Elizabeth Ann Seton Reading Group – Fall 2025
The life of Elizabeth Ann Seton encompasses the full range of human experience. At different points in her life she was a member of New York high society, a loving wife and mother, a caretaker, an immigrant, an educational innovator, a spiritual leader. Her story has served as a source of inspiration for countless people, including her nephew, Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley. Bayley founded Seton Hall University in her honor and in the hopes that this institution would inculcate in faculty and students the values his aunt embodied – compassion, resilience, curiosity, and faith. We are the heirs of Seton’s legacy today.
In order to better understand and embrace this extraordinary legacy and its import for our work at Seton Hall, the Center for Faculty Development and the Center for Catholic Studies are sponsoring a faculty reading group in the Fall 2025 semester. The group will meet five times during the semester (days and times to be determined on the availability of the participants), for 60 minutes each time. In preparation for each meeting, participants will read excerpts from a biography of Elizabeth Seton selected for their relevance to our work at Seton Hall today. Each participant will receive a copy of Catherine O’Donnell’s Elizabeth Seton: American Saint.
Participants who attend all meetings and complete a 1,000-word essay on Mother Seton will receive a stipend of $500. Interested faculty members are asked to submit the following information by August 15, 2025, to Mary Balkun (mary.balkun@shu.edu) and Thomas Rzeznik (thomas.rzeznik@shu.edu):
Name
Department
Status (full time, part-time, adjunct)
A brief rationale for participation in a seminar on this topic (approximately 300 words or less)