The fighting Irish
McCarthy, Abigail
Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy THE FIGHTING IRISH LAICIZING THE TRUSTEES "A little later he rang for the nurse who was on floor duty. 'Would you mind going down to the chapel or sending word...
...Some of the latent worries can be laid to rest by his findings, however...
...He hazards the hope that lay trustees "may enable Catholic higher education to embark upon a new, bold course of development which may yield a distinctive, valuable contribution to all of American society...
...Perhaps the first step in this slow metamorphosis was the emergence of lay faculty members as full-fledged partners in the academic staffs of Catholic colleges...
...But by 1977 his preliminary findings showed that in an overwhelming majority of instances the religious communities had formally endorsed laicization of the corporation governing boards of their institutions of higher education...
...It could be said that it was the working example of "church" in which religious and laity were one...
...This has, after all, been the era of government grants, the unionization of private institutions, soaring institutional costs, affirmative action and antidiscrimination legislation...
...It placed us first in something highly valued in the nation...
...Hence, most of them remained liberal arts institutions, and many became very good ones...
...Catholic colleges and universities so-called have been established in this country since the beginning (Georgetown claims 1789 as its founding date) and pre-date the parochial school system...
...This phenomenon has been the object of some study by the Association of Governing Boards...
...She was very excited...
...There have been rumbles from Rome as to how properly to define a Catholic college or university, and as to where the residual ownership of its property lies...
...Catholic college presidents are laboring to clarify these questions in the context of the unique history of Catholic institutions in America...
...These made the inclusion of laypersons possible and welcome...
...Martin J. Stamm of the University of Pennsylvania in discussing the study he authored on the subject...
...I'm going right back down to the chapel and pray until it's finished...
...What does fourteen to nothing mean...
...from a story by Ernest Hemingway IT SEEMS curiously dated now...
...Historically they introduced professional and technical education, and education in the physical sciences, only as these areas began to attract their traditional constituencies to their secular counterparts...
...That's a nice safe lead in baseball...
...But eventually some colleges, notably Notre Dame, became so strong and individual in development that the school, not its sponsoring society, came first in the public consciousness, and in the loyalty of students, alumni, faculty, parents, and supporters which make up its scholastic community...
...Abigail McCarthy Abigail McCarthy...
...Not everyone is happy with the growth in influence of lay trustees and the discussion about it continues today, notes Dr...
...She is gone now, and so is the Notre Dame which once commanded a fierce tribal loyalty from Catholics coast to coast, a loyalty which had little to do with education but everything to do with a football team...
...The reaction to the announcement of the forthcoming retirement of its president, Father Theodore Hesburgh, makes that clear...
...Would you mind going down to the chapel or sending word down to Sister Cecelia that Notre Dame has them fourteen to nothing at the end of the first quarter and that it's all right...
...The second step has been the almost astonishing pace in the so-called ' laici-zation" of boards of trustees...
...It may not mean a thing...
...The institution became not just one "work" of a religious order but a place, an intellectual home, which in some sense "belonged" to both religious and laity...
...Stamm...
...Catholics tended to think of their educations in terms of religious orders-"I was educated by the Jesuits-I went to the Brothers"-and religious orders fostered the tradition...
...In the ensuing fifty years the University of Notre Dame has ceased to be the flagship of a minority and has joined the list of the twenty or so top-ranking American universities...
...It was a reminder that Father Hesburgh's presence in the establishment mainstream of this country for the last thirty years is evidence not only of his own strong personal qualities but of the change in the American Catholic college and university and how it is regarded...
...Stamm attributes the change in governing boards to two factors: American "societal forces" and Vatican II's aggiornamento...
...What is more, lay presence on governing boards had reached sixty-two percent of all trustees by the time the Stamm study was made...
...Hemingway wrote that story in the '30s...
...this meant that the religious community had relinquished unilateral control and that lay members of the board had equal voting power and equal weight in board decisions...
...An amazing sixty-eight percent had comprehensive corporate boards...
...The story of this long and involved process is a chapter in the history of education which still needs to be written...
...There was slow recognition of this fact...
...Their object was as much to protect the faith of their students and provide them with a haven apart as it was to educate them for participation in the common society...
...Father Hesburgh, among others, has been a pioneer in this effort...
...Ather-ton Bean, trustee of Carleton College and 1980's recipient of the Trustee of the Year award given by the national Association of Governing Boards, has said that most liberal arts institutions were founded a hundred or more years ago and "have pervasive clouds of alumni, long-service faculty, traditions and sentiment which envelop and condition them...
...As this latter became true of Catholic colleges and universities-especially in this century-they became the centers of closely related, almost familial, communities in which religious and laypersons had vital common interests...
...What the "societal forces" might be can be deduced from the areas in which college presidents felt their lay trustees were most helpful-legal affairs, construction, development and fund-raising, public and community relations, and relations with the government...
...Until the mid- 1960's the upper echelon governance of American Catholic colleges and universities was the responsibility of the religious institutes which had founded, staffed and sponsored them," wrote Dr...
...She belongs to the past-that stereotypical American nun who loved baseball and prayed for victory for Notre Dame, a university a thousand miles and more from her native Montana and one which she was not likely to see...
...But I don't know anything about football...
...She can stop praying.' In a few minutes Sister Cecelia came into the room...
...Laicization had not diluted the Catholic purpose of the institution, had not diluted the sponsoring religious body's affiliation and had not reduced the perceived influence of the sponsoring community to an unsatisfactory level...
...It has also been an era when the permanence and stability of institutions has been important to the philanthropists and foundations who might endow them...
...Like most denominational institutions they had mixed aims...
Vol. 108 • March 1981 • No. 5
