It is available here. I think the report will be of interest to, and should be read by, everyone who is interested in the project of Catholic higher education (as I hope all MOJ readers are!). There has been, over the last year, a lot of coverage in various quarters of Notre Dame's curriculum-review process and a great deal of interest in the question whether the University would use this process to water down or wander from, or to deepen and enhance, its distinctive Catholic character and mission. My own sense after a first read is that we came much closer to the latter. (Here's a graphic summarizing some specific proposed changes.) But, see for yourselves.
Here's just a bit:
Many excellent universities and colleges begin assessments of their curricula and the undergraduate educational experience with uncertainty as to the underlying purposes of that education and that experience. But even as Notre Dame has become more diverse, welcoming students and faculty from many different religious traditions and none, the aspiration for a superb Catholic liberal arts education appears more widely shared than ever by University faculty, students, and alumni.
This unity of purpose should remind and encourage us that we begin our process of core curricular assessment and improvement with notable advantages. The committee saw its primary task as discerning ways in which we can further advance this shared vision. In his 1990 apostolic exhortation Ex Corde Ecclesiae, St. John Paul II urged “continuous renewal” upon Catholic universities—both as “University” and as “Catholic”—and this warning against complacency seems to us even more prescient a quarter century later.8 In response, this committee recommends: a renewed commitment to distinctively Catholic dimensions within the liberal arts, an enhanced commitment to a broad liberal arts education, and the introduction of curricular innovations that foster the integration of disciplines. . . .
Here's more:
As central threads in the Catholic intellectual tradition, theology and philosophy have played and should continue to play a central role in Notre Dame’s core curriculum. Theology integrates academic inquiry through its disciplined reflection on ultimate questions. It achieves this from the perspective of God’s self-disclosure, particularly as known through the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures and their reception and interpretation in the Tradition of the Church. In placing theology at the core of its Catholic liberal arts education, Notre Dame is not merely adding another discipline to the existing educational paradigm. Instead, it embraces a paradigm of the intellectual life that posits the complementarity of faith and reason. Catholicism has always elevated reason and thus endorses the enduring value of philosophy, which brings reason to bear on issues beyond the resources of empirical disciplines, matters such as the existence and nature of God, the destiny of human persons, the actuality of free will, the nature and scope of knowledge, and the centrality of ethics. The examination of such questions makes philosophy a necessary partner in the quest for the integration of knowledge across disciplines. Philosophy is furthermore a partner as it helps our students become acquainted with, and able to address, the intellectual challenges raised for theism in a secular culture. The educational mission of the Congregation of Holy Cross has consistently emphasized the importance of preparing “citizens for society” as well as “citizens for heaven.”10 This impulse derives from an underlying commitment to the dignity of the human person and is echoed in Ex Corde Ecclesiae, where St. John Paul II writes that a Catholic university is called to study contemporary problems ranging from “the dignity of human life and the promotion of justice for all” to a more equitable “sharing in the world’s resources.”11 Finally, Notre Dame’s mission statement has long recognized that Notre Dame should be a place where “the various lines of Catholic thought may intersect with all the forms of knowledge found in the arts, sciences, professions, and every other area of human scholarship and creativity.” The University’s hiring strategies and investments to build faculty strength in intellectual areas consonant with the traditions of Catholicism—from Dante to global health, from impact investing to sustainable urbanism, from Hebrew Bible to Latino/a studies—reflect a remarkable institutional commitment, one that should have more resonance in core curriculum requirements.
Here's hoping the Cardinal Newman Society notices . . .
UPDATE: The CNS did notice. Story here.
Monday, November 30, 2015
It's a few years old, but worth re-reading. Here's Remi Brague's First Things essay, "The Impossibility of Secular Society." A bit:
. . . Our intuitive sense of the outer boundaries of living memory and concern finds expression in the field of law. One hundred years, what is known as the tempus memoratum, constitutes the longest possible duration for a contract. For example, the longest possible land lease holds good for ninety-nine years. Beyond that, one enters the field of the “immemorial,” rights held not by natural persons but by legal entities such as monasteries, universities, civic organizations, and of course the state itself. In a certain brocard, or common saying of ancient French law, “He who has eaten of the king’s goose gives back a feather a hundred years later,” which means that for crimes against the state there is no temporal limit. The king remembers forever.
What does all this have to do with the idea of a “secular” society? A great deal. The French language possesses two different adjectives meaning “secular”: on the one hand séculier, on the other séculaire. Séculaire means what lasts for more than one century—say, a tree, or a custom. Séculier originally designated a “secular,” a cleric who, as we have seen, doesn’t live according to the rule of a monastic or religious order but instead pursues his vocation in the world as a diocesan functionary. In the modern era, as Mill recognized and imported into English, it acquired the added meaning of an outlook, a person, or a body of people that renounces the transcendent. . . .
Thursday, November 26, 2015
As a follow-up to (and big improvement on) my post, a few days ago, on the Syrian-refugee question, check out Michael McConnell, here, who says "Yes, We Should Consider Refugees' Religion: It's Not Only Fair, It's Written Into Law":
Americans have heard a lot of nonsense in the past week about the role of religion in our refugee policy – from both sides. Senator Ted Cruz has been derided, mostly justly, for saying that no Muslim refugees – but only Christians – should be admitted to this country from the killing fields of Syria and Iraq. But President Obama’s angry reaction that use of a “religious test” for evaluating asylum seekers would be “shameful” and “not American” is even more wrongheaded. “That's not who we are,” he said to an audience in Turkey, apparently in response to Cruz. “We don’t have religious tests to our compassion.”
Except we do. It’s in the law.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which governs these issues, defines “refugee” as someone who has fled from his or her home country and cannot return because he or she has a well-founded fear of persecution on account of “religion” – as well as race, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. This certainly doesn’t let us use a religious test to filter otherwise-eligible immigrants out. But it does mean that when we’re deciding who to admit as refugees, religion matters.
So, when we think about religious refugees from the war-torn parts of the Middle East, who are we talking about? Right now Christians who are being singled out for religious persecution – beheadings, beatings, rape, forced conversions, enslavement. So also Yazidis, Mandaeans, and a few other smaller groups. Many Muslims are also displaced and suffering, but the Islamic State is not systematically targeting them for being Islamic. Our refugee policy should take that into consideration. This is not a “religious test.” It is a persecution test. . . .
Read the whole thing.
Monday, November 23, 2015
