Inauguration's academic symposia focus on Jesuit, Catholic, and formative education
A pair of academic symposia held October 15 in Robsham Theater launched the three-day Inauguration Celebration for University President John T. Butler, S.J., offering a series of perspectives on Jesuit and Catholic education at Boston College and elsewhere in academia.
“The Light Shines Through: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition”
The first symposium included Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities President Donna Carroll; Mary Ann Dillon, R.S.M., former president of Mount Aloysius College; University of Notre Dame President Robert Dowd, C.S.C.; and St. John’s University President Brian Shanley, O.P.
Winston Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley of Boston College and Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities President Donna M. Carroll.
“True to our deep commitment to our work is a recognition of what we learn and gain from being engaged with our partners in Catholic higher education around the country, and the ways that so many different traditions come together,” said Winston Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley, who served as moderator, in his opening remarks.
The panelists each described the roots of their vocation, among them the works of St. Thomas Aquinas (Fr. Shanley), the Second Vatican Council reforms (Sr. Dillon), and attending grade school taught by the Sisters of the Holy Cross, based at St. Mary’s College on the Notre Dame campus (Fr. Dowd).
Carroll characterized herself as a “late bloomer” in coming to Catholic education. “I knew I was looking for kindness, a sense of community, and someplace that had a deeper meaning, and a commitment to an intellectual life that was deeply threaded by a sense of faith and hope. Now I get to work with Catholic higher education across the country to see the rich diversity of who we are.”
St. John's University President Brian Shanley, O.P.
Panelists discussed how the Catholic intellectual tradition serves to address the most basic, and often difficult, questions of human existence.
“At St. John’s, 40 percent of our students are Pell Grant-eligible; most are first-gen college students,” said Fr. Shanley. “But I talk about the meaning of each student’s life; what has God made them to do? How do they live lives that are more than just paychecks? We want them to get good jobs, but we also want them to lead a good life.”
Sr. Dillon said the values of mercy, service, justice, and hospitality undergird Sr. of Mercy colleges nationwide and serve as their defining difference.
“Those four code words influence curriculum, social development, and even athletics,” she said. “It’s underneath what the students are learning, and their pursuit of careers and professions.”
University of Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., and Sr. Mary Ann Dillon, R.S.M., former president of Mount Aloysius College.
Addressing the challenges facing Catholic higher education today—and higher education in general—panelists discussed the so-called demographic cliff, AI, and the current political polarization in the United States.
Carroll and Sr. Dillon voiced different views on the declining college-age population and its impact. Carroll said she was confident there would be sufficient demand for higher education, especially among families and students looking for institutions “that have values and a moral compass”—an advantage for Catholic colleges and universities—and pointed to financial support as a bigger issue.
Sr. Dillon said she appreciated Carroll’s optimism but did not share it: “A cliff is a cliff.” She said higher education institutions should look beyond the traditional four-year degree path and think about providing educational opportunities “that are outside of and beyond those boundaries and partnering with each other.”
Fr. Dowd said Catholic institutions of higher education are critical in the age of AI. “The world needs people who are both technically proficient—completely AI fluent, regardless of their major—and fluent in human competencies and capabilities, with a grounding in the humanities.”
Fr. Shanley closed the panel with a reflection on “veritas” or truth—the motto of the Dominicans—as a critical element of today’s polarized society, and what Catholic higher education should address today.
“God has made us to be agents of truth is the most basic thing that Catholic higher education can do,” he said. “It’s not at the mercy of social media or AI; it’s critical that we give our students a fundamental respect for the truth."
“Jesuit, Catholic Education at Boston College: Formation for Wisdom and Hope”
The second symposium focused on the distinctive approach Boston College offers through its Jesuit, Catholic mission and commitment to forming students for wisdom and hope. The all-BC panel, moderated by Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences Dean Gregory Kalscheur, S.J., featured Fitzgibbons Chair of Philosophy Jeffrey Bloechl; Powers Family Dean of the Carroll School of Management Andrew Boynton; Rattigan Professor of English Mary Crane, director of the Institute for the Liberal Arts; Moakley Chair in Political Science Ryan Patrick Hanley; and Associate Professor Avneet Hira, the Sabet Family Dean’s Faculty Fellow in Engineering.
Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences Dean Greg Kalscheur, S.J., moderated the second symposium, which focused on Jesuit Catholic education at Boston College.
Fr. Kalscheur opened the session by citing the particular facets of Jesuit education that characterize BC. As a Jesuit university, he said, BC “is not a place where different schools, academic departments and scholars exist as isolated entities doing their own siloed disciplinary work.” He described BC’s educational mission as “a shared formative project, in which all the disciplines and everybody across the University work together in leading students and faculty members and everyone in the life of the University to wisdom.”
Bloechl spoke about the PULSE and Perspectives programs, and their respective relationship with formative education and the Jesuit mission. Both educate BC students about social injustice by placing them into direct contact with marginalized populations and social change organizations in Greater Boston, followed by discussions on classic and contemporary works of philosophy and theology.
“We simply ask our students to identify and begin to pursue their lifelong vocations, knowing that the life of the mind and heart can be a life of constant growth and enrichment without end; this can be exciting. We also ask them to get out of their comfort zones, daring to let all of that be challenged by ideas and experiences that very often they have not encountered by the age of 18; this can be frightening.”
BC Professor and Fitzgibbons Chair in Philosophy Jeffrey Bloechl addresses the gathering during the second symposium, which also featured, from left, Carroll School Powers Dean Andrew C. Boynton, Rattigan Professor of English Mary Crane, Sabet Family Dean's Faculty Fellow in Engineering Avneet Hira, Moakley Professor of Political Science Ryan Patrick Hanley, and Morrissey College Dean Gregory Kalscheur, S.J.
Referencing Pope Leo’s statement concerning “the world’s increasing fragmentation of knowledge,” Hanley cited “universities, the human person, and our social and political world” as places that display such division. BC can address such concerns, he said, “if we offer students a formative education that promotes their integral development, if we model scholarship that promotes unitive inquiry committed to the common good, and by harnessing the power of transdisciplinary inquiry into the permanent questions—not with an eye only to truth for its own sake, but for the sake of meeting the needs of the human heart and the integration of the human person.”
Hira described how BC’s Human-Centered Engineering program ties in with the University’s mission. “Jesuit education calls us to be attentive, reflective, and loving. I have realized over the years that this call was precisely the type of nurturing space we needed to launch our program. Human-centered engineers attend to people and context. I would argue that hope is an inherent assumption in human-centered engineering, and in our curricular experiences so far, it has neither been silent or abstract.”
Crane discussed the recently launched Boston College Bridge Scholars Program, an interdisciplinary undergraduate initiative designed to make the integration of the humanities, management, and sciences more intentional and reflective.
“We needed to do more to help students broaden their aperture beyond their focused disciplines,” explained Crane, one of the program’s architects. “Dean Boynton came up with a cornerstone of the program: the three Cs—combination, collision, and connection—which students learn to use for integrative problem-solving and innovation. Students will be well served by learning to combine ideas and approaches from different disciplines, by developing the ability to tolerate a collision of different points of view, and to bring something positive out of disagreement, by making connections with others who have different methodologies and ideas.”
Boynton remarked on BC’s ability to innovate for the betterment of its students. “Here I am, a business school dean, working with Mary Crane, a Shakespearean scholar. No one ever thinks about what's best for our school or me. It's always what's best for the undergraduates at Boston College. I think that gives us hope.
“I think we can innovate, we can change, we can adapt, we can work together, and we can give these undergraduates—who are better students than we ever had—an amazing formative experience.”