Faculty Chaperones and Catholic Identity

For an example of the struggle to articulate and maintain a university's Catholic identity that does not involve the Vagina Monologues, check out the storm caused here at the University of St. Thomas by the administration's practice of not allowing unmarried partners to travel with faculty on student trips.  A sampling of the coverage can be found here, here, and here, and the protest letter signed by (some) faculty and staff is here.

Rob

UPDATE:  After I posted this, I was asked why my name is not on the protest letter.  There are several reasons, including the fact that accusing the administration of being "hypocritical" and displaying a "lack of integrity" are unlikely to facilitate a healthy resolution of a difficult issue.  Also, the resolution currently before the faculty senate suggests that a faculty chaperone could choose whatever travel partner they wish without limitation.  Here are my original comments in response to that resolution:

I would be more sympathetic to [this] resolution if it simply called for travel privileges for same-sex partners who are in long-term, committed relationships and are legally precluded from pursuing more formal recognition of those relationships.  That proposal would still stand in tension with the school’s Catholic identity, but it would raise a different set of considerations than the broader and, in my view, more radical suggestion that a faculty member’s choice of travel partner is none of the school’s business.  The implicit presumption is that faculty members are teachers by instruction, but not by the behavior they model – or at least that the modeling function is limited to circumstances chosen by the faculty member. 

If I paid tuition for my child to attend any college, Catholic or not, and the faculty chaperone on a trip abroad slept with a different partner at every stop on the journey, for example, I would certainly complain to the administration.  And if the administration responded to my complaint with “that’s none of our business,” I would wonder what sort of formation process is contemplated at that institution.  If I go out for drinks with students one evening and end up getting falling-down drunk, that’s no longer just my personal business; I’ve made it the school’s business by modeling my behavior for students.

The resolution should strike us at the law school as especially problematic because we’ve set out a distinct mission of educating the whole person, which puts the burden on us to know that we’re being watched, not just listened to.  If folks want to have a conversation about what sorts of relationships are legitimate models for students on university-sponsored trips, that’s one thing.  But to suggest that our choice of travel partners is irrelevant to the formation of students that occurs – intentionally or not – on such trips, that’s quite another.

I'm not sure how other schools have handled this issue, but I'd welcome any reactions, insights and recommendations.