Lisa Rose-Wiles
It seems difficult to imagine how Newman’s idea of a university may be realized today. A learning community that integrates knowledge (wisdom) with student formation (holiness),1 insists that “all branches of knowledge are connected together” and that the quest for knowledge can be its own end2 seems an impossible dream in the age of “the corporatized university [that is characterized by the processes, decisional criteria, expectations, organizational culture, and operating practices that are taken from … the modern business corporation.”3 American universities compete for student enrollment and revenue, endowments, donations, and the coveted media “rankings” that emphasize metrics rather than a well-rounded, integrated education. In the midst of a culture that quantifies and monetizes everything, how do we make a case for the liberal arts and the integration of both intellectual and religious development that lie at the heart of Newman’s ideal university?4 Today’s academic departments are primarily judged on their ability to generate revenue, and those that fall short (often those in the liberal arts) are sidelined or eliminated. Faculty are judged more on their success in securing grants and publishing than their ability to teach and nurture students and are increasingly burdened with administrative duties and endless evaluations.”5 Disparities in faculty salaries (far lower for those in the humanities than those in business, the sciences and especially university administration) and the “shockingly low wages” of adjuncts show that university values are succumbing to “the commercial marketplace,”6 contrary to the principles of Catholic social teaching that assert the dignity of each human person and the right to just wages.”7
Students compete for grades and funding, often choosing courses of study that they hope will lead to well-paying careers. We cannot blame them (or their parents) for their financial concerns. With student debt at an all-time high, it is no wonder that students and parents want to realize a “Return on their Investment” in an expensive university education. Newman himself recognized that the quest for knowledge and “the search after truth” requires that we first “escape from the pressure of necessary cares.”8 Today, many lower-income students struggle with housing and food insecurity and cannot afford their textbooks. Even higher-income students are often overwhelmed by the unrealistic expectations of their parents and peers. The evidence for high and increasing levels of stress, anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies among today’s college students is overwhelming, and these issues have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.9 It all seems a far cry from Newman’s vision for Catholic Higher Education.
Some scholars have held that Newman’s Idea was a beautiful but rhetorical vision with “no institutional realization,” or that his ideas about university education simply belong in the nineteenth century and have no relevance today.10 However, others have countered that Newman’s ideas remain relevant and that there never was a “golden age” of Catholic Higher education to which Newman should be relegated. While the nature of higher education has certainly changed, “the challenges [Catholic] institutions face today are simply the latest iterations of similar challenges they have faced throughout their history.”11 These include struggling to compete with government-funded public institutions, maintaining a Catholic identity and honoring Catholic social teaching while remaining economically viable, a culturally and religiously diverse faculty and student body, a marketplace mentality that emphasizes professional programs and successful careers, and narrow subject specialization that hinders efforts to integrate the disciplines.
The issues of identity, diversity, and the tension between “useful” and “liberal” higher education are nothing new for Catholic universities. There was religious diversity in Catholic campuses in the U.S. as early as 1845, and enrolling non-Catholic students was considered a “self-preservation strategy whenever their charitable business model proved difficult to sustain.”12 The corporatization of higher education has increased since Newman’s time, especially with the advent of Neoliberalism, but he also faced financial and “marketplace mentality” challenges. The more prosperous Irish leaders “had trouble seeing any use for liberal education; they wanted their sons to learn how to be successful businessmen.”13 However, it should be stressed that while valuing the quest for knowledge as an end in itself, Newman was not opposed to the “usefulness” of higher education but to its secularization. He valued the intellectual pursuits highly but saw the careful cultivation of religious values as necessary for “rescuing [us] from passion and self-will” and tempering intellectual egotism.14
The challenge is to intentionally place the empirical and professional disciplines into conversation with religious accounts of human existence.”15 This is not always an easy task, for these disciplines often see the liberal arts in general and religion in particular as irrelevant to their purpose and packed curricula. The task demands that those who study and teach at Catholic universities, regardless of their religious beliefs of lack thereof, are open to engaging the Catholic Intellectual Tradition (CIT). Unfortunately, this is not always the case. A colleague at our own institution has reported snide remarks and even hostility when he referred to engaging the CIT during hiring interviews, and I have seen the eye rolls of colleagues when I ask the inconvenient “mission question.” It is not clear whether these are isolated instances, but we need to pay more than lip service to our Catholic Mission at all levels of our Catholic institutions.
So how do we move forward? I believe that change is unlikely to come from upper administration, who are caught on the corporate treadmill of fighting to remain solvent (we must acknowledge that reality), the relentless competition for student revenue, research grants, endowments, and university rankings. As an old friend once remarked, once an institution sets itself on that treadmill, it is almost impossible to step off it. The impetus for change must come from our students and the faculty, administrators and staff who are motivated and able to work toward it. Students can and should influence the courses and programs that universities offer. There is evidence that many are concerned about their spiritual development and are searching for a meaning and purpose in their lives.16 The popularity of service learning, studies abroad, meditation, journaling and other reflective activities at our institution shows that many of our students understand there is more to higher education than grades and career preparation. But as the justification for cutting liberal arts courses is typically low enrollment, students need to prove their interest by taking these courses, and demanding others that integrate intellectual and spiritual growth by addressing “existential questions of meaning … and holistic personal development.”17
Students may not be aware of the benefits of taking liberal arts courses or the options open to them. Faculty, advisors, peer mentors and career centers can help by recommending enriching courses for students, stressing both the shared societal benefits of a liberal arts education and the enhanced employment opportunities for well-rounded graduates. Regardless of their intended profession, students should be encouraged to view their career as “a vocational calling in the service of the common good”, but it must be clearly “demonstrated to individual students (and their parents) that the decision to study liberal arts will generate individual as well as public benefits.”18 This does not mean reducing science or professional programs or abandoning research but finding a balance that acknowledges the connections between all branches of knowledge. Newman himself “strove to promote science as well as arts, to encourage professional education, to provide for research as well as good teaching, and to broaden the curriculum.”19 At our institution we have resources and programs that can help promote an education that integrates spiritual with intellectual development. We have a strong Catholic Studies department and Core Curriculum, and an emphasis on service learning. We have a diverse group of faculty and administrators engaged in our Praxis program of the Advanced Seminar on Mission, augmented through the new Mission Mentors Program.
Newman clearly valued libraries and establishing them was one of his priorities. So how can our university libraries contribute to the realization of his ideal university? I believe we can do this through our library collections, our teaching, and our broad relationships across our campus community. Academic libraries provide most of an institution’s teaching and research materials, and librarians can ensure that these strongly support both religious and intellectual development. Budget constraints are always with us, but fortunately humanities books and online resources are typically far less expensive those in the sciences. Librarians rarely teach complete courses (although I have been fortunate enough to co-teach with other Praxis faculty, most recently through our Mission Mentors program), but we teach a vast number of information literacy sessions, providing opportunities to incorporate references to the CIT and even Lonergan’s Generalized Empirical Method as a basis for good research practices.20 Librarians also have the advantage of seeing many students from different disciplines during reference and research appointments. We can strongly encourage them to actively seek knowledge, engage existential question and explore diverse perspectives, including literature from other disciplines when the parameters of their assignments make this feasible. Finally, librarians have collegial relationships with many faculty and administrators as departmental liaisons and through committee work. At our institution, librarians have many opportunities to support and promote our Catholic Mission, individually and through our University Seminars on Mission and the Praxis program of the Advanced Seminar on Mission, and to encourage exploration of and engagement with the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and our rich Catholic heritage through our collections and our teaching.
ENDNOTES
1 Heft, J., John Henry Newman in Context, In: The Future of Catholic Higher Education: The Open Circle (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021). p. 47.
2 Newman, J.H., and Ed. Martin J. Svaglic, The Idea of a University (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), p. 75.
3 Beyer, G. J., Just Universities: Catholic Social Teaching Confronts Corporatized Higher Education (Fordham, NY: Fordham University Press, 2021), p. 14.
4 Heft, J., John Henry Newman in Context, In: The Future of Catholic Higher Education: The Open Circle (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), p. 55.
5 Berg, M., and Seeber. B.K., The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016).
6 Heft, J., John Henry Newman in Context, In: The Future of Catholic Higher Education: The Open Circle (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), p. 55.
7 Beyer, G. J. Just Universities: Catholic Social Teaching Confronts Corporatized Higher Education (Fordham, NY: Fordham University Press, 2021), p. 11-12.
8 Newman, J.H., and Ed. Martin J. Svaglic, The Idea of a University (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), p. 79.
9 Duffy, B., Rose-Wiles, L. M., & Loesch, M. M., Contemplating Library Instruction: Integrating Contemplative Practices in a Mid-Sized Academic Library. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 47(3), 103239, 2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2021.102329
10 Heft, J., John Henry Newman in Context. In: The Future of Catholic Higher Education: The Open Circle (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021). p. 51.
11 Rizzi, MT., We’ve Been Here Before: A Brief History of Catholic Higher Education in America. Journal of Catholic Higher Education, 37(2):153-174. 2018, p. 154.
12 Rizzi, MT., We’ve Been Here Before: A Brief History of Catholic Higher Education in America. Journal of Catholic Higher Education, 37(2):153-174. 2018, p. 157.
13 Heft, J., John Henry Newman in Context, In: The Future of Catholic Higher Education: The Open Circle (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021). p. 53.
14 Newman, J.H., and Ed. Martin J. Svaglic, The Idea of a University (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), p. 141.
15 Appleyard, J.A. American Catholic higher education in the 21st century: Critical challenges (Chestnut Hill, MA: Linden Press at Boston College), p. 47.
16 Clydesdale, T.T. The Purposeful Graduate: Why Colleges Must Talk to Students About Vocation (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2015).
17 James, M. Identifying Characteristics Identity and Internationalization in Catholic Universities in the United States of America. In: Wit, H. de, Bernasconi Andrés, Car, V., Hunter, F., James, M., & Veliz, D. (Eds.). Identity and Internationalization in Catholic Universities: Exploring Institutional Pathways in Context. (Leiden: Brill Press, 2018), p. 98.
18 Cameron, J., Tiessen, R., Grantham, K., Husband-Ceperkovic, T. The Value of Liberal Arts Education for Finding Professional Employment: Insights from International Development Studies Graduates in Canada. J. of Applied Research in Higher Education, 11(3), 574-89. 2019. p. 576.
19 Newman, J.H., and Ed. Martin J. Svaglic, The Idea of a University “Editor’s Introduction” (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), p. xiii.
20 Rose-Wiles L, Glenn M, and Stiskal D. Enhancing Information Literacy Using Bernard Lonergan’s Generalized Empirical Method: A Three-year Case Study in a First Year Biology Course. J of Academic Librarianship. 43(6):495-508, 2018.