From: The Ad Hoc Committee on the Mission of the College

Holy Cross College changed dramatically in the last generation. It is important to understand that change did not just happen. Holy Cross changed because most people connected with the College wanted it to change. Change will continue., and the pace and direction of change will be determined by those who participate in setting college goals and shaping college policy: by us. We hope that the formulation of a College mission statement can be a moment when we reflect on our hopes for Holy Cross, and for ourselves as professors and administrators. Others, trustees, students, alumni, benefactors, will share in this process, but we who pursue our vocations at the College, whatever the outstanding problems of governance, should claim our full share of responsibility for the future of Holy Cross.

We recognize that for some, perhaps many, mission refers to "an experience we do not have," as one of our colleagues put it. In the past there may have been a tendency to define the mission of Holy Cross in ways which marginalized first lay persons, then non-Catholics, later still strong advocates of faculty self-, government. We have talked with faculty who hold strongly to Catholic and to secular ideals who feel equally alienated from College life. We have come to regard the commitment of such persons as essential to a vital and honest intellectual life on campus. We intend a mission statement that will be invitational and inclusive, while avoiding surrender to live and let live toleration or to an ideology which makes pluralism the final answer to conflicting ideas.¹

As this letter and our draft statement indicate, we do not believe there is a consensus among us of what constitutes ideal liberal arts, Jesuit and Catholic undergraduate education. We do believe that we have achieved a high level of excellence. We also believe that, if we will speak more frequently, and more honestly, to one another, if we will be more public about our work as scholars and teachers, we can initiate a variety of conversations which can enrich our own personal and professional lives, enable us to better serve out students, and perhaps contribute to resolving some of the central problems of undergraduate education in the United States.²

Twenty years ago another committee like ours recommended drastic changes in everything from the physical plant to the religious composition of the student body. Faculty and administrators did not agree on all the proposals, but they did agree that it was time to bring Holy Cross "into the mainstream of American higher education." indeed, they believed that Holy Cross was in a "position to enter to first rank of academia," to become a "truly great college."³ The pursuit of academic excellence, in the context of a continuing commitment to liberal arts, undergraduate education, became the operative mission of Holy Cross.

But almost from the start deliberate efforts to improve the quality of the faculty coexisted uneasily with the determination to preserve the Jesuit and Catholic identity of the school. The tension existed within individuals as well as in the institution. Differences became obvious during the conflicts which arose over personnel decisions in early 1976 and in the inconclusive discussions between faculty leaders and members of the Board of Trustees which followed. The Ad Hoc Committee of the Teaching Faculty, formed in the wake of that crisis, appointed a subcommittee to promote discussion of Catholic and Jesuit mission.⁴ That committee concluded that "the lack of a generally understood mission leaves its mark on all aspects of college life." In the absence of broad agreement an mission, the committee feared there would be "little that will hold together a professional, substantially secular faculty and an administration dedicated to preserving the religious mission" of Holy Cross. in the absence of open discussion, the "Jesuit and Catholic presentation of the educational mission" survived, but only as an "ambiguous rhetoric, to large extent removed from day to day educational commitments."⁵

Unfortunately, the committee's perceptive analysis of the tension between faculty professionalization and institutional mission did not result in the vigorous discussion the members had hoped for. Instead, differences were papered over, in part by sharpening the distinction between academic affairs and student life. Prior to the presentation of the subcommittee report to the faculty meeting, the Ad Hoc Committee of the Teaching Faculty approved a resolution which argued that religion had only a "minimal" role in traditional Jesuit liberal arts education. It was "the mission of the college to preserve this strong liberal arts tradition within the curriculum,"while giving special prominence" to the Religious Studies department in order to prevent Holy Cross from becoming "purely humanistic/secular." The Committee resolution then argued that "to a very large extent it is some of the nonacademic aspects of a college that make it specifically Catholic."⁶ Apparently satisfied with that resolution, the faculty took no action on the subcommittee report.

In the absence of a faculty voice, it has been left to Father John E.Brooks, S.J., to articulate the mission of Holy Cross. In a series of statements extending from 1973 until this spring, the President has set forth an increasingly clear understanding of mission. The first theme, emphasized most strongly in the early years, was the continued commitment of the College to undergraduate liberal arts education. Brooks more than any other person insured the success of the drive for excellence, persuading alumni and benefactors that changes in college life were necessary to achieve greatness. He also insisted, in his second theme, that excellent education did not displace but enhanced the quality of Catholic education available at Holy Cross. Catholic identity, however, was secured by Jesuit tradition and presence. The third theme, confined originally to general references to Jesuit documents, was that contemporary Jesuit education aimed at producing "men and women for others." Today, while all three themes appear in most presidential statements, it is the last which has become central; in Father Brooks' words: "Education for justice is the paramount objective of Jesuit education." In a letter to faculty a year ago, and in statements this year, Father Brooks has emphasized that it is the emphasis on justice which distinguishes Holy Cross from other high quality liberal arts colleges. "It has never been our intent at Holy Cross to become just another excellent undergraduate, liberal arts college," the President wrote this winter. "On the contrary, it is our intent to be distinctive institution--a Jesuit college recognized both for its academic excellence and for its effectiveness as an instrument reforming social structures in favor of justice."⁷ As Father Brooks sees it, the time has come to "define somewhat more concretely than we have in the past what it means to educate men and women for others" a context that "respects our constant striving to be the very best."⁸

For those who have arrived in the last decade, it is well to review the institutional framework within which discussion of mission takes place. Holy Cross is governed by a Board of Trustees, who in turn have a formal Agreement with the Jesuit Community of Holy Cross, itself an incorporated body. That Agreement acknowledges the College's "debt" to the Jesuits and pledges to "continue such a relationship that the College may continue to be known as a Jesuit College." Toward that end, the Agreement provides, among other things, that the Board will include "a reasonable number" of Jesuits, that the President will be a Jesuit, that the College will seek out and accept qualified Jesuit professors, campus ministers and administrators, that "Catholic Theology" will have "a permanent place in the curriculum" and that the chair of Religious Studies "as far as possible" will be a Jesuit. The Jesuits in turn agree among other things to supply personnel for the College's "academic, administrative and religious needs."⁹ The Jesuit documents define the community as "the agency by which the Society of Jesus makes Holy Cross College a Jesuit enterprise. It represents a commitment of the Society of Jesus' major resource-capable, professional manpower, concentrated into the service of Holy Cross College in such positions and with such quality and energy of professional effort that the College will be recognizably Jesuit in the character of its operation rather than in the accidental characteristics of organization. The purpose is to influence a College which will be an outstanding witness to the commitment of the Church to a pursuit and dissemination of truth in all areas of human activity."¹⁰

In October, 1988, Father Brooks appointed an Ad Hoc Committee on the Mission of the College and charged it with responsibility to develop an institutional mission statement. The statement should enjoy "the strong support of the faculty, administration and trustees," the President stated. It should reaffirm the College's commitment to liberal education and reflect as well "the determination of this College to remove, to every extent it possibly can, the shameful and abhorrent cultural and economic inequalities which are responsible for the wholesale destruction of a significant segment of God's people."¹¹

Since then we have met with small groups of faculty and administrators. Those discussions have reinforced our conviction that Holy Cross faculty and administrators are remarkably dedicated and generous. They have also demonstrated beyond question that, in each of the areas regularly cited as central to the mission of the College, the liberal arts, Jesuit and Catholic identity, and education for justice, there are profound questions on which no clear agreement exists. No one at Holy Cross, and probably no one elsewhere, can claim to know what is required for authentic liberal arts education today. Nor does anyone have a blueprint for Catholic and Jesuit education, much less for education conducive to inspiring "men and women for others." Yet we are as convinced as Father Brooks that all of us are called upon to confront these questions, and that we at Holy Cross can draw upon rich resources to make an important contribution to American education, to society and to the church.

What we can do is take up the unfinished conversation of a decade ago and begin again to speak with one another about these matters, not simply as matters of college policy but as matters of personal conviction and intellectual responsibility.¹² For us the occasion of thinking about a mission statement has been a moment for reflection which leads us to extend to our colleagues an invitation to conversation.¹³ In this draft statement, we attempt to spell out the themes in need of discussion. We anticipate a process that will be far more important than the product, but a process that should produce concrete results in our own-work and in the life of the College.

Others who have traveled this road have discovered that colleges are much like other places, and questions of meaning and purpose stumble here as elsewhere over the great cultural divisions of our time.¹⁴ Where in our time can one find a community which can speak with one voice? And what in the end do we think of the multiple pluralisms evident around us? Is the choice between a false consensus which masks over differences or an equally false toleration which reinforces privatization and the erosion of shared meanings? We have no desire to initiate or nourish a discussion of academic affairs divorced from student life or insulated from the historic struggles of our moment in history. We think a college should respect intellectuals of serious conviction, devoted to religious beliefs, social movements and political passions as well as to specific disciplines and modes of discourse. We cannot rest with the separation of religion from the rest of life, nor with the restriction of discussion of justice to experts in ethics.¹⁵

Once Holy Cross faculty and administrators hoped to move from an insulated Catholic subculture to a vigorously pluralistic intellectual and academic life. To a large degree they succeeded, as our own exchanges with faculty make clear. But too often, we suspect, our public life at the college, our ability to debate and resolve problems of general education and the cultural issues behind those problems, has been smothered by a live-and-let-live attitude which reflects academic bureaucratization.

We are modest about what a small college like ours can accomplish. But we have heard claims about Catholicism, the Jesuits, and the liberal arts; we have even made some of those claims ourselves. Perhaps there is a time to test the claims, to ask whether we can do for ourselves what we dream our students might do, overcome at least a little the divisions between faith and reason, between religion and culture, between personal and public life, between human learning and human work.

There is another reason why we conclude our work not with a statement but with an invitation. A mission statement is something more than a statement in the college catalogue or a speech to alumni or students. .It professes to be a statement of purpose of an entire community articulating what we have done, are doing and hope to do.¹⁶ It represents a mutual commitment to assist each other to realize our personal projects, to share responsibility for our common tasks and to engage each other in dialogue about the meanings of our lives, our work and our world. It must emerge from the community and command its respect. It must pour into words shared ideals and broad objectives which inform day-to-day work. Most of all, it must reflect some degree of trust and mutual commitment among those for whom it speaks. It is thus something that must be lived as much as written. Too long people have spoken of educating for an integrated. understanding of life and history which they themselves have not achieved. The response is not to abandon that ideal, but to reaffirm its importance by building its pursuit more fully into our work together. This we would begin, and we ask you to join us.¹⁷
 
 

Maurice A. Geracht, English
James M. Kee, English
John MacDonnell, S.J., Mathematics
Theresa M. McBride, History
David J. O'Brien, History (Chair)
 

March 10, 1989