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About the Director

Thomas M. Landy

Thomas M. Landy, a sociologist with a specialization in the sociology of religion and Catholicism, is director of the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross. His primary research is in global Catholicism, and he founded and leads research for Catholics & Cultures, a web-based initiative to explore the religious lives and practices of lay Catholics in their particular cultural contexts around the world. He has conducted research in 30 countries and authored more than 250 articles for the site.

For thirty years, Landy served as executive director of Collegium, a colloquy on faith and intellectual life, which he founded in 1992. A consortium of 57 Catholic colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada, Collegium sponsors highly regarded summer faculty development programs around the country. Since 2001, Collegium has been sponsored by the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.

In 2017, he received the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU) Presidents’ Distinguished Service Award for personal service of exceptional quality to Catholic higher education. He was awarded the Christus Magister Medal, the University of Portland's highest honor, at their 2022 commencement and the John Henry Newman Medal from Loyola University Maryland at their 2009 commencement. In 2024, he will receive the Marianist Award at the University of Dayton.   

He has lectured at more than 50 campuses and at association meetings in the United States, Canada, Hungary, India, Kenya, Poland, and the Philippines. He has been interviewed for the New York Times, Boston Globe, Chronicle of Higher Education, and America.

In addition to leading Catholics & Cultures, his role at Holy Cross entails arranging and moderating a wide range of lectures, conferences, and campus discussions on a broad array of topics in ethics and religion.  Since 2003, he has organized an annual Ignatian pilgrimage to Spain and Rome for faculty from Holy Cross and other Jesuit colleges and universities. From 2003-08, Landy was director of the Lilly Vocation Discernment Initiative at Holy Cross. This initiative launched two dozen programs including convocations, summer internships, parish ministry internships, and other means to encourage students to reflect on faith and commitment as they consider their career paths. A lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Holy Cross, he also has taught in various capacities at Harvard University, Boston University, Fairfield University, Loyola University Chicago, and Saint John’s University, MN.

Landy is editor of "As Leaven for the World: Catholic Reflections on Faith, Vocation, and the Intellectual Life" (Franklin, WI: Sheed and Ward, 2001), and, with Karen Eifler, "Becoming Beholders: Cultivating a Sacramental Imagination in the Classroom" (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2014).

He holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Boston University, an M.Div. from Weston School of Theology, an M.A. in international relations from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. in history from Fairfield University.