Creighton as a Catholic and Jesuit University in 21st Century America
A Cardoner Seminar facilitated by Dr. John O’Keefe
Fall 2005
What: This seminar focuses on the generalized challenges to its religious identity that a school like Creighton faces. Participants will read and discuss a series of articles and books and will develop a concrete initiative building from seminar learnings. (NOTE: This seminar does NOT generally focus/overlap with the content of the Jesuit Education seminar of the past two years; prior participation in that seminar is not required.)
Facilitator: John O’Keefe, Ph.D. will facilitate this seminar. John received his doctorate from Catholic University of America and currently serves as chair of the Theology Department. John’s specialty is in Historical Theology.
When: Seminar meetings will be held approximately 8 times between September and February. Sessions will take place between 4:30-6:00 p.m. on Fridays. See attached document for specific dates.
Where: The first couple of meetings will take place at John O’Keefe’s house. Seminar participants will decide the location for the remaining sessions.
Benefits: Participants will receive copies of The Catholic University as Promise and Project: Reflections in a Jesuit Idiom by Michael Buckley, SJ and A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America by Peter Steinfels as well as additional articles. Consistent with Cardoner’s goals, participants will build community, expand knowledge, have self-reflection and renewal fostered, and will apply learnings to lived experiences as teachers, scholars, and persons of service at Creighton.
Additional Participants will select 1-2 relevant visiting scholars to address your
Benefits: seminar and the Creighton community at large related. Participants will also be empowered to decide what other resources they might need. (For example, there had been a discussion of some participants visiting other Catholic schools this fall.) Last but not least, Cardoner will supply food and wine/beverages at each faculty discussion session.
Addl. Info: Please see the attached document that provides more details of this seminar opportunity.
Purpose of the Seminar:
Those of us who have been a part of the Creighton community for any length of time are certainly aware that issues of mission and identity are topics of frequent discussion. It may even be tempting to think that this issue has been over-discussed and should be left fallow for a while in order to let the ideas that are out there percolate and brew. In contrast, this seminar begins with the operating assumption that much work still needs to be done on this question and that serious questions remain about how the particular mission and identity of Creighton can best be transmitted to a future with fewer and fewer Jesuits.
Goal of the Seminar
In other campus initiatives related to mission and identity, the goal has frequently been to educate individuals about the particular history and character of Jesuit higher education in the United States. This seminar will take a different approach. We will consider what certain people are saying about the actual survival of church related schools in the current climate. In other words, our focus will be less on the specifics of “Jesuit Education” and more on the generalized challenges to its religious identity that a school like Creighton faces.
Plan of the Seminar
To engage the issues, participants will read and discuss a series of articles and books. The readings will range from alarmist perspectives (all is nearly lost for Catholic universities), to fairly irenic assessments of the situation (Conversations Magazine). Our goal will be to develop some kind of concrete initiative at the end of the seminar; participants will consult on the particular form that initiative should take.
Schedule
The seminar will be held on the Fridays noted below from 4:30-6:00
Session 19/2
Discuss the goals of the seminar. Getting to know each other
Location: John O’Keefe’s house
Session 29/23
Ex corde Ecclesiae: The worries of the Vatican and the American Episcopacy
Location: John O’Keefe’s house
Session 310/14
The Alarmist View: Selected chapters of James Burtchaell’s The Dying of the Light.
Location: TBD
Session 410/28
Irenic views: Selected readings from “conversations”
Location: TBD
Session 5 11/4
Protestant views: George Marsden, The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief.
Session 611/18
The collapse of Catholic culture in America: Peter Steinfels, A people Adrift.
Session 712/2
Michael Buckley’s Vision: the Catholic University as Promise and Project
Session 8 2/10
Concrete initiative
Session 92/24
Concrete initiative
Session 10
Session for Speaker could come at any time during the seminar
Session 11
Session for Speaker could come at any time during the seminar