Annotations
Mission and Shared Responsibility
The Ad Hoc Committee on the Mission of the College
1
We do not overestimate the range of pluralism at Holy Cross Still, we have heard voices of pre-enlightenment and post- conciliar Catholicism, enlightenment reliance on reason, and post-enlightenment critiques of scientific and empirical worldviews. We want to question those who would return to exclusive, intolerant modes of knowing, those who would erect new orthodoxies, and those who would exempt enlightenment ideals from the burdens of historicity. We want to locate the clash of such positions at the heart of Holy Cross because they are at the heart of contemporary religion and culture.2
The "we" here is problematic, of course. Who speaks for Holy Cross? The faculty? Administrators? Alumni? Who will speak for the Jesuits buried on this campus? Or posterity? Or the poor, of whom Father Brooks speaks, whose lives are now known to be touched by our own? We will make an effort to consult the College's several constituencies, and to be sensitive to the voices of those unable to speak. And we will attempt to forward the process, recognizing that any statement, and any judgment on which it is based, is provisional.3
College Goals Committee, Report: First Part, December, 1968.4
The Ad Hoc Committee on Curriculum reported in September, 1 "The Committee believes that the question of Holy Cross identity as a liberal arts college which is both Catholic and Jesuit must be raised as an ongoing one. it is a large question, but an important one, which all members of the faculty must explore." In the Spring of 1977 the AAUP Visiting Team which assessed the tenure dispute recommended open discussion of the so-called "fourth criterion" dealing with lifestyle and "support for the Catholic traditions of the College." The Ad Hoc Committee on Governance found, after discussion with the trustees, that "the religious character and mission of Holy Cross needed prompt and probing discussion." (Report March 13, 1978). In this context the Subcommittee on Jesuit and Catholic Mission was established on October 19, 1978.5
The subcommittee clarified the terms: "an articulated, well understood and widely accepted educational philosophy is the centerpiece of mission. . . . It will also exist in the form of goals and expectations tacitly shared, of visions commonly understood, which pervade the working climate of the faculty. individual day to day judgments by faculty will rarely be far removed from some consciousness of the institution's larger thrust." These and other quotations come from the Final Report of the Subcommittee on the Jesuit and Catholic Mission, submitted to the Ad Hoc Committee of the Teaching Faculty, August, 1980.6
The Ad Hoc Committee resolution of April 27, 1981 also noted that departments other than Religious Studies offered "courses embodying Catholic values without damaging either sound professional standards or the academic freedom of students and faculty." All liberal arts courses, in fact, expressed values, "religious or humanistic." It was "the Catholic and Jesuit mission of the College to preserve an atmosphere which supports and encourages the features of the curriculum described above" while "to a very large extent it is some of the non-academic aspects of a college that make it specifically Catholic." For an interesting analysis of the larger context of the mission debate which helps explain the split of academics from extra-curricular life, see the informal talk delivered by Professor David Hummon to the AAUP local chapter February 21, 1989.7
"The Special Mission of Holy Cross," President's Report, 1987- 1988, p. 4.8
Father John E. Brooks, S.J. , "President's Report," October 4, 1988.9
Agreement by and between Trustees of the College of the Holy Cross, Inc. and The Jesuits of Holy Cross College, Inc. (Made April 5, 1969 and subsequently revised)10
Foundation Documents and Articles Relevant to the Jesuit Community at Holy Cross College, Codicil I. Section 1. It should be pointed out that the Agreement can and has been revised in the past.11
Father John E. Brooks, S.J., "President's Report," October 4, 1988. In his charge, Father Brooks said that the mission should be articulated in such a way as to be respectful of the College's history and "Jesuit character", reflect awareness of the traditional goals of Jesuit education, forbid any return to "narrow sectarianism" and capture the Jesuit desire to preserve "the best of the great educational ideals, namely the intellectual vigor of the scholastic system and the more personalist, societal and even practical aims of the humanists." We have taken a broader view here, reintroducing attentiveness to Catholicism, which Jesuits have served and continue to serve, and offering a different view of contemporary liberal arts education, for better or worse far removed from the "scholastic system."12
Of course matters of policy are involved. We understand and sympathize with a skepticism which questions the formulation of a mission statement in the absence of effective structures of shared responsibility. We hope, however, that engagement around questions of mission might provide new grounds for engaging questions of power and responsibility.13
"Perhaps what is most distinctive about a university with a religious identity today is not that it represents the doctrines of a particular religious group, but that it sponsors and values precisely the kind of discussion where all -religious experience is brought into dialogue with 'secular' knowledge, faith with critical 'inquiry, not as one of many things that might go on in a university, but as the central activity which the university community thinks of as its characteristic interest. Rather than be a matter of private concern, or the business of a few specialists, the dialogue of religion and culture should stand in the foreground of our attention. Clearly this does not mean that everyone need be preoccupied with it. A university is not a church. All sorts of inquiry go on there which do not need authenticating from a religious point of view. But perhaps it is not a bad shorthand formula to say that in a pluralist and overtly secular culture, a religious university is one which keeps open the lines of communication about the meaning of faith, keeps finding better language in which to carry on the discussion." Joseph Appleyard, S.,J., "The Languages We Use: Talking About Religious Experiences," Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, XIX (March, 1987), 30-31.14
In this context, there are two items we found particularly useful. One is the Appleyard essay noted above. It is a report on a series of dialogues between Jesuit and lay faculty about the experience of working at Boston College. Participants realized the profound problems of language which arise when one speaks of personal and professional life, on campus as elsewhere. The author recommends that the Jesuit community take as its responsibility sponsorship of ongoing conversation about the meanings of professional work as experienced at BC. The second item is an assessment of the problem of pluralism which informs our own emphasis on meaning, mutual respect, and the perils of a too easy acceptance of diversity. See William M. Shea, "Beyond Tolerance: Pluralism and Catholic Higher Education." Copies of both articles can be obtained from the Chair of the Committee.15
"To a religious person, to me, since I come from that background, everything must be translated into spiritual terms, which means into a quest for truth. We are here to search for truth about God, about human beings, about life. And that truth should neither hurt nor diminish anyone; quite the opposite; it should elevate everyone; it should bring people together, not separate them. There is a point where peace and justice are synonymous, where all the lofty ideals and ideas converge. To reach that point is a spiritual ambition." Carol Rittner, "A Conversation with Elie Wiesel," America, November 19, 1988, p. 398.16
It is important to state that the emphasis placed on justice in discussions of mission over the last twenty years carries with it an obligation to be more self-critical as well. In a speech to the faculty in October, 1974, Father Brooks ended discussion of the education of "men and women for others" with a lengthy quotation from then Jesuit General Pedro Arrupe noting the need for Jesuits themselves, and presumably the institutions with which they are associated, to follow a simple lifestyle, refuse to accept financial support derived from unjust sources, and not only to resist unjust structures but seek to change them.17
"Developing satisfactory ways of talking about religious experience in the university is not going to be the work of an ad hoc committee." Appleyard, cited above, p. 31.