Conference Will Discuss Future of Catholic Higher Education

Presenters to cover challenges and opportunities facing today's Catholic colleges and universities

Catholic colleges and universities are dealing with challenges they didn't have 10 or 15 years ago, which has led Sacred Heart University to plan a virtual conference on the Catholic intellectual tradition. It will take place online from Thursday, Oct. 29 through Saturday, Oct. 31, sponsored by the Lilly Fellows Program in the Humanities and the Arts, Sacred Heart University, Seton Hall University and the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.

Michelle Loris, chair of Catholic studies at SHU and associate dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, pitched this conference in 2018 to some colleagues at Seton Hall. Once they were on board, Loris sent a grant proposal to the Lilly Fellows Program. The grant came through last fall, and organizers were able to begin planning the conference, inviting keynote speakers and sending out a call for other scholars to submit paper proposals. This aspect of the conference planning was spearheaded by Daniel Rober, associate lecturer for the Catholic studies department and assistant director of the Thomas More honors program, and Brent Little, lecturer for the Catholic studies department. After vetting the proposals and accepting papers, Rober and Little put together the conference agenda. 

The event had to be rescheduled, however, because of the pandemic, and alternate arrangements were made to move the conference online with Zoom and YouTube. Each presentation will have a moderator who will help post graphics and ensure that everything runs on time.

“Planning for the conference being online was relatively straightforward in that I had attended an online conference in June for an organization that I belong to, and that went rather well,” said Rober. “This gave us a template for how to organize sessions and set everything up.”

The concept behind the conference is that intellect and faith are at the core of Catholic higher education institutions. However, Catholic colleges and universities today confront various challenges: a growing secularism and careerism among students, an increasing number of students who do not identify with institutional religions, a “hyper-specialization” among faculty, a culture of relativism within disciplinary thought and a diminishing focus on mission and Catholic identity. Catholic colleges and universities wrestle with the question of how to maintain a robust and distinct Catholic identity that will prevail across the institution. Presenters at this conference will show how the Catholic intellectual tradition can transform Catholic higher education. 

“This conference is a significant event for Catholic higher education,” Loris said. “We have about 185 participants registered with over 20 Catholic institutions represented from across the country. We define the Catholic intellectual tradition as a 2,000-year, ongoing conversation between Catholic thinkers and their world, and this conference is part of that ongoing, continuing conversation. These keynote addresses and panel presentations will offer a robust discussion about bringing the Catholic intellectual tradition into the classroom and across the University.”