as Alasdair MacIntyre has
argued and Peggy mentioned, that all thinking is tradition-based, all
inquiry tradition-directed. This in turn has led to the recognition that
there is no college or university pure and simple. There are different
ACCU • OCCASIONAL PAPERS
18
kinds of colleges and universities, "beholden to diverse educational traditions,"
according to David Burrell. The Catholic university and the
Enlightenment university may not be exactly the same creature, although
a crucial test for either, as Burrell also points out, is the extent to which
its tradition is open to free inquiry and does not rule some queries out
antecedently.
Last year, Rebecca Blank, a distinguished MIT-trained neoclassical
economist from Northwestern, gave several lectures at Notre Dame,
mostly dealing with poverty. But the subject of one lecture was how her
religious convictions--she is an active member of the United Church of
Christ-- affected her work as an economist. Professor Blank began by saying
how glad she was to be able to give a lecture at Notre Dame that she
couldn't give at Northwestern. Why not? First, she said, because probably
no one would come. Second, she said, because if some people did come,
they wouldn't know what she was talking about. And third, she said,
because her dean would probably drop by to remind her that
Northwestern (which, of course, was founded by Methodists) was a secular
institution.
3. Catholic identity in institutions of higher education must be manifest
in their intellectual life as well as in their liturgical celebration and
pastoral services. All Catholic colleges and universities strove to make sure
that their academic offerings were comparable to those of secular
schools, and as confidence collapsed in the so-called neoscholastic synthesis
of the 19405 and '50s, Catholic identity was increasingly associated
with campus worship, campus ministry, community service, and the tone
and regulation of student life.
In many cases, those responsible for such activities rose to the challenge
even as they often had to struggle for respect and resources. But
part of today's consensus, I believe, is that this is not enough. As Peggy
emphasized, Catholic Christianity is a tradition of the mind as well as the
heart and will.
Today's consensus has gone beyond polemical questions like: Is there
a Catholic mathematics, a Catholic chemistry, a Catholic accounting, or a
Catholic business administration? It recognizes that the rich Catholic
intellectual heritage which should be communicated, explored, questioned,
revised, and renewed does not pertain in precisely the same way
and to the same extent to every field and discipline. But while that heritage
could be less obviously relevant to chemistry and accounting than to
political theory or literature, even chemistry and mathematics departments,
NOVEMBER 1995 • ACCU
19
let alone business administration, might be hospitable to certain
philosophical, ethical or cross-disciplinary reflections and conversation
that are unlikely to occur elsewhere.
4. Catholic identity must be something that pervades the work and life
of a college or university and is not limited to the theology department. It
is a tragedy that efforts to implement Ex corde Ecclesiae have so misdirected
energy and attention to the certification and standing of theology
professors. With most Catholic schools requiring no more than two
semesters of theology, those courses could meet the severest standards of
orthodoxy without guaranteeing any significant grappling with the
Catholic heritage if it is not present elsewhere in the curriculum.
5. The future of Catholic identity will ultimately rest in the hands of the
laity and in the hands of the faculty. By the year 2001, it is estimated that
there will be an average of 14 Jesuits working on each of that order's campuses.
Sponsoring religious orders, especially when enlivened by a vision,
can yet wield a tremendous influence, but unless a campus exhibits a willingness
rare in late 20th-century academia to submit to an authoritarian
style, no vision can be implemented and perpetuated without the assent
and support of a majority of faculty members. “The Catholicity of our
institutions," Father Malloy has said, "will in the end be determined by
the faculty."
6. The question of Catholic identity is therefore inescapably linked to
hiring policies. This is a point of enormous delicacy but also of enormous
importance.
George Marsden, whose history of the secularization of the nation's
Protestant colleges and universities is required reading for anyone seriously
interested in this question, has put the matter unflinchingly:
"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. The first loyalties of faculty members
will be to the national cultures of their professions rather than to any
local or ecclesiastical traditions. Faculty members become essentially
interchangeable parts in a standardized national system.
"At first,” Marsden continues, schools “can count on some continuity
with their traditions based on informal ties and self-selection of those
congenial to their heritage. Within a generation, however, there is bound
to be a shift, and since departmental faculties typically have virtual autonomy
ACCU • OCCASIONAL PAPERS
20
in hiring, it becomes impossible to reverse the trend and the church
tradition becomes vestigial."
For a long time I thought that what Marsden so bluntly points out was
the great unmentionable. Nothing else was as likely to provoke heated
charges of discrimination or of violations of religious or academic freedom
as the suggestion that the religious factor, whether in terms of personal
commitment or in terms of scholarly interests in research and
teaching, should play some part in hiring decisions.
Are you going to check baptismal certificates, monitor Mass attendance,
banish wavering or lapsed Catholics, exclude non-Catholics or make
them second-class campus citizens? Are not religious convictions,
outside of theology, extraneous to responsible scholarship? Are not
schools in danger of violating equal opportunity statutes, losing federal
funds, or being subject to civil suits for discrimination?
I do not take those concerns and protests lightly, even if they can often
be, as I found, reflexive rather than reflective, and sometimes showing
unseemly haste to acquiesce in questionable interpretations of the law.
And let me be clear: So far there is no consensus about how to respond to
these concerns. Where there is consensus is that the hiring question, no
matter how explosive, must be faced.
There is also consensus that this is not an either / or situation, that a
wide range of choices regarding "religious heritage as a factor in hiring"
exists between the total banishment of religious considerations or the
diplomatic, "Here's our mission statement. Are you comfortable with it?"
to the confessional-oath policies of some evangelical schools.
"The puzzle,” writes Marsden, "is how to hold the middle ground. How
is it possible, short of reverting to repressive strictures of earlier days, to
maintain a vital religious presence, including an intellectual presence, in
a modern university? Is there any way to retain the balance of being a university
that is both Catholic and open to many other points of view?"
Having recognized the problem, the next most important step in this
whole process toward a new era may be for a group like ACCU to organize
a systematic and authoritative review of the options, one conducted,
say, by a blue-ribbon committee whose members' scholarly credentials
and parallel commitments to both Catholic identity and the academic are
impeccable.
NOVEMBER 1995 • ACCU
21
But those observations already indicate a seventh point of the consensus.
7. Catholic identity must embrace scholars of other faiths and of no
faith not simply as admissible presences in Catholic higher education but
as essential to its purposes. It is clear that in many cases Protestants, Jews,
adherents of other religions, and agnostics and atheists may bring critical
scholarly insight and good will to the Catholic campus mission for beyond
what many Catholics offer.
8. The whole process of clarifying and strengthening Catholic identity
can be easily undermined by the intervention of nonacademic ecclesiastical
authorities. Catholic identity simply cannot be imposed or assured by
fiat. It must be implanted by persuasion and sustained, ultimately, by love.
If that cause is associated with nonacademic control over academic matters,
the effort is half-lost before it has begun.
Let me summarize what I believe constitutes today's consensus.
At its core is the realization that sustaining and revivifying Catholic
identity is chief among Catholic higher education's challenges for the
near future and has already inspired an outpouring of positive initiatives,
from campus-based and national discussions to the establishment of a
host of new institutes and programs.
Around this core, eight points:
First, there is no return to an imagined golden age.
Second, a changed intellectual context, with a growing appreciation of
community, tradition, diversity and multiculturalism, offers opportunities
to explain the intellectual and educational integrity of Catholic higher
education to the academic world.
Third, the issue is one of intellectual life, of focus in research and
teaching as well of student affairs, campus worship and ministry, and
community service.
Fourth, the issue is far broader than the place and character of theology
in the school.
Fifth, the issue ultimately will be decided by the attitudes of lay people
and of faculty.
ACCU • OCCASIONAL PAPERS
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Sixth, the place in hiring of religious commitment and religious interests
and competencies—in research and teaching must be confronted, and clear,
meaningful policies developed.
Seventh, such policies must include, not exclude, non-Catholic
scholars.
And eighth, infringements of academic autonomy by church authorities
will be counterproductive.
At this point I hear someone asking: If we're agreed on so much, what's
the big problem? In fact, I see not one big problem but four middle-sized
obstacles. Some already have been suggested in my remarks.
The first, for example, is the defensiveness, the suspicion, the leaping
to conclusions, the feeling of being under attack that can be stirred by
these discussions or by even the most tentative proposal to make an institution's
Catholic mission a significant factor in the hiring or tenure process. Fortunately,
an increasing number of you are showing that a calm, open, participatory
approach, untainted by the threat of premature or imposed solutions and more
concerned about creating the future than defending the past, can create the
atmosphere essential to a viable discussion.
The second obstacle is something that journalistic noses become quick
to detect. Being a proper Boy Scout, I will simple describe it as the SD factor,
for self-deception. Other, more rowdy types might want to initial it differently.
I sensed SD factor when I found in conversations about hiring that the
impressive official version differed radically from what actually happened
in the trenches. What but SD explained the official devotion to Catholic
identity that was accompanied by promotional brochures and catalogs, by
ads in The Chronicle of Higher Education, by fund-raising campaigns in
which all reference to Catholic had been either entirely eliminated,
reduced to the minimum or duly obscured behind a word like Jesuit.
Sometimes I was reminded of men who slip off their wedding rings when
they go on business trips.
Less difficult to discuss but harder to confront are the entrenched
power and national cultures of the academic disciplines and professions
to which George Marsden referred. You know better than I the extent to
which the disciplines, not the particular schools, define what is to be considered
excellence, organize the subcategories of fields, and control the real loyalties,
aspirations and career paths of faculty.
NOVEMBER 1995 • ACCU
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It is not only the problem of the job candidate in economics who is
deterred by her discipline from developing a subspecialty in economics
and theology or even cultivating an interest in interdisciplinary conversation
of that sort. It is also the problem of the economics department
members who feel that their own reputations vis-a-vis their discipline's
standards (and therefore their marketability) might be tainted by actively
recruiting someone with a theological interest. There is a conflict here
that must be acknowledged and confronted head-on.
Finally, there also is a similar conflict with secular academia over academic
freedom. I am in firm agreement with the Land O'Lakes statement's affirmation of
excellence, autonomy, and academic freedom, as well as an effectively operative
Catholic presence.
Unfortunately, there are notions of academic freedom widespread in
the United States that, practically speaking, hold these defining aims to
be incompatible. Historians have not missed the anti-religious--and I
might add, anti-Catholic-strain that has run through both the academy's
formal and informal understandings of academic freedom. George
Bernard Shaw quipped that a Catholic university was a contradiction in
terms, while John Henry Newman argued at length why a secular university
was a contradiction in terms because it excluded from its scope a central
set of questions and area of knowledge. We know which view is more
popular, the sound bite or the argument.
I am not suggesting that Catholic educators work themselves into a
lather of victimization over this fact. They simply need to recognize
that in their world serious misunderstanding and, yes, even bigotry still
sometimes operate--and to be prepared to name and challenge it when
necessary.
Different images come to my mind when I try to sum up this gathering.
A launching pad. A frontier. A mountain valley. They all suggest a point
reached with difficulty but now the staging area for a departure into new,
uncharted territory.
You need to overcome the doubts, anxieties, nagging uncertainties
that beset anyone daring to attempt something new. There is, after all, a
world out there of people, many of whom we respect, absolutely convinced
that there are no other alternatives in higher education except narrow
ACCU • OCCASIONAL PAPERS
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institutions of indoctrination and the religious featurelessness of
most college and university life. To defy that conventional wisdom, to
explore the unexplored, you need to know the direction you want to
travel, but you also must be willing to move forward without a fully
filled-in map, without all the answers, without, in your case, a new synthesis,
a grand educational theory or a guaranteed route through all the tangles of
academic freedom, faculty fears, and a church struggling with pluralism.
You need to go forward together. Over 200 schools have a much better
chance of accomplishing collectively what would be a very risky expedition
for one or two or a dozen isolated institutions.
American Catholicism's array of colleges and universities, absolutely
unparalleled in the world, was not created without risk taking and readiness
to venture something new. Make this gathering worthy of that history.
Make it the moment where it becomes obvious that, through your
creativity, enlivened by God's spirit, there can be something new under
the sun in higher education.
NOVEMBER 1995 • ACCU
25
Ethnic Diversity and Religious Identity
in U.S. Catholic Higher Education
Robert V. Caro, S.J.
A 2006 New York Times report highlights the ''murky'' and "contentious"
environment that has followed in the wake of two affirmative
action decisions handed down by the Supreme Court in 2003. Both
decisions involve the University of Michigan. In one case, the court
upheld the use of race in law-school admission decisions, finding that a
''highly individualized holistic review of each applicant's file" justified
consideration of an applicant's race. In the other case, involving undergraduate
admissions, the court struck down the practice of awarding points based
on race.1
One might say the court took away with one hand what it gave with
the other. Opponents of affirmative action seized on the uncertain state
of the law as well as the changing composition of the court to raise legal
challenges that call into question "hundreds of thousands of dollars in
fellowships, scholarships, and other programs previously created for
minority students."2 Many universities, facing threats of litigation and
other pressures, are opening funds to white students that they had
previously dedicated to ethnic minorities.
According to the newspaper report, "Officials at conservative groups
that are pushing for changes see the shift as a sign of success in eliminating
race as a factor in decision making in higher education."3 Roger
Clegg, president and general counsel for the conservative Center for
Equal Opportunity is quoted as saying, "Our concern is that the law be
______________________
Robert V. Caro, S.J., is the Vice President for Mission & Ministry, Loyola Marymount
University, Los Angeles, CA.
1
Jonathan D. Glater, "Colleges Open Minority Aid to All Comers," New York Times,
March 14, 2006, AI, A22.
2
Ibid.
3 Ibid.
CURRENT ISSUES IN CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION - 25:2, 2006, 195-214.
26
196 CURRENT ISSUES IN CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION - 25:2
followed and that nobody be denied participation in a program on account
of skin color or what country their ancestors came from.”4
This view, which fails to recognize the significance of historical differences
in educational opportunity for privileged white students on the
one hand and minority students on the other, is countered by Theodore
M. Shaw, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational
Fund, Inc.: "How is it that they [Clegg and others] conclude the great
evil in this country is discrimination against white people? Can I put
that question any more pointedly? I struggle to find the words to do so
because it's so stunning.”5
Anyone who believes in the benefits of a diverse college campus will
be troubled by the liberal-conservative polarity reflected in this news
account. Besides calling into question whether and to what extent proactive
programs for minorities are consistent with legal principles, the
split serves as a chilling reminder that the underlying goals of educational
equity for traditionally under-represented groups are still subject
to the shifting winds of politics. The point is underscored by declining
minority enrollments for fall 2006 at UCLA and several other University
of California campuses, where Proposition 209, a 1996 voter-approved
initiative, banned consideration in public institutions of race
and gender in admissions and hiring.6
Whatever the outcome of current legal challenges in the wake of the
Michigan case or of efforts in California's public universities to work
around the restrictions of Proposition 209, I believe that for United
States Catholic universities, numerous passages of the decrees of the
Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and other ecclesial documents of recent
decades provide a much broader context in which to situate a firm
commitment to ethnic diversity. This context encompasses, but goes
beyond, American racial/ethnic politics and makes clear that for Catholic
universities a commitment to ethnic diversity is not an option but
needs to be a key feature of their identity. These universities should be
inclusive not because of legal or political exigency but precisely because
they are Catholic and therefore see every human being as a child of
God, embrace a commitment to the common good, and share the
_______________________
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
6
Rebecca Trounson, "A Startling Statistic at UCLA," Los Angeles Times, June 3,
2006, A1, A10
27
ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY 197
church's post-Vatican II concern for the cultural progress of all people,
especially the poor and afflicted.
After reviewing conciliar and other church documents in the first part
of this paper, I will suggest, in the second part, that a university whose
commitment to ethnic diversity is grounded in Catholic identity will not
be satisfied with mere tolerance of minority members. Rather, it will
urge everyone to make educational capital of the opportunity to engage
the other in genuine dialogue, with social and intellectual solidarity the
desired result.
Finally, having made the case that a commitment to ethnic diversity
is central to contemporary Catholic identity, I will go on to caution that
the two are not coextensive. Catholic identity is a broader complex of
cultural and religious values and provides the unifying structure that
supports a commitment to diversity. I will conclude by suggesting that
the particularity of Catholic identity and the inclusivity a university
espouses through its commitment to ethnic diversity need to be held in
creative tension.
Conciliar and Other Ecclesial Documents
Any overview of the documents of the Second Vatican Council needs
to begin with Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the
Church. This first and foundational decree of the council, approved
November 21, 1964, is less concerned with the institutional organization
of the church than with the basic reality of the church's relationship
with Christ. The document moves toward a view of the church as
the primary sacrament of encounter with Christ and as the instrument
for achieving, in Christ, the unity of the human race. This understanding
corresponds with the image of the church as community, or people
of God, and gives rise to the idea that the mission of the church encompasses
not only the ministries of word and sacrament but also the
pursuit of justice and concern for the transformation of the world. "The
church is called to not only preach the word and celebrate the sacraments,"
said Ann Ida Gannon, B.V.M., in a reflection on Lumen Gentium,
"but also to serve human needs in society and culture; social,
political, economic, [and] scientific areas are also proper areas for her
influence."7
___________________________________
7
Ann Ida Gannon, B.V.M., "Some Aspects of Catholic Higher Education since Vatican
II," Current Issues in Catholic Higher Education 8.1 (Summer 1987): 12.
28
198 CURRENT ISSUES IN CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION - 25:2
If Lumen Gentium is the foundational document of Vatican II, subsequent
documents spell out its implications for a church that no longer
sees itself in a defensive posture toward the world but rather in dialogue
with it, e.g., Unitatis Redintegratio (Decree on Ecumenism), Dignitatis
Humanae (Declaration on Religious Liberty), and Nostra Aetate
(Declaration on the Relation of the Church to NonChristian Religions).
Most especially, however, Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution
on the Church in the Modern World, is recognized as the lens through
which we should read Lumen Gentium. If Lumen Gentium, as a dogmatic
constitution, speaks at times in language that appeals mainly to
believers, Gaudium et Spes, as a pastoral constitution, addresses all of
humanity:
Now that the Second Vatican Council has studied the mystery of the church more
deeply [in Lumen Gentium], it addresses not only the daughters and sons of the
church and all who call upon the name of Christ, but the whole of humanity as well,
and it wishes to set down how it understands the presence and function of the
church in the world today.8
Situating itself in solidarity with the entire human race, Gaudium et
Spes embraces the church's mission of service and expresses its desire
to shed the light of scripture on "the joys and hopes, the grief and
anguish of the people of our time, especially those who are poor or
afflicted."9 In other passages it will be clear that the outreach is not one
way; rather, the council wishes a genuine dialogue in which the church
not only shares the wisdom of Christian faith but also learns from the
world.10
Undergirding the document's concern for "the people of our time" is its
strong emphasis on the humanity of Jesus and its corresponding emphasis
on the dignity of every human being as reflected in the reality of
the incarnation: Jesus became who we are. This theological anthropology
is apparent in the following passage:
Human nature, by the very fact that it was assumed, not absorbed in [Christ], has
been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. Foy, by his incarnation, he, the
____________________________________
8 Flannery, Austin, O.P., ed. “Gaudium et Spes", Vatican II Constitutions, Decrees,
Declarations: A Completely Revised Translation in Inclusive Language. Northport, NY:
CostelIo, 1996, 2.
9 "Gaudium et Spes," 1.
10 "Gaudium et Spes," 33: "The church is guardian of the deposit of God's word and
draws religious and moral principles from it, but it does not always have a ready answer to every
question. Still, it is eager to associate the light of revelation with the experience of humanity in trying
to clarify the course upon which it has recently entered." See also Gaudium et Spes sections: 40, 44,
92.
29
ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY 199
Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each individual. He worked
with human hands, he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will,
and with a human heart he loved.... Conformed to the image of the Son who is the
firstborn of many brothers and sisters, Christians receive the first fruits of the
Spirit (Rom 8:23) by which they are able to fulfill the new law of love.... All this
holds true not only for Christians but also for all people of good will in whose hearts
grace is active invisibly. For since Christ died for everyone, .. . we must hold that
the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known
to God, in the paschal mystery.11
By emphasizing the humanity of Jesus, Gaudium et Spes helps us to
appreciate a telling parallel between the concern of Jesus for the people
of his time and the council's concern for "the people of our time"—not
just the Christian faithful, but all people. Not only are the preaching
and parables of Jesus "placed in the context of the social, political, and
economic realities of the period in which [the gospels] were written,"12
but also, within that context, they frequently show us Jesus reaching
out to strangers (non-Jews), to women, and to all kinds of marginalized
people—tax collectors, public sinners, lepers, etc. The ministry of Jesus
was truly inclusive. It is exemplary in its openness to the other.
As many commentators have pointed out, at Vatican II, the Roman
Catholic Church began to emerge for the first time as a truly global
church,13 not simply a Western church, and for that reason the other
who makes a claim on us in the name of our common humanity is as
likely to be found across the world as on the other side of town. Concern
for the common good, which is axiomatic in Catholic social thought, may
begin at home but is not, in the view of the council, limited by local or
national borders:
Because of the increasingly close interdependence that is gradually extending to
the entire world, we are today witnessing an extension of the role of the common
good, which is the sum total of the social conditions that allow people, either as
groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and easily. The
resulting rights and obligations are consequently the concern of the entire human
race. Every group must take into account the needs and legitimate aspirations of
every other group, and even those of the human family as a whole.14
_________________________________________________
11 "Gaudium et Spes/' 22.
12 Mark Bosco, S.J., Graham Greene's Catholic Imagination (Oxford: Oxford UP,
2005), 85. Bosco offers illuminating comments on several council documents in his
discussion of Graham Greene's post-Vatican II development as a Catholic novelist.
13 See, for example, John R. Crocker, S.J., (World Vision and Global Church/' Current
Issues in Catholic Higher Education 2.2 (Winter 1982): 42-48.
14 “Gaudium et Spes," 26.
30
200 CURRENT ISSUES IN CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION - 25:2
Whether at home, on our campuses, in local communities, or in the
larger world, the social interdependence-the human solidarity—envisioned
by Gaudium et Spes requires individuals to have a sense of
personal responsibility for "their obligations in conscience toward themselves
and various groups to which they belong.” 15 The document recognizes,
moreover, that a developed sense of personal responsibility for
the common good is scarcely possible without education. "Above all," it
says, "we must undertake the training of youth from all social backgrounds
if we are to produce the kind of men and women so urgently
needed today, men and women who not only are highly cultured but are
generous in spirit as we11.”16 In a similar vein, a subsequent passage of
Gaudium et Spes speaks of a "duty" to "ensure the recognition and
implementation everywhere of everyone's right to human and civil culture
in harmony with personal dignity, without distinction of race, sex,
nation, religion, or social circumstances.»17 In carrying out this duty,
Every effort should be made to provide for those who are capable of it the opportunity
to pursue higher studies so that as far as possible they may engage in the
functions and services, and play the role in society most in keeping with their
talents and the skills they acquire. In this way all the individuals and social groups
of a particular people will be able to attain a full development of their cultural life
in harmony with their capabilities and traditions.18
Similarly, Gravissimum Educationis, the council's Declaration on
Christian Education, underscores the idea that "all people of whatever
race, condition, or age, in virtue of their dignity as human persons, have
an inalienable right to education."19 Mindful of this right, the council
asks universities to facilitate entrance "for students of great promise
but of modest resources."20
Taken together, all these passages make the conciliar case for a
Catholic university's commitment to ethnic diversity. We can summarize
them by saying that since the time of the council, the church no
longer assumes a defensive posture but wants to be in dialogue with the
world. The church's mission includes, in addition to the ministries of
____________________
15 "Gaudium et Spes/I 3l.
16 "Gaudium et Spes/' 31 (Emphasis added).
17 Ibid., 60 (Emphasis added).
18 Ibid.
19 Flannery, Austin, O.P., ed. "Gravissimum Educationis", Vatican II Constitutions,
Decrees, Declarations: A Completely Revised Translation in Inclusive Language. Northport,
NY: Oostello, 1996, 1.
20 "Gravissimum Educationis," 10.
31
ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY 201
word and sacrament, a concern for justice and the development of
people, especially those living on the margins of society. Every woman
and man is a child of God and has been raised to a new dignity through
the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Against this background,
the council documents urge the importance of education for
the local and global common good and point to the responsibility of
educational institutions to promote social interdependence and welcome
students "without distinction of race, sex, nation, religion or social
circumstances."20b
In the decades following Vatican II, key documents continued to echo
the council's faith-inspired call for economic development, social justice,
and human solidarity in promotion of the common good. Two of these
documents are Pope Paul VI's 1967 encyclical, Populorum Progressio,
and Pope John Paul II’s 1987 encyclical, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis. Both
documents descend directly from Gaudium et Spes and join a long tradition
of social encyclicals going back to 1891. And both are referenced
in John Paul's 1990 apostolic constitution on Catholic higher education,
Ex Corde Ecclesiae, in the paragraph where the pope touches on a
Catholic university's diversity commitment as part of its responsibility
"to contribute concretely to the society within which it works."21 The
entire paragraph is worth quoting as a reprise of the conciliar documents
reviewed above:
The Christian spirit of service to others for the promotion of social justice is of
particular importance for each Catholic university, to be shared by its teachers and
developed in its students. The church is firmly committed to the integral growth of
all men and women (cf. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis #27-34). The Gospel, interpreted in
the social teachings of the church, is an urgent call to promote "the development of
those people who are striving to escape from hunger, misery, endemic diseases and
ignorance; of those who are looking for a wider share in the benefits of civilization,
and a more active improvement of their human qualities; of those who are aiming
purposefully at their complete fulfillment" (Populorum Progressio #1). Every
Catholic university feels responsible to contribute concretely to the society within
which it works: for example, [by making] university education accessible to all those
who are able to benefit from it, especially the poor or members of minority groups
who customarily have been deprived of it. A Catholic university also has the responsibility,
to the degree that it is able, to help to promote the development of the
emerging nations.22
Like the documents of the council, Ex Corde Ecclesiae sees a university's
commitment to ethnic minorities, the poor, and other under-
_________________________
20b "Gaudium et Spes," 60.
21 Pope John Paul II. Ex Corde Ecclesiae, <http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/
john_pauI_ii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_jp-ii-apc_15081990_ex-cordeecclesiae_
en.html>, 1990, 34.
22 Ibid., 34 (Emphasis added).
32
202 CURRENT ISSUES IN CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION - 25:2
represented groups as an act of social justice—as a necessary expression
of the church's gospel-based concern for the common good and the
development of peoples. Such a commitment is to be realized primarily
in the context of the university's home country. Yet it is not surprising
that the church's concern is global and that in the postcolonial era,
Catholic universities are encouraged to cultivate in their faculty and
students an awareness of the needs of emerging nations.
In their 1980 statement Catholic Higher Education and the Pastoral
Mission of the Church, the U.S. bishops offered universities similar
encouragement for an international perspective, even while emphasizing
a strong diversity commitment as required by the social reality of
the United States.23 For the bishops, such a commitment extends not
only to student recruitment and financial aid but also to faculty hiring
and the presence of minorities on boards of trustees. This is what the
bishops wrote:
As new minority groups seek educational opportunities, Catholic institutions
should strive to respond to their legitimate needs, providing student aid and an
education that respects their culture while offering the benefits of the Christian
heritage. We have in mind Blacks, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and other
minorities, but, especially, Hispanic Americans, whose own Catholic culture is so
rich and whose numbers are so great.... We ask that attention be given to the
need for the presence of minority persons on boards of trustees and faculties of
these institutions. [Moreover,] because the unity of all people under God is a
fundamental principle of Catholic theology, an international point of view should be
evident on the Catholic campus.24
As is clear from the bishops' statement, from papal documents, and
from key passages of Vatican II, contemporary Catholic universities
have a responsibility to share in the church's postconciliar concern for
the development of individuals and societies. It is ultimately a concern
for—a belief in—human dignity, social justice, and the common good. It
provides the broad context in which the documents we have reviewed
situate a Catholic university's commitment to ethnic diversity and provide
the motivation for it. I turn now to a consideration of how such a
commitment can be furthered when diverse groups and individuals
attend to the church's post Vatican II emphasis on dialogue.
Beyond Tolerance: Embracing Dialogue
At first glance it might appear that the success of a university's commitment
to ethnic diversity could be measured in terms of minority
_______________________
23 United States Catholic Conference, Catholic Higher Education and the Pastoral
Mission of the Church, (Washington, DC: USCC, 1981).
24 Ibid., 9.
33
ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY 203
student enrollment, faculty ethnicity, retention rates, and so on. But
are such indices enough? Or, to ask the question another way, does a
commitment to diversity imply more than providing educational access
to previously under-represented groups? For those whose epistemology
valorizes the context in which learning takes place, the answer to this
latter question is a resounding "yes." They see the embrace of diversity
as offering positive educational benefits for the entire campus community.
They see that for students, as well as faculty and staff, a diverse
community promotes openness to intellectual, ethical, and spiritual dimensions
of truth previously unseen. As a benefit specifically for students,
this enhanced understanding is aptly described in the amicus
brief filed by the University of Chicago and other institutions in the
affirmative-action case brought against the University of Michigan:
Students are both recipients and providers of the learning that takes place at
universities, and [universities] have a vital interest in what students bring to the
task of educating each other.... Diversity helps students confront perspectives
other than their own and thus to think more vigorously and imaginatively; it helps
students learn to relate to persons from different backgrounds; it helps students
become better citizens. The educational benefits of student diversity include the
discovery that there is a broad range of viewpoints and experience within any given
minority community—as well as learning that certain imagined differences at
times turn out to be only skin deep.25
Chicago's website goes on to point out that when meaningful diversity
is absent, "homogeneity perpetuates unchallenged assumptions—the
very antithesis of what a university stands for." On the other hand,
when there is a critical mass of diverse faculty, staff, and students, as
Fairfield University President Jeffrey von Arx, S.J., has remarked, "interaction,
understanding, enlightenment, and conversion" occur.26 In formal and
informal settings, dialogue happens, and diversity's value-added
educational benefits click in.
So a full-fledged commitment to ethnic diversity means more than
opening the doors to minority groups. It has implications as well for
members of the majority community. It is not enough that they support
an official policy of nondiscrimination, or remain free of bias or prejudice,
or proclaim tolerance for ethnic groups other than their own. A
____________________
25 University of Chicago, “Diversity Statement” Autumn 2004. http://www
.chicago.edu/docs/education/diversity-statement.html (Accessed December 6, 2005).
26 Jeffrey von Arx, S.J., Fairfield University, "Martin Luther King Day Remarks,"
January 2005. http://www.fairfield.edu/x6337.xml (Accessed October 4, 2005).
34
204 CURRENT ISSUES IN CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION - 25:2
full-fledged commitment to diversity, teleologically grounded in Catholic
beliefs in human dignity, social justice, and the common good, will
mean more than tolerance. It will mean outreach to the other. And it
will mean, on a Catholic campus, embracing the spirit of dialogue bequeathed
to the church by Vatican II.
We have already noted the emphasis that Gaudium et Spes places on
dialogue with the world. The actual word 'dialogue' (dialogus) appears
four times in that document and even more often in the decree on
ecumenism (five times) and the decree on the church's missionary activity
(six times). It is also used in the decree on religious liberty; and
throughout the documents the related word 'discussion' (colloquium) is
used even more widely.27 But the council did more than talk about
discussion and dialogue. Vatican II also practiced what it preached,
and, according to Joseph Komonchak, continues to serve as a model for
dialogue. The council, he writes, "provided ample room for discussion
[and] debate, for disagreement, and, as often as not, these were dealt
with by conciliation and compromise for the sake of as broad a consensus
as possible."28
Dialogue—in the sense of a willingness to engage with others on
sensitive topics like religion, politics, or culture—-is rarely easy and not
always successful. Yet, in the spirit of Vatican II, it belongs at the heart
of a Catholic university's commitment to ethnic diversity. As Bradford
Hintze suggests in the following description, taken from his study of
practices of dialogue in the Catholic Church since Vatican II, dialogue
does not guarantee moving beyond tolerance, yet it holds great promise
for doing just that-for breaking down barriers and building community:
The distinctive, dynamic feature of dialogue ... is the back-and-forth movement in
communication between individuals in which people are acting both as speakers
and listeners and there is an exchange of messages that provide the condition for
possible common understandings, judgments, decisions, and actions. Through this
exchange people can gain insight into their personal and communal identity and
into the world; horizons expand, minds and hearts change, conversions occur. Such
a dynamic supplies the necessary ingredients in the formation of bonds of relationship,
bonds that may withstand varieties of hostility, or elicit uneasy tolerance, but
______________________________________
27 Bradford E. Hintze, Practices of Dialogue in the Roman Catholic Church: Aims,
Obstacles, Lessons and Laments, (New York: Continuum, 2006) 308, note 28.
28 Ibid., 126.
35
ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY 205
that also provide the condition for the possibility of the deepest forms of sociality,
friendship, and love.29
In an article addressing the mission of Catholic higher education in a
divided world, David Hollenbach, S.J., is similarly optimistic about the
possibilities of dialogue for breaking down barriers that have traditionally
divided local and global communities. He is specifically concerned
with a renewed dedication in Catholic universities to the common good,
which of course includes harmonious relationships among ethnic
groups. In developing his argument he makes a case for the importance
of dialogue in casual social contacts as well as in more structured
academic encounters.
Hollenbach believes that the common good, a central theme in Catholic
tradition long before Vatican II (it has roots in Aristotle and was
discussed by Aquinas) is in serious trouble today from both American
and global pluralism. He points out that many thinkers (e.g., John
Rawls) claim that we cannot be expected to agree on the good we share
in common. Without such agreement, groups that are fundamentally
divergent in their culture, religious tradition, or way of life appear as
threats to one another. "The most they can hope for is tolerance, and for
many middle-class Americans, this is the highest good."30 Hollenbach
argues that Catholic universities are well situated to counter this predilection
for individual goods over the common good. Catholic universities,
he writes,
.. . have a particular capacity and special responsibility to bring reflection on the
common good to bear on the [racial, ethnic, and class] divisions of our metropolitan
areas and on the cultural and religious conflicts that divide our globalizing
world.... The teaching and research of Catholic universities ought to be making
notable contributions to understanding how metropolitan and global interdependence
can embody commitment to the common good. This can be called the university's
mission of solidarity.31
According to Hollenbach, this mission of solidarity in pursuit of the
local and global common good can take two forms: social and intellectual
solidarity. Both presuppose dialogue.
_______________________________
29 Hintze> Practices of Dialogue in the Roman Catholic Church: Aims, Obstacles,
Lessons and Laments, 8.
30 David Hollenbach, S.J., "Strength in Mission through Solidarity: Catholic Higher
Education in a Divided World," Current Issues in Catholic Higher Education 23.2
(Summer 2003): 6.
31 Ibid., 7.
36
206 CURRENT ISSUES IN CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION - 25:2
Social solidarity reflects the idea, prominent in Catholic social
thought, that the dignity of human persons comes to fruition in community.
Social solidarity therefore rejects all forms of personal interaction
"that reinforce inequality and existing patterns of exclusion,
whether these be economic, political, or cultural."32 It is equivalent to
what Aristotle called "civic friendship" and is a prerequisite for justice.
Indeed, the ultimate injustice—the negation of social solidarity—happens
when "a person or group [is] treated actively or abandoned passively
as if they were non-members of the human race."33
Unjust exclusion can take many forms, whether on a college campus
or in the wider community, and people who promote it—or simply
tolerate it when they could do otherwise—fail in their responsibility to
the common good. It is the duty of Catholic higher education to sensitize
students to the responsibilities of social solidarity or civic friendship
and help them envision ways to live it out, ways that involve talking
and interacting—dialogue—with individuals from groups other than
their own.
Intellectual solidarity, which implies a more structured academic context
than social solidarity, calls for honest, respectful dialogue that is
hopeful of convergence and open to the possibility of growth. According
to Hollenbach, intellectual solidarity requires "more than a tolerance
that simply leaves others who are different alone ... it requires both
listening and speaking in a genuine conversation across the boundaries
that have traditionally divided the world."34 He adds this particularly
apposite observation:
Overall the Catholic intel1ectual tradition [has] a conviction that cultures holding
different visions of the good life can get somewhere if they are willing to risk serious
engagement with one another. This conviction should above all shape the Catholic
university today, marking [its members] with a readiness to listen to those with
different views ... while being unafraid to speak [their own] convictions with true
humility.35
Like Hollenbach, William M. Shea finds a strong impetus within the
Catholic intellectual tradition, spurred on by Vatican II, for active dialogue
with— rather than passive tolerance of— those from other back-
_____________________
32 Ibid., 8.
33 Ibid., 8. (quoting Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and
Equality [New York: Basic Books, 1983J 76).
34 Ibid., 9.
35 Ibid., 10.
37
ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY 207
grounds or traditions. In an article entitled "Beyond Tolerance: Pluralism
and Catholic Higher Education," Shea focuses on religious pluralism,
but his general analysis of tolerance and its shortcomings is
equally relevant when applied to ethnic pluralism. He cites a dictionary
definition of tolerance—"to suffer to be or to be done without prohibition,
hindrance, or contradiction" — and notes (as did Hollenbach)
that although tolerance in this sense is a useful political virtue, it is
"essentially negative," namely, "the willingness and the ability to put
up with something the elimination of which might be more difficult or
dangerous.36
Shea then differentiates three types of tolerance. He calls the first
type the tolerance of the Enlightenment. It is characterized by a concealed
classicism and "takes its own truth for granted, along with the
falsity or inauthenticity of the tolerated." For Shea, this type of tolerance
"leads nowhere," least of all to understanding. It can be the tolerance
of a bigot.37 Shea's second type—relativist tolerance—is characteristic
of what he calls the "muddle headed liberal." Far from being a
bigot, the liberal relativist may profess openness but "will not engage in
serious critical conversation about beliefs and values because, in the
final analysis, no belief or value is incorrect or wrong.38 Shea's critique
of these first two types of tolerance is devastating:
The tolerance of the Enlightenment and the tolerance of liberalism are no longer
adequate for dealing with the realities of American political, academic, and eccle-
sial life. They either permit us to avoid and ignore the other or they permit us to
talk with the other without taking the conversation seriously. They militate
against the very task of education: they may allow the other, whether student or
faculty member, to "construct their world of meaning” but they do not aid in it or
lead to it. Neither of these versions of tolerance befits the teacher or the administrator
who cares about the integrity of education ... 39
But there is a third type of tolerance, which Shea calls "active tolerance"
and which closely resembles Hollenbach's social and intellectual
solidarity. Neither arrogant (like the tolerance of the Enlightenment)
nor condescending (like relativist tolerance), active tolerance "is based
on humility and on respect for the minds and hearts and history of
others.... When it is practiced with full heart, it is the sort of tolerance
________________
36 William M. Shea, "Beyond Tolerance: Pluralism and Catholic Higher Education,"
Current Issues in Catholic Higher Education 8.2 (Winter 1988): 39.
37 Ibid., 39.
38 Ibid., 39.
39 Ibid., 39.
38
208 CURRENT ISSUES IN CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION -- 25:2
that seeks the truth in the life and words of another and assumes that
there is a truth there to be found.”40 For Shea, this type of tolerance—
he says perhaps it should be called by another name—is a "crucial"
virtue in academic life.41 It is the tolerance of genuine dialogue—it
requires careful listening as well as speaking—and happens only when
participants from different racial, ethnic, or religious groups (or from
both sides of a disputed question) take responsibility for their convictions
and express what is most meaningful to them with clarity, courage
and a willingness to grow in mutual understanding.
Shea makes a convincing case that the first two types of tolerance are
not up to the task of fruitful academic discourse, leaving us free to
conclude that something more is required if faculty, staff, and students
are going to embrace (rather than give hesitating or indifferent approval
to) a commitment to ethnic diversity. That "something more" is
the kind of dialogue that, as Shea acknowledges, moves beyond tolerance
to a genuine willingness to engage the other.
As we saw in the first part of this paper, a basic commitment to ethnic
diversity on the part of a Catholic university is not simply a political
statement but is also, and more fundamentally, an expression of religious
identity. Similarly, the embrace of diversity as offering positive
educational benefits to an entire campus community takes on added
urgency at Catholic universities because it is an opportunity to put into
practice the spirit of dialogue bequeathed to the church by Vatican II.
In their overlapping emphases on dialogue and social/intellectual solidarity,
Shea and Hollenbach take us beyond tolerance and help us to
see that a Catholic university's commitment to ethnic diversity cannot
be simply a matter of nondiscrimination in providing access for historically
under-represented minority groups. It is indeed that, but it is also
an opportunity for majority as well as minority members of a university
community to engage one another in their pursuit of knowledge and, in
that enterprise, to open themselves to new possibilities of friendship
and love. "To risk serious engagement," in Hollenbach's phrase, is to
embrace the kind of dialogue that moves away from a person's comfort
zone and ordinary frames of reference (thus it is a risk) in order to
____________________
40 Ibid.
41 Loyola, Ignatius. The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. Trans. George E.
Ganss, S.J., St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992. Cf. Ignatian Presupposition:
“'Every good Christian ought to be more ready to give a favorable interpretation to
another's perhaps obscure statement or position than to condemn it” (St. Ignatius
Loyola, Spiritual Exercises #22).
39
ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY 209
create an epistemological world where new knowledge can be born and
where human dignity will be respected, social justice promoted, and the
common good advanced. In a university setting there are many occasions,
both formal and informal, intellectual and social, for such dialogue. 42
In a Catholic university, embracing them is an opportunity—and
also a responsibility—to break down barriers of fear, to expand
horizons, and to grow in human solidarity.
Particularity and Inclusivity: A Creative Tension
As crucial as ethnic diversity may be for the identity of today's Catholic
university, it is nonetheless only a part of that identity. We saw
above that the documents of Vatican II (especially Gaudium et Spes), as
well as subsequent ecclesial statements, help us situate a Catholic commitment
to ethnic diversity in the church's concern for human dignity,
social justice, and the common good. Yet in developing such themes and
in its desire to honor diversity-catholicity with a small "c"—the council
"drew upon the wider intellectual heritage of Catholicism, the broader
theological framework within which the social fits.43 This "wider intellectual
heritage"—which in fact is not exclusively theological, which
includes an imaginative as well as an intellectual dimension, and which
is perhaps more aptly called the "Catholic cultural tradition"44—is the
birthright and defining characteristic of Catholic universities. It differentiates
them from their secular counterparts and, in some respects,
____________________
42 Loyola Marymount University Brochure. Interculturalism: Definition, Vision, and
Goals. October 2005. The kinds of dialogue I have been emphasizing as incumbent upon
a Catholic university in the spirit of Vatican II overlap with the pro-active approach to
ethnic diversity known as interculturalism. At Loyola Marymount University, for example,
Interculturalism is defined as "sharing and learning across cultures with the
aim of promoting understanding, equity, harmony, and justice in a diverse society." The
interculturalism vision statement elaborates: "Grounded in the Catholic intellectual
tradition, Loyola Marymount University affirms human dignity and promotes justice.
Different cultures are unique expressions of these common aspirations. All cultures can
contribute to the search for knowledge and the building of communities based on the
common humanity of all people. At LMU interculturalism is an essential source of
academic excellence and a defining characteristic of our campus community. We draw
upon interculturalism to create a university of excellence, to serve as a model Catholic
institution, and to be a catalyst for the creation of a more just society built 'on respect
and a sense of shared destiny."
43 Bryan J. Hehir, Remarks Delivered at August 3-6, 1995, Conference at University
of St. Thomas. In Occasional Papers on Catholic Higher Education 1.1 (November
1995): 37.
44 Robert N. Bellah, "Religton and the Shape of National Culture" America 181.3
(July 31·August 7,1999): 11-14. Robert N. Bellah writes of “a Catholic cultural tradition
in America that has never been completely Protestantized." (13).
40
210 CURRENT ISSUES IN CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION - 25:2
from other church-related colleges and universities. To the extent that
it is alive and well, it keeps these universities—at the heart of their
academic life as well as in their institutional ethos—a—true to their identity
and ensures that they remain not only inclusive but also Catholic in
a particular sense, Catholic with a large "C." Such universities, even as
they grow in academic distinction, aspire to be recognized as centers of
Catholic life and culture; indeed, as places where the church does its
thinking.
An increasing volume of literature has appeared in recent years on
the Catholic cultural/intellectual tradition and on the nature of Catholic
higher education, much of it motivated by a concern that Catholic
universities not go the way of many originally Protestant institutions
that threw off their religious identity during the late nineteenth century
and throughout the twentieth.45 It is beyond the scope of this
paper to provide a comprehensive overview of this literature, so let it
suffice for present purposes to note that the cultural/intellectual tradition
that belongs at the heart of a Catholic university includes characteristics
such as these.46
1. It views the world as sacramental and seeks to find God in
all things. Whereas classic Protestantism stresses the otherness
of God, Catholicism, with its strong focus on the incarnation, refuses
to lose sight of the immanence of God. In the words of Jesuit
poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, ''The world is charged with the grandeur
of God."46b On this view, the world is filled with signs that speak
________________
45 Associated Press, ((Church Ties Loosened by Many Universities," Los Angeles
Times, August 22, 1992, B4-B5. An iconic example was the dramatic decision of Presbyterian-
founded Occidental College in Los Angeles to remove the cross from its campus
chapel as the college strove to project a pluralistic image. According to President
John Slaughter, "Part of the problem here was that the college was perceived to be
continuing to behave as though it were a Christian college. This created some difficulties
with students and faculty members." (B5).
46 The following list makes no pretension to completeness. It draws heavily on explanations
and examples of the Catholic intellectual/cultural tradition developed more
fully by, among others, Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, "The Catholic Intellectual Tradition,"
address given during August 3-6, 1995, conference at University of St. Thomas
and published in Origins 25.11 (August 24, 1995): 169, 170-73 (also in Association of
Catholic Colleges and Universities, Occasional Papers On Catholic Higher Education
1.1 [November 1995]: 3-10); and by Mark W. Roche, The Intellectual Appeal of Catholicism
and the Idea of a Catholic University (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press), 2003. Both Steinfels and Roche reflect themes from John Paul II's Ex Corde
Ecclesiae.
46b ((God's Grandeur/' The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, 4th ed. (London: Oxford
UP, 1967), 66.
41
ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY 211
to us of hidden realities, as do the church's seven sacraments—outward
signs of graced experience. Especially in the Eucharist, believers
encounter Christ and, in communion with him, grow in community
with one another.
2. It takes philosophical and theological thinking seriously.
Catholics are not fundamentalists nor do they hold to the principle
of sola scriptura. They view theology as faith seeking understanding,
and from the beginning they have sought to give an accounting
of what they believe. Early on they began to see their faith through
the lens of Greek thought and thus brought into the church a
tradition of philosophical reflection. It flourished in the first universities,
founded by the church in the middle ages, and continues
to the present day. In contrast to the dominant secular view,
Catholic tradition stresses the ability of the human mind to arrive
at reasonably argued conclusions and, ultimately, to know objective
truth.47
3. It esteems both intellect and imagination. In Catholic tradition,
the speculative mind of Thomas Aquinas is no less esteemed
than the poetic imagination of Dante Alighieri. While extremists
among the Reformers were smashing statues and destroying
stained glass in their zeal to purify religion, Catholic devotion was
fostering the use of imagination in prayer and promoting a baroque
sensual exuberance in art and architecture. Although not
without its own strain of Puritanism, Catholic tradition, in esteeming
works of imagination as well as intellect, honors both sides of
the flesh-spirit duality. Given the tradition's emphasis on incarnation,
it could do no less.
4. It eschews the supposition that there can be value-free
facts. Was the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima merely
a fact or also a moral evil? For Catholic thinkers, it was, of course,
both. In Catholic tradition facts are rarely simple, autonomous realities
but have implicit teleologies and value implications. As Margaret
_______________
47 For a position quite at odds with the Catholic intellectual tradition, of media
commentator Tim Rutten's description and criticism of "a strong new current in American
life—the culture of assertion, which increasingly pushes logical argument out of our
public conversation. According to this schema, things are true because I believe they are
true and you have to respect that, because it's what I believe/' Rutten adds that the
culture of assertion "makes things like creationism an issue in our schools and the
demands of biblical literalism a force in our politics." (Los Angeles Times [May 20,
2006j, E13). Tim Rutten. "Concoct a Word War? It Won't Crack This Code," Los Angeles
Times, May 20, 2006, El, E13.
42
212 CURRENT ISSUES IN CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATlON - 25:2
O'Brien Steinfels has observed, "The notion that education can be
a value-neutral process in which teachers simply convey facts
and students simply receive them, in which behavior is neither
right nor wrong but a matter of personal choice, in which judgments
are neither better or worse, but simply someone's opinion, is
nonsense.”48
5. It respects the integrity of the individual but also pursues
the common good. The American ethos, as influenced by classic
Protestantism, exalts the autonomy of the individual and is thus
not entirely comfortable with the idea of the common good. Catholicism,
on the other hand, takes seriously the demands of biblical
justice and social solidarity. Even while it has learned from
Protestantism a deepened respect for individual integrity, it "elevates
to an unusual degree the embeddedness of the individual
within a collective identity.”49 As we have already seen, this concern
for the common good is reflected in the documents of Vatican
II and other ecclesial writings. In a specifically American context,
Robert Bellah views Catholics as having a special responsibility to
promote the common good as a counter-balance to the dominant
individualism of our culture.50
6. It seeks an integration of knowledge in which "faith and
reason bear harmonious witness to the unity of all truth." 51
All learning, all intellectual disciplines shed light on the created
world and point beyond to the Source of truth. In Catholic tradition,
this is why faith and reason are not antagonistic or ultimately
contradictory and why there is optimism about the ability of the mind
to know objective truth. It is also why contemporary Catholicism
encourages dialogue with culture and other faith traditions; why it
looks, as toward a horizon never quite attained, for the integration
_________________
48Steinfels, "The Catholic Intellectual Tradition," 9.
49Roche, The Intellectual Appeal of Catholicism and the Idea of a Catholic University,
11. 50This is the theme of Bellah's article cited above. Interestingly, he remarks, page 13,
a strong correlation between the common good and the Catholic emphasis on the sacraments,
especially the Eucharist: "The sacraments pull us into an embodied world of
relationships and connections ... rather than a world in which individuals attempt to
escape from society” The tension between individuals and society is already implicit in
an earlier work, Bellah et aI., Habits of the Heart (Berkeley: UC Press, 1985). Robert
Putnam's evocatively titled Bowling Alone (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000) also
addresses this tension.
51Ex Carde Ecclesiae, 17.
43
ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITY 213
of knowledge, not its compartmentalization.52 The search for the
unity of truth and integration of knowledge is reflected in the
propensity of Catholic universities to raise ethical/moral questions
across the disciplines, to place equal emphasis on teaching and
research, and to link the liberal arts with professional training.
In its emphasis on ethical values and dialogue and in its concern for
social justice, solidarity, and the common good, this list of characteristics
reinforces the grounding for a Catholic university's commitment to
ethnic diversity that we reviewed more extensively in earlier sections of
this paper. At the same time, even this brief glimpse at the Catholic
intellectual/cultural tradition suggests that a university claiming
Catholic identity will need to live out this claim in ways that can leave
no doubt as to its distinctive and unifying religious ethos. It will indeed
welcome to the campus community and actively engage non-Catholics,
ethnic minorities, and members of other previously under-represented
groups. More fundamentally, however, it will ensure that it nurtures
and makes available to successive generations of students the full
riches of the Catholic intellectual tradition. It will therefore promote, in
the words of Ex Corde Ecclesiae, "a continuing reflection in the light of
the Catholic faith upon the growing treasury of human knowledge, to
which it seeks to contribute by its own research,”53— research that
"necessarily includes (a) the search for an integration of knowledge, (b)
a dialogue between faith and reason, (c) an ethical concern, and (d) a
theological perspective.”54
In sum, a truly Catholic university will be known for its inclusivity
but even more for its dedication to the intellectual/cultural tradition
that is its birthright—and that undergirds its commitment to diversity
more profoundly than any consideration of legal or political exigency
might do.
No one claims it is easy to achieve the dual goals of particularity and
inclusivity—of a strong Catholic identity and simultaneous commitment
to ethnic diversity. As noted above, engagement across cultural
____________
52Roche, The Intellectual Appeal of Catholicism and the Idea of a Catholic University,
29-30, finds a grounding for academic freedom in the Catholic approach to discovering
truth: "The defense of academic freedom need not arise only from the Protestant elevation
of the autonomy of the individual; it can equally derive from the Catholic elevation
of truth as that which is best discovered by our having listened carefully to all possible
positions."
53 Ex Corde Ecclesiae, #13.
54 Ex Carde Ecclesiae, #15.
44
45
214 CURRENT ISSUES IN CATHOLIC HIGHER EDUCATION - 25:2
divides can be a risky business. And, to cite an example from the volatile
realm of faculty hiring, Thomas Monahan, Dean of Commerce and
Finance at Villanova University, believes that "the goal of diversity
implies a potential conflict with the goals of preserving our Augustinian
Catholic identity.”55 Other potential conflicts or turf battles—in student
recruitment, core curriculum emphases, allocation of resources,
etc.—are not hard to imagine. Yet such conflicts need not be either/or
situations. Catholicism is no stranger to the reconciling of tensions. As
the church's intellectual-cultural tradition suggests, a whole range of
polarities is endemic to Catholic life. We have already noted those between
transcendence and immanence, faith and reason, grace and nature,
fact and value, individual and community; and still others could
be added, for example, between obedience and freedom, or between
prayer and work.56 In each of these polarities, as long as both sides
remain in creative tension, with neither side trumping the other, balance
is achieved and the vibrancy of the tradition is assured.
This paradigm can be a reassuring source of hope for United States
Catholic universities as they seek to balance their faith-inspired commitment
to ethnic diversity and educational equity for traditionally under-represented
groups with fidelity to the unifying religious heritage that supports and
enriches that commitment.
_____________________
55 Thomas Monahan, Villanova University, "Mission-Centered Faculty Hiring: Some
Difficult Choices," April 4, 2002, http://www.villauova.eduJaaup/archive/hiring.htm
(Accessed November 29, 2005).
56 William A. Barry, S.J., and Robert G. Doherty, S.J., have explored the tensions
characteristic of Jesuit spirituality in a small book entitled Contemplatives in Action:
The Jesuit Way (New York: Paulist Press, 2002). Mutatis mutandis, what they say of
balancing the tensions in Jesuit spirituality speaks as well to the range of polarities
inherent in Catholic life. They write that "Jesuit spirituality functions best when [the]
tensions are alive and clearly felt, that is, when Jesuits experience within themselves
the pulls of both sides of each polarity" (5).
BenefitsofaDiverseFaculty:AReviewoftheLiterature
Abbie Robinson-Armstrong, Ph.D.
Loyola Marymount University
Derenda King, Ed.D.
Loyola Marymount University
David Killoran, Ph.D.
Loyola Marymount University
Colleges and universities with a predominantly white faculty drastically limit the
institution’s ability to provide educational experiences that produce “an empowered, informed, and
responsible student capable of negotiating the inevitable differences in a diverse society”
(University of Arizona, 2006, p. 1). Conversely, an institution with a diverse faculty provides
significant benefits for everyone in the campus community. In this paper, we define a diverse
faculty as one that is characterized by a “diversity of experience, age, physical ability, religion,
ethnicity, gender, and other human attributes” (WISELI, 2004, p. 2).
According to the American Psychological Association, many institutions strive to create a
diverse faculty to ensure a broad representation of viewpoints, paradigms, and content expertise
(American Psychological Association (APA), 1994). Not only can a diverse faculty prepare
students to live and work in an increasingly complex global society, a professorate marked by
diversity 1) “promotes cognitive, social and emotional growth and development in students, 2)
increase and raise the level of intellectual discussion within the faculty, and 3) adds multiple
perspectives, theories and approaches to scholarship and the curriculum that students consume”
(Milem & Hakuta, 2000, p. 39).
While colleges and universities have experienced steady growth in the ethnic and gender
diversity of student populations, they have not experienced similar growth in the faculty (Turner,
2002). According to Smith, Turner, Osei-Kofi, and Richards (2004), many campuses engage in
efforts to diversify the faculty—usually fueled by arguments related to the increasingly diverse
student population and the need to prepare all students for a diverse society—but the reality is that
the least successful of diversity initiatives is in the area of faculty diversity.
Methodology
The primary goal of our research was to conduct an integrative review. According to
Jackson (1980), an integrative review infers “generalizations about substantive issues from a set of
studies directly bearing on those issues” (p. 438). Our intent was to summarize accumulated
knowledge and highlight important issues concerning the benefits of faculty diversity (Cooper,
1982). In 2006, we began our search for scholarly literature on the benefits of a diverse faculty by
46
reviewing research that spanned a ten-year period, 1998-2008. The resources collected included
journal articles, book chapters, books, and reports.
We utilized several academic search engines to locate and retrieve scholarly material, such
as Google Scholar, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Journal Storage (JS), the
Wilson Index, Project Muse, PsycINFO, and Wiley Interscience. Additional article sources were
identified through Academe, Journal of College Student Development, Journal of Diversity in
Higher Education, Journal of Higher Education, the Review of Higher Education Journal, Research
in Higher Education Journal, and the Review of Educational Research Journal.
Key word searches consisted of the following terms: benefits of faculty diversity,
diversifying the faculty, educational benefits of diversity, valuing diversity in faculty, educational
value of diversity, and the importance of faculty diversity. What follows is a summary of the
literature on the benefits of a diverse faculty. Specifically, we describe the ways in which a diverse
faculty impacts colleges and universities, student learning and citizenship outcomes, student
retention and persistence, faculty, the curriculum, and campus climate.
Impact of a Diverse Faculty on Colleges and Universities
A. Helps Institutions Fulfill the Mission of Higher Education
Gurin (2001) states that the overarching mission of higher education is “to prepare young
people for active participation in our democratic society, which is an increasingly diverse society”
(p. 1). The researcher further noted the following:
institutions of higher education have an obligation, first and foremost, to create the best
possible educational environment for the young adults whose lives are likely to be
significantly changed during their years on campus. Specific objectives may vary from one
institution to another, but all efforts must be directed to ensuring an optimal educational
environment for these young people who are at a critical stage of development that will
complete the foundation for how they will conduct their lives. (p. 1)
An analysis of the mission statements of the top twenty-eight liberal arts colleges in the
United States, as ranked by U. S. News and World Report, supported Gurin’s philosophical stance
on the mission and purpose of American higher education. The mission statements contained a
range of essential aspirations that surpassed intellectual mastery as a goal (Anonymous, 2000).
More than half of the institutions included the following values in their mission statements: “1)
developing self knowledge and growing personally, 2) learning perspectives from diversity, 3)
developing and nurturing a liberated, creative mind, and 4) gaining an increased capacity for
tolerance, respect, and concern for others” (p. 2). The value of learning from diversity was
recognized by more than 60% of these colleges. Tolerance and respect for others was an essential
element in 57% of their mission statements.
B. Enhances an Institution’s Academic Reputation
The presence of faculty from diverse backgrounds enhances an institution’s academic
reputation among its key constituents, including students, parents, funding agencies, and American
47
corporations. Today’s sophisticated students and their parents understand the value of emersion in a
diverse college environment. Parents tend to encourage their children to select institutions that can
provide opportunities for them to interact with students and faculty who are different from
themselves. Funding agencies and foundations, such as the Kellogg Foundation and the Ford
Foundation, place a high emphasis on diversity within the institutions they choose to fund.
American corporations increasingly demand that institutions of higher education produce graduates
“who have studied, confronted, and appreciated diverse points of view” (Maher, 2002, p. 1). To
meet the demands of these important constituencies, institutions must aggressively recruit and
retain a diverse faculty (American Psychological Association (APA), 1994; Humphreys, 1995;
Maher, 2002; Maimon & Garcia, 1997; Milem, 2003; Tatum, 2003).
C. Helps an Institution Achieve its Mission of Excellence in Research and Teaching
In order to prepare students for the new global reality, institutions must fully engage their
communities of scholars in cutting edge research that incorporates multiple views, theories and
approaches (Maher, 2002). “By nurturing a diverse group of scholars, [a] university can participate
fully in current scholarly discussions and activities [that sustain and improve] the academic
reputation” (p. 1). According to Smith and Moses (2004), a diverse university speaks to the core of
the vitality and viability of an institution. Only through a diverse faculty can all of those concerned,
as well as society as a whole, “draw from a full range of perspectives that both challenge and inform
knowledge production and dissemination” (p. 1).
D. Helps an Institution Prepare Students for a New Global Reality
A diverse faculty plays a major role in preparing students for a workforce that is undergoing
rapid and unexpected changes. A diverse workforce, from the perspective of the business
community, will lead to a successful enterprise. A diverse faculty draws on the strengths of a
variety of sources and enables differing viewpoints to enter into the dialogue to resolve problems.
Maimon and Garcia (1997) said “in order to prepare all students for a new global reality, our
universities must provide an environment that values the differences that make every individual
unique and inspires all students and faculty to reach their full potential” (p. 4). Turner (2000) sums
it up nicely:
Major companies seem to be discovering that diversity is vital to their success. If higher
education intends to continue to educate students for the world of work, it must also
embrace the contributions different perspectives can bring. In other words, institutions need
to provide arenas in which students can interact and exchange ideas with professors from
diverse backgrounds. As the populations of minority groups continue to grow in this
country, the viability of U. S. higher education may depend on the ability of colleges and
universities to meet this goal. (p. 1)
E. Helps an Institution Demonstrate Support for Fairness and Justice
According to Tatum (2003), diversity is not simply a good idea. It provides evidence that
colleges and universities are fair in their thinking and just in their practices. “Twenty years ago, a
lack of diversity within a university faculty was a consequence of unequal opportunity in American
48
society. Today, a lack of diversity within a university faculty suggests unequal opportunity in that
university” (p. 2).
Impact of a Diverse Faculty on Student Learning and Citizenship Outcomes
A. Increases Student Learning and Citizenship Outcomes
A diverse faculty impacts student learning and citizenship outcomes in a number of ways
(Wilds, 1999). According to Hurtado, Ponjuan, and Smith (2003), learning outcomes are impacted
by a distinctive use of pedagogical techniques, the introduction of diversity in the curriculum, and
experiential opportunities that allow students to utilize in real life the concepts they have learned in
the classroom. Moreover, learning outcomes associated with diversity and inclusion impact
students’ academic growth, cognitive development, complex thinking skills, intellectual self-
confidence, motivation, and institutional satisfaction and involvement (University of Arizona,
2006). For example, Wilds (2000) cited a study by Pascarella, Edison, Nora, Hagedorn, and
Terenzini (1996) that found that students who engage in activities that provide opportunities to
formulate positive relationships with other students and faculty from backgrounds different from
their own showed measurable gains in their critical thinking skills, reported greater openness to
diversity and challenge, [and] exhibited reduced levels of ethnocentrism.
B. Increases Benefits for European American Students
Research has also shown that a diverse faculty provides more benefits for European
American students than for students of color, particularly those coming from homogenous
backgrounds who have had little if any previous contact with minorities, and whose interpretations
of minorities are primarily influenced by negative media images (Alger, 1997). The existence of
minorities in faculty positions provides students with diverse role models and increases the
likelihood for students to interact with them and develop more effective mentoring relationships
(Turner, 2002). Furthermore, according to Chang (2007) and Austin (1993) (as cited in Diversity
Digest, 1997), “the more diverse the faculty and student body, the greater the likelihood that the
[European American] student will socialize with someone of a different [ethnic] group or discuss
[cultural] issues” (p. 3). Cross cultural interaction has been shown to contribute to the students’
“academic development, college GPA, satisfaction with college, level of cultural
awareness…commitment to multiculturalism and diversity, intellectual self-confidence, and social
self-confidence” (p. 3). Findings from another study further underscore the long-term educational
benefits of cross-cultural interaction for [European American] students. Using post-college
graduation survey data, the study found that “interacting with [people] of color during and after
college has a positive effect on [European American] males’ post-college sense of social
responsibility and participation in community service activities” (Villapando, 1996, as cited in
Diversity Digest, 1997, pp. 3 – 4).
C. Increases Student Retention and Persistence
Interaction with a diverse faculty also plays a critical role in student retention and
persistence (Alger, 1999; Antonio, 2003; Hurtado, 2001; Milem, 2003; WASC, 2001). Research
has shown that the single leading predictor of college attrition is insufficient interaction with other
49
members in a college community (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1997, as cited in Nagda, Gregerman,
Jonides, von Hippel & Lerner, 1998). Sufficient interaction involves sustained, informal contact—
students interacting with other students and faculty—and it must occur early in a student’s career in
college, a time when they have a greater likelihood of departing (Levin & Levin, 1991, as cited in
Nagda et. al., 1998). Noel and Smith (1996) found that European American, African American and
Mexican American students prefer to disclose information to faculty members of their own cultural
background. African American and Mexican American students, however, have a stronger
preference, especially concerning topics of a cultural, academic or sensitive nature, which further
strengthens the case for faculty diversity.
Additionally, minority students comment that the presence of a diverse faculty provides a
welcoming atmosphere which increases the likelihood that they will connect with role models who
share their same experience and beliefs. Daryl Smith (1989), in her book The Challenge of
Diversity: Involvement or Alienation in the Academy? described the benefits of faculty diversity in
higher education, particularly for students of color: faculty diversity 1) provides support for
students from diverse backgrounds, 2) serves as a symbol of the institutions’ commitment to people
of color, 3) creates a more comfortable environment for students as well as for faculty and staff of
color, 4) broadens the range of what is taught and how it is taught, and 5) creates opportunities for
collaboration to occur among minority and majority faculty. Thus, for students of color, “the
absence of faculty and staff of color signals that it may be difficult to get the support and mentoring
that they need to achieve academic success” (Feagin, 2002, p. 26). Students need to feel that it is
possible to achieve the objectives they have for themselves and that there are people who are
willing to assist them by serving as advisors and sources of inspiration.
Impact of a Diverse Faculty on the Curriculum
A. Adds Multiple Perspectives, Theories and Approaches to Scholarship
Diversity in the faculty has increased the production of new knowledge about socio-cultural
differences. Women and faculty of color employ a wider range of pedagogical techniques. They are
more likely to introduce readings and research that address the contributions of women and
minorities in their courses (Milem, 2003). Gurin (2001) found that after four years of college,
students who were exposed to diversity in the curriculum demonstrated higher intellectual and civic
engagement than students who had little to no exposure to diversity in the classroom. Thus, the
presence of a diverse faculty not only improves intellectual engagement and academic motivation,
but it diversifies the course offerings, texts, and classroom examples, which improves
communication, understanding, and interaction among individuals of diverse backgrounds (Alger,
1997; Wild, 2000).
Paul Penfield (1993), a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), wrote:
Women and minority faculty bring to the department a different perspective on engineering.
Whether because of biology or culture, women usually tend to have somewhat different
beliefs about what is important, about appropriate uses of technology, and about how human
occupations, including engineering, are or should be carried on. These different attitudes and
50
styles should be represented in our teaching and research program. Our students’ education
is incomplete without them. (p. 3)
Contributions from faculty of varied diverse backgrounds incorporate multiple scholarly
perspectives, theories and approaches. They also help faculty learn how to effectively teach in a
diverse classroom. John Brooks Slaughter (2000), the President Emeritus at Occidental College and
the former Director of the National Science Foundation stated that “through the use of team
teaching and interdisciplinary approaches to education as well as syllabi rich with contributions
from a multiplicity of sources, the strengths of a diverse faculty can be exercised in a highly
effective manner” (p. 25).
Antonio (2002) found several trends on the impact of faculty diversification on scholarship:
• Although European American faculty produced more research as measured by traditional
means, faculty from diverse backgrounds “were more likely to place a high degree of
personal importance on engaging in research activities, to spend more time per week
engaged in research and writing, and to feel that the opportunity to pursue research was a
very important consideration in choosing a career in academe” (p. 591).
• While most if not all faculty believe that colleges should be involved in solving problems
and influencing change in society, diverse faculty were more likely to take personal
responsibility for participation in social change and more likely to advise students involved
in community service.
The findings suggest that these are deep and compelling reasons to renew with vigor efforts to
diversify the faculty. “Faculty of color bring to the academy a unique combination of values and
philosophies from which higher education can benefit” (Antonio, 2002, p. 598).
51
Impact of a Diverse Faculty on Campus Climate
A diverse faculty also impacts the campus climate. The presence of underrepresented faculty
helps attract and retain new underrepresented faculty. This process provides increased opportunities
for intergroup interaction, which, in turn contributes to creating a healthy climate. “A diverse
campus with a healthy climate will both promote and reflect the inclusion of all cultures and
perspectives in the research, curriculum and pedagogy across all disciplines” (UC Campus Climate
Work Team Report, 2007, p. 3). As a result, the university’s commitment to diversity is reinforced.
A. Reduces Isolation
A diverse faculty may also reduce the isolation experienced by women and people of color,
which may lead to increased productivity and a greater likelihood of promotion (Lamont, Kalev,
Bowden, & Fosse, 2004). According to Antonio (2003), “resistance to diversity in less diverse
environments contributes to an inhospitable climate for faculty from diverse backgrounds” (p. 3).
Diversity among the faculty and the student body as well forces institutions to improve their
climates for diversity, creates a sense of community, and provides opportunities for role modeling
and mentorship.
B. Alleviates Negative Stereotypes
The benefits of faculty diversity may be even more valuable for faculty than students,
especially as it serves to break down negative stereotypes about the intellectual authority and
expertise of women and faculty of color. According to Alger (1999), European American faculty
may have the most to gain from interaction with diverse faculty, “because as members of [the]
majority [group], they have lived in a culture where most people in positions of authority are also
[European American]” (p. 5). Face-to-face interaction is a critical component of the learning
process and if properly channeled, it can enrich the educational experience for everyone on campus.
Discussion
The values in the mission statements of the top 28 liberal arts colleges in the nation indicate
that some of our most prestigious institutions understand the value of a diverse academy. They also
indicate that, in many instances, faculty and administrators now understand the overarching mission
of American higher education—to promote critical reflection and to stimulate cognitive, social and
emotional growth, and development that prepares students to live in a diverse society. Colleges and
universities cannot realize this mission without recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty (Meacham
& Barrett, 2003; Smith & Moses, 2004). Fifty years of empirical evidence leads researchers to
conclude that “a diverse faculty provides substantial benefits [and] thus is essential to [a]
university’s well-being and advancement” (Maher, 2002, p. 1). In addition, “a diverse faculty
represents a broad range of viewpoints, paradigms, and content expertise” (APA, 1994, p. 8) and
therefore “helps all students achieve the essential goals of a college education” (Anonymous, 2000,
p. 2). Research has also shown that “positive benefits accrue from diversity in the classroom and…
[European American] students experience no adverse effects from classroom diversity”
(Anonymous, 2000, p. 2).
52
Given that American colleges and universities share an essential mission to provide a
comprehensive educational experience that prepares students to live and work effectively in an
ever-changing global society, it is imperative that they produce graduates “[from diverse
backgrounds] who can be agents of change, who can help to identify and reduce social inequality,”
and value differences as positive keys to the academic, social, political, and economic stability of
this country (Hurtado, 2005, p. 7).
Given this, colleges and universities cannot continue to rely solely on the knowledge,
practices, and experiences of the current majority members if they expect to produce college
graduates who are adequately prepared for the challenges and expectations of an evolving global
society. Instead, higher education institutions must begin to emphasize the necessity of exposing
students to diversity, particularly in the faculty. A diverse faculty enhances student learning and
citizenship, contributes a variety of experiences, perspectives, and ideas to the curriculum,
decreases attrition rates among students, particularly underrepresented students, and provides
significant benefits for European American students. In fact, the learning and citizenship outcomes
of both minority and European American students alike benefit from exposure to a diverse
educational environment (Alger, 1999). European American students in particular “receive benefits
ranging from enhanced intellectual and social self-confidence to growth in academic skills to
increased civic engagement” (Antonio & Hakuta, 2003, p. 2).
A diverse faculty also teaches all students that women and people of color can succeed in
academic environments. “Students think of faculty as successful professionals. Therefore, it is
important that our faculty include women and people from minority groups to provide role models
or ‘existence proofs’” (Penfield, 1993, p. 3).
In addition, a diverse faculty helps students learn how to evaluate differing points of view
and understand human differences, as it exposes them to multiple scholarly perspectives and
inclusive pedagogies, and enhances their learning outcomes, retention and academic success
(Hurtado, 2001; Hurtado, Ponjuan, and Smith, 2003; WASC, 2001).
There is a growing body of empirical evidence that offers compelling arguments about the
benefits that a diverse faculty provides to the faculty in general (Milem, 2003). A diverse faculty
brings new kinds of scholarship, reduces isolation experienced by women and faculty of color,
breaks down stereotypes, and improves the campus climate (Antonio, 2002; Milem, 2003; Smith
1989). Thus, when colleges and universities continue to seek and value a diverse faculty, the entire
academic community benefits.
Conclusion
Colleges and universities benefit from recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty in many
ways. The presence of a diverse faculty enhances an institution’s academic reputation, and provides
opportunities for a college or university to achieve its central mission of excellence in teaching and
research. American corporations challenged institutions of higher education to graduate students
who are prepared to succeed in today’s diverse work environments. A diverse faculty not only helps
colleges and universities achieve this goal, it is also a crucial factor in achieving the overarching
mission of higher education: student growth and development as scholars and citizens.
53
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59
HiringforMission:Definitions
‘HiringforMission’:AnInclusiveTerm
Presumably all of our efforts to hire not only a competent but a distinguished faculty are
mission-driven, motivated by our primary commitment to the encouragement of learning and our
corresponding goals of promoting academic excellence in a student- centered university. Yet in a
growing body of literature* ‘hiring for mission’ has taken on the specialized meaning of hiring to
enhance the religious identity of a church-related college or university.
This is the way the phrase is used in the 1999 discussion document from the trustees entitled
“How Is Loyola Marymount University a Catholic University?” So when we speak of ‘hiring for
mission’ in this specialized sense, we mean hiring with a view to enhancing our way of being a
Catholic university in the spirit of LMU’s Jesuit and Marymount founders.
Note that this does not mean hiring only Catholics. A genuine spirit of ecumenical and inter-
religious openness (and of openness to non-believers) is an important part of LMU’s Catholic/
Jesuit/Marymount identity. On the other hand, the University is not indifferent to the particularities
of its religious heritage, both as a lived faith and an intellectual tradition. As we face a time of
unprecedented growth, it is important to attract to the faculty significant numbers of men and
women who understand and respect the intellectual tradition and religious inspiration that
distinguish Loyola Marymount University from its secular counterparts.
________________________
*See, e.g., J.A. Appleyard, S.J., and Howard Gray, S.J., “Tracking the Mission and Identity Question: Three decades of
Inquiry and Three Models of Interpretation,” Conversations (Fall 2000, pp.A-l5); Robert Bernie, Quality with Soul:
How Sir Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith with Their Religious Traditions (Eerdmans, 2001); James L.
Heft, S.M., Ronald M. Katsuyama, Ph.D., and Fred P. Pestello, Ph.D., “Faculty Attitudes and Hiring Practices at
Selected Catholic Colleges and Universities,” Current Issues in Catholic Higher Education, 21:2 (Spring 2001), pp. 43-
60; Peter Hans-Kolvenbach, S.J., “The Service of Faith and Promotion of Justice in American Jesuit Higher Education,”
Keynote at Santa Clara Justice Conference (October 6, 2000); Wilson Miscamble, C.S.C., “Meeting the Challenge and
Fulfilling the Promise: Mission and Method in Constructing a Great Catholic University” in The Challenge and Promise
of a Catholic University, ed. Theodore M. Hesburg, C.S.C. (University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), pp. 209-23.
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LMU’s contemporary way of being a Catholic/Jesuit/Marymount university includes a
strong commitment to an ethnically diverse faculty (cf. 2001 Strategic Plan and 2005 statement,
Interculturalism: Definition, Vision, and Goals) as well as to achieving gender balance. Diversity
initiatives and efforts to improve the balance of women and men on the faculty are not only socially
just but also pedagogically justified, based as they are on the realization that inquiry and learning
are enhanced when a variety of voices is heard.
Hiring for mission at LMU is thus a seamless process, impelling us to be attentive on many
fronts. Without in any way gainsaying the need to find and hire academically distinguished faculty,
we need to seek out candidates who will contribute to our religious mission, who will enhance our
ethnic diversity, and who will improve our gender balance.


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IMPROVING FACULTY SELECTION: THE CRITICAL
INDICES APPROACH
Published--The Department Chair, 6, Summer, 1995
(Anker Publishing, Bolton, MA)
Hiring a new faculty member may be among the most important decisions a department ever
makes. The new hire represents the department’s future and along with other new hires will help
shape image, culture, and students for years to come. The hiring decision is also an expensive one,
possibly accounting for around a million dollars or more of the university’s money over the course
of a career. Even more will be spent if poor choices are made and new searches are required. In
such cases, the department chair is at least somewhat accountable if for no other reason than at most
colleges and universities, it is the department chair who is primarily responsible for creating and
overseeing the selection process.
That responsibility begins with effective selection of both a search committee chair and
committee membership (e.g., Ilkka, 1995). It continues with the department chair facilitating the
committee’s efforts in any number of unobtrusive ways ranging from making sure permission to
hire has been accomplished to providing secretarial and budget support. But perhaps the most
important facilitation may involve helping the search committee develop and ask job-relevant
questions as well as engage in meaningful answer assessment. Encouraging the search committee to
attend to effective question development is crucial for a couple of reasons. First of all, the low
validity and reliability of the employment interview as an assessment measure across various
professions is fairly well established in the interviewing literature (e.g., Dipboye, 1992). The
reasons for such problems of validity and reliability are related to such concerns as lack of position
clarity, problems with interview structure, and of particular interest here, skill in developing and
asking position relevant questions. Secondly, university faculty search committees are generally not
composed of individuals with extensive prior training in personnel assessment and thus, they are
neither any more or less skilled as employment interviewers than those who conduct interviews in
other professions. In turn, while it may be presumed that faculty avoid judgments based on race,
sex, age, disabilities, or attractiveness, it is not unreasonable to assume that some future faculty
search committees at otherwise fine institutions will still (1) ask far too many job irrelevant
questions (versus job relevant ones); (2) not ask these questions in a consistent manner, e.g.,
different questions and different sequencing of questions; and (3) not meaningfully compare
candidate answers against previously established and agreed upon benchmark responses. Given
these assertions, the remainder of this article offers an approach to question development, which is
easily implemented, and decidedly more job relevant.
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Question Development
Critical Indices questions are questions which emerge from a thorough job analysis and
which focus upon specific knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) the candidate may need to exhibit
in order to meet certain job tasks. While the committee may develop a large number of useful
questions, the department chair should encourage the committee to develop at least five or six
Critical Indices questions which speak to the KSAs needed to accomplish various job requirements.
The committee might actually wish to develop two sets of such questions, one set for a screening
interview (e.g., teleconference) which focuses upon establishing comparative professional quality,
and another set for the on-site interview which further examines professional quality but also
addresses personal fit.
As developed here, the Critical Indices approach draws from and combines ideas developed
by Feild and Gatewood (1989), Janz (1989), and Janz, Hellervik, and Gilmore (1986). While others
(e.g., Coady, 1990; Watts, 1993) have emphasized the value of descriptive interviewing, this
approach incorporates both descriptive and situational interviewing, agreeing that one of the best
indicators of future behavior is past behavior (descriptive focus--"what did you do when..."), but
unwilling to discard the value of well developed, hypothetically construed contexts (situational
focus--"what would you do if....") for assessing some aspects of a candidate's potential (Janz, 1989).
The Critical Indices approach also recognizes the value of what is termed interrogative questions,
follow up questions for both descriptive and situationally based interview questions. Below, each of
the three question types is further discussed and illustrated.
Descriptive Behavior Questions—Janz (1989) notes that there are four types of interview
information: credentials, experience descriptions (e.g., surface discussion on duties,
responsibilities), opinions (includes self perceptions and commentary on other contexts, plans,
goals, etc.), and behavior description (detailed accounts of actual events from the applicant's work
and life situations). Janz believes the latter category is most useful in that it reveals specific choices
made as well as indications of the circumstances encompassing such choices. Descriptive
behavioral patterned interviewing involves questions which seek to contextualize and specify the
more general and often philosophical questions asked in interviews. Instead of a question which
asks, "what kind of relationship between teacher and student best fosters learning?" the descriptive
approach asks, "tell me about a teaching situation from your past which best illustrates the kind of
relationship that should exist between teachers and students?" In any event, the descriptive question
forces the candidate away from abstract and perhaps even "canned" answers to instances which
reveal choices made and values actualized. In a sense, the shift is simply from conjecture to specific
instance, but in another and more important sense, it is a shift from detached reflection to more
personal revelation (see Appendix A).
Situational Questions—To ask candidates to answer all questions based on specific, past
experiences could easily become counter-productive if for no other reason than candidates may not
have the requisite experience from which to draw. Thus, the use of hypothetically construed or
situational questions are appropriate, especially for candidates with limited job experience. For
example, suppose the job analysis underscored the importance of development and delivery on an
effective introductory course in the discipline. The experienced teacher might simply be
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Situational Questions (Continued)
asked to discuss her most recent rendition of the introductory course. The novice, however, might
be asked to construct a hypothetical course syllabus with such attendant questions as, how would
you structure the course? Explain what materials you would select and within that corpus, what
might you emphasize? What key readings? Assignment? Evaluation system? --and of course, the
lingering "why" is also available. Admittedly, the hypothetical situation reduces expectations for a
richer, more personal and contextualized answer, however it may still provide committee members
with the opportunity to assess the candidate's ability along a variety of relevant dimensions, for
example, problem solving, organizational skills, subject matter competency, and resource awareness
(see Appendix A).
Interrogative Questions—These are the "why" and "how come" probes of the candidate's initial
answers, and can serve one or more functions, (a) promoting understanding, (b) providing modest
confrontation in order to test commitment to views, (c) illustrating the candidate’s ability to re-
examine a response based upon new information and/or perspective offered by a committee
member. Moreover, such answers might provide some initial guidance for the kind and amount of
mentoring likely to be needed should the candidate subsequently be selected.
While Critical Indices questions may constitute only a small portion of the total questions
asked by a committee, it is important that all the Critical Indices questions asked of one candidate
be asked of all candidates, and to the extent possible in the same order and with the same amount of
time available for an answer. Without scripting the interview too tightly, the selection committee
chair might actually organize and in order, cue members assigned to ask predetermined, critical
incident questions. While it is impossible to control every intervening variable in every interview, it
is important to provide each candidate with as even an opportunity to respond to Critical Indices
questions as is possible. And, while other information and answers to non-Critical Indices questions
may significantly impact on candidate assessment, evaluation of candidate answers will be
significantly enhanced if at least some answers to identical questions can be meaningfully compared
across all candidates.
Benchmarking
Once the primary candidates have been screened and after the top few have made an on-
site visit and been interviewed by the search committee, it is imperative for both legal and ethical
concerns that the decision to offer the position to a given candidate be based upon objective,
interview-based information. For example, while decisions based on age or sex are illegal, the
search committee could also not invite and then later reject a candidate based on a "disqualifier"
previously evident in the written materials (e.g., lack of a terminal degree). Instead, it is to
everyone’s advantage to be able to make a clear and thorough comparison of each candidate
based upon answers given to undeniably job relevant questions which were asked of every
candidate in approximately the same way and sequence. And, while such answers as noted on
paper (or with permission, as recorded on tape), might be compared among candidates, the
committee should also have developed its versions of high quality answers, acceptable answers,
and unacceptable answers for each Critical Indices question. Following each interview,
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65
Benchmarking (Continued)
individual members would evaluate answers to each of the Critical Indices questions. Such
evaluations could then be collated and discussed with reference to the committee-developed
benchmarks. Obviously, unanticipated and yet excellent variations on the benchmark answers
might emerge, and as a consequence, the committee may have to re-consider its benchmark
and/or reconsider the viability of the question itself.
Conclusion
While there are many ways in which the department chair can facilitate a more effective
search process, the chair should make every effort to assure that the search committee will ask
questions which allow for a useful, comparative assessment of the candidates who have made it
to the short list. Questions which address specific behaviors, which are asked in the same way
and the same sequence for every candidate, and which are evaluated against established
benchmarks, should improve the value of the screening and selection interviews in particular as
well as the overall search process. To the extent that the department chair is able to foster the use
of a question development approach as outlined above, the interests of the department, the
institution, the students, and the eventual hire, are more likely to be served.
References
Coady, S. (1990). “Hiring faculty: A system for making good decisions.” CUPA Journal, 41, 5-8.
Dipboye, R.L. (1992). Selection interviews: Process perspectives. Cincinnati, OH: South-
Western Publishing Co.
Feild, H.S., & Gatewood, R.D. (1989). “Development of a selection interview: A job content
strategy.” Eds. R.W. Eder & G.R. Ferris, The employment interview: Theory, research,
and practice. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Ilkka, R.J. (1995). “Selecting Members of The Faculty Search Committee.” The Department
Chair, 5, 11-13.
Janz, J.T. (1989). “The patterned behavior description interview: The best prophet of the future is
the past.” Eds. R.W. Eder & G.R. Ferris, The employment interview: Theory, research,
and practice. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Janz, J.T., Hellervik, L., & Gilmore, D.C. (1986). Behavior description interviewing: New,
accurate, cost effective. Newton, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Watts, G.E. (1993). “How to hire good faculty.” AACC Journal, Jun/Jul, 29-33.
Critical Indices Approach -- Selection Interviewing (R.J. Ilkka, University of Wisconsin-Stevens
Point)
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67
--Sample Questions Sheet—
TRADITIONAL QUESTIONS
1. How do you define good teaching?
2. How have the works of leading scholars in our field influenced you?
3. How would you describe your classroom relationship with students?
4. What are your greatest strengths & weaknesses as a teacher (scholar)?
5. What is your philosophy regarding the evaluation of students?
6. In terms of your professional goals, where would you like to be in the next five years?
BEHAVIORAL QUESTIONS
1. Tell me about a time where you excelled as a teacher?
2. Given who you consider to be among the most influential scholars in our field, how have
they impacted on your teaching (or your scholarship)?
3. If a student challenged your views in class in a fairly convincing manner, how would you
respond to the student and class?
4. What would you say were the strongest and weakest aspects of your teaching the last
time you taught the introductory course? (or in the last article you published?)
5. What evaluation system did you use in the last graduate seminar you taught?
6. What two or three accomplishments from the past five years might best indicate where
your professional career will take you in the next five years?
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Questions to Ask and Not to Ask
Legal Questions
The legal questions listed below should be asked only when relevant to a particular job.
TOPIC LEGAL QUESTIONS DISCRIMINATORY QUESTIONS
Family
Status Do you have any responsibilities that conflict with the
job attendance or travel requirements?
Cannot be asked unless all applicants are asked the same
question and their answer evaluated in the same manner.
Are you married? What is your spouse’s name? What is your maiden
name? Do you have any children? Are you pregnant? What are your
childcare arrangements?
Race None. What is your race?
Residence What is your address? Do you own or rent your home? Who resides with you?
Sex None. Are you male or female?
Sexual
Orientation None. Are you homo/heterosexual?
Weight &
Height Job-related questions. How much do you weigh? How tall are you?
Age If hired, can you offer proof that you are at least 18
years of age? How old are you? What is your birth date?
Arrests or
Conviction
of a Crime
Have you ever been convicted of a crime?
You must state that a conviction will only be considered as
it relates to fitness to perform the job being sought.
Have you ever been arrested?
Citizenship
or
Nationality
Can you show proof of your eligibility to work in the
U.S.? Are you fluent in any languages other than
English?
You may ask the second question only as it relates to the
job being sought.
Are you a citizen of the U.S.? Where were you born?
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(1) Sample Questions About Mission and Identity
1. How do you see the difference between Loyola Marymount University as a
Catholic university and secular institutions you are familiar with?
2. How do you see yourself contributing to LMU’s Jesuit and Marymount heritage,
e.g. to the dialogue between faith and culture, to our commitments to the
education of the whole person and the service of faith and promotion of justice?
3. At Loyola Marymount we are concerned about hiring people who will be a good
fit for the University. On the other hand, why do you think LMU might be a good
fit for you?
As a religiously-affiliated university, LMU is not prohibited from discriminating on the basis of religion
and it is expected that certain positions, e.g.., President, Director of Campus Ministry, will be filled by a
Roman Catholic. In faculty hiring, however, it is not the practice to inquire about a person’s religion
(although candidates sometimes volunteer that information). Hiring for Mission does not mean hiring only
Catholics but hiring faculty who appreciate the religious identity of the university and will contribute to its
mission. Of course it is all to the good, when opportunity presents itself, to hire faculty whose
scholarship/creative work is informed by living experience of the Catholic intellectual/artistic tradition.
(2) Sample Responses to Questions About Mission and Identity
The following are some responses regarding LMU’s Catholic/Jesuit identity from
candidates interviewed at New Orleans MLA Convention (December 27-28, 2001) for an
assistant professor position in the English Department. The question posed to the
candidates asked them to say what they thought would be different about LMU as
Catholic/Jesuit, compared with secular universities. In some instances the candidates also
indicated what they might personally hope to contribute to LMU’s Catholic/Jesuit
identity.
1. A tradition of Jesuit intellectual rigor is part of the environment at LMU. It helps
to keep in perspective things like athletics or Greek life, which are more dominant
on some other campuses.
2. Social justice involvements are a prominent aspect of a Jesuit campus. N.B.- In
his dissertation candidate brings a theological perspective (among others) to bear
on Don LeLillo; looks for hints of hope, belief, salvation.
3. On a Jesuit campus there is a concern for faith and justice. Among Catholic
educators, Jesuits are noted for openness rather than providing pat answers. They
welcome ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue. N.B.- In his own approach to
literature candidate wants to move beyond post-modern responses to raise
questions of belief. Candidate “would like to participate in academic advising and
social advocacy programs, helping students to develop into well informed,
socially conscious, and principled adults while continuing my own growth as a
Catholic scholar and educator.”
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4. LMU claims to be concerned with “the education of the whole person.” Do you
take this part of your mission seriously? Are you concerned about students’
emotions as well as their reason, their heart as well as their head? Do you nurture
love, trust, and honesty along with your commitment to justice?
5. A Catholic university is different from its secular counterparts in its openness to a
spiritual dimension. It wants students to be reflective about their place in society.
Jesuit education highlights social responsibility and outreach to the community.
N.B.- Candidate thinks it would be interesting to research how Catholic motives
for social responsibility might differ from Emerson’s Protestant motives (wrote
his dissertation on Emerson and DuBois).
6. A university like LMU is open to questions about spirituality. Without imposing a
spirituality, a teacher can raise questions, focus issues.
7. As experienced at Detroit Mercy, Jesuit education is concerned with service
learning, outreach to the community.
8. LMU preserves the Jesuit respect for the humanities/liberal arts as over against
the “corporatizing” of much of higher education.
9. Catholic education is open to the mystery of God lying behind everyday
occurrences. “A rainbow is no less a miracle for the fact that science can explain
it.”
(3) Sample Questions About Inclusive Teaching and Learning
1. What is your basic teaching philosophy?
2. What do you see as the basic function of undergraduate education?
3. What would you do to get to know your students -- the backgrounds and
experiences they bring to class that influence how they learn from you?
4. Describe the repertoire of teaching methods you would use in order to help you
work effectively with diverse groups of students?
5. What strategies for successful learning do you share with students?
6. Is the content of your course such that it acknowledges and incorporates diverse
experiences and perspectives? Could it be?
7. How do you want to be perceived by your students?
8. What courses in graduate school did you enjoy most and find helpful in preparing
to teach? Why?
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9. What are your teaching strengths / weaknesses?
10. What does the term Equitable Class Participation mean to you?
11. How do you develop good student / professor relationships?
12. What courses could you teach from those listed in the Bulletin for our
department?
13. What new courses could you introduce? What other ways do you see yourself
contributing to our department?
14. How do you propose to balance teaching, research, and service in your career?
(4) Sample Questions on the Understanding of Gender Issues
1. Sometimes women students don’t participate as much as men. What have you
done to encourage women to participate in your classes? Has it worked?
2. Approximately how many men have you nominated for fellowships, awards, and
prizes? How many women?
3. Have you had teaching or research assistants in the recent past? How many were
women?
4. (For science faculty) Research shows that women in science often have lower
aspirations than their male colleagues. Have you encountered this trend in your
classes? What do you do about it?
5. (For science faculty) What differences have you perceived in men and women in
the laboratory? Do you tend to have single-sex lab teams? Why?
6. How have you encouraged women students to enter traditionally male fields?
7. What has been your experience with faculty or student hostility to women and
women’s issues? What was your response?
8. Have any students ever complained to you about sexual harassment or
discrimination in any work with professors or staff? If so, how did you respond?
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(5) Sample Questions about Writing Across the Curriculum for Those
Teaching Core Courses
1. Why do you use writing in your courses, and how do you think writing promotes
learning in your discipline?
2. What issues do students seem to struggle within their writing for your courses?
3. What frustrates you about student writing?
4. How do you assess student writing? What are you looking for in student writing
and how do you communicate this to students?
(6) Sample Questions About Research
1. Why did you decide to pursue a doctorate in your field?
2. How did you choose your dissertation topic?
3. Do you plan to revise your dissertation for publication?
4. Describe your research. Who are some of the leading scholars in your field?
How would you situate your work in relation to theirs?
5. Where do you see your research going? What do you plan to look at next?
6. What types of equipment will you need to continue your research?
7. How can you involve undergraduates in your research? What types of research
projects would you have them work on?
(7) Sample Questions About Extra Curricular Activities and University
Service
1. At LMU, as at other institutions, there are opportunities for service at the
department, colleges, and university levels. Have you thought about types of
service you might eventually like to be involved in?
2. Studies show that retention rates improve when faculty interact with students
outside the academic setting. Do you see a role for yourself in this student’s
extra-curricular activities?
73
Principles of Good Practice for Department
Chairs, and Search Committees
Adapted from Caroline Sotello Viernes Turner and Samuel L. Myers, Jr. (2000)
Before the Search Begins
Good:
• Clearly articulate campus rationale in support of hiring for mission, i.e., to
enhance religious identity, to promote ethnic diversity, and to move toward
gender parity.
• Create a search committee that is enthusiastic and genuinely committed to faculty
diversity, gender balance, and Catholic/Jesuit-Marymount identity.
• Incorporate the university’s mission and commitment to diversity/ inclusiveness
into campus and community addresses and publications.
Better:
In addition to the above,
• Create a diverse search committee-comprised of faculty from both minority and
non-minority backgrounds that brings multiple perspectives and fresh ideas.
Provide for student input. Be sure one person has special responsibility for
diversity/gender concerns and another person for religious mission concerns.
• Make sure that the search process is also viewed as a critical retention tool.
• Require diversity training for all chairpersons and staff supervisors.
• Include and align commitment to mission/diversity efforts in the institutional and
departmental strategic plans.
• Create open line of communication with potential faculty already in your
department or school-adjunct or part-time professors, graduate students, and
research associates.
74
Best:
In addition to all of the above,
• Secure all resources needed to conduct a comprehensive search.
• Make sure that your campus has developed and continually audits a
comprehensive plan to address and show commitment to diversity in every area of
campus life- faculty hiring, curricular reform, student enrollment, campus
activities, and general campus climate.
• Establish and cultivate ongoing and routine relationships with local and national
minority organizations and special interest groups as well as with students and
faculty at colleges and universities that educate graduate students of color.
• Be aware of Lilly Network doctoral fellows and graduate-student alumni of the
Collegium Colloquy on Faith and the Intellectual Life. These young scholars are
interested in teaching at universities that promote dialogue between faith and
contemporary culture.
• Incorporate new research findings and data about faculty of color into the
everyday practices of an institution. For example, convene information forums,
roundtables, and retreats, presenting emerging research and successful practices.
During the Search
Good:
• Explain to the committee its charge from the outset – a commitment to the racial
and ethnic diversity of the faculty as well as gender balance and Catholic identity
must be clearly stated goals.
• Critically analyze the job description and advertisement, making sure they are
geared toward inclusiveness.
• Mail position announcements to minority groups and organizations, university
and local organizations, women’s groups, and local minority churches and
organizations.
75
• Cover the cost of the candidates expenses related to the interview – hotel, food,
and travel.
• During the campus visit, make sure that all the interactions with the candidate are
honest and genuine.
• Offer to arrange a meeting with groups such as Asian American Faculty Staff
Association, Committee on the Status of Women, and the African American
Faculty Staff Association or anyone else of similar background, interests,
ethnicity, or gender to give their perspectives on the campus and local community
climate.
Better:
In addition to the above,
• Write a position announcement that attracts a diverse group of applicants.
• Contact by letter and phone previous faculty of color, visiting scholars
and/or individuals who have made diversity-related presentations on
campus.
• Establish a vita bank.
• Use listservs, bulletin boards, and other forms of technology to announce
positions and recruit potential candidates.
• Create an institution-wide funding pool to cover departmental expenses
for costs associated with the on-campus interview of potential candidates,
the cost of advertisements in minority publications, and travel costs for
off-campus recruiting efforts.
Best:
In addition to all of the above,
• Educate the search committee, and provide opportunities for
discussion on diversity and equity as well as mission and identity
issues.
76
• Utilize personal and professional networks to seek leads to
potential minority and women candidates and candidates acquainted with
the Catholic intellectual tradition.
• Initiate recruitment trips to universities that prepare a significant
number of minority and women Ph.D. graduates.
• Establish a pool of potential minority and women candidates
through a Visiting Scholars, Faculty Fellows, and/or ABD Fellowship
programs.
• Advise the candidate of any incentives that might be negotiable in
the salary package (reduced work loads, grant funded opportunities,
etc.).
• Cover the cost of an additional campus/area visit to explore
housing.
After the search
Good:
• Honor all start-up conditions mentioned in the final letter of
agreement.
• Do not overload the new hire with excessive service demands-
committee memberships, advising, etc.
Better:
In addition to the above,
• Follow-up with the new hire regularly to help with transitions
and to answer any concerns that might develop in the first few
days/weeks/months.
• Provide mentoring and professional development opportunities.
77
Best:
In addition to the above,
• Continue efforts to diversify the faculty. Support other campus
diversity initiatives as well as initiatives to promote heightened
awareness of LMU’s distinctive mission and identity.
• Provide the new hire with clearly stated standards and
procedures regarding evaluation and performance.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the search process in order to avoid
future missteps. Acknowledge the successes and failures and share that
information with other search committees.
• Sponsor campus and community-wide gatherings to highlight the
research, teaching, and service contributions of new faculty.
78
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