The Capstone
My friend and colleague Jason King has written a cogent reflection on the Catholic Moral Theology blog about the recent conference hosted by King’s College. From the conference program:
The complementarity of faith and reason; a commitment to philosophy and theology as “sapiential” and “architectonic” disciplines; the belief that all reality is suffused with the presence of God such that God may be found in all things; an understanding of education as a work of sanctification if not even resurrection; and an ambition to educate hearts as well as to instruct minds — these are, among others, the ideas that have animated and animate yet today Catholic colleges and universities in the United States. But how do these ideas fare, and how can they best be expressed, in today’s undergraduate colleges?
Jason points to five themes that emerged from the conference.
1. Catholic Higher Education is pulled in opposite directions. [Overcoming disciplinary silos; fostering creativity but also job preparation; excellence and affordability; focusing on metrics but also providing meaning; and others]
2. Catholic identity is a unity in diversity. [Trying to balance what is meant by Catholic mission]
3. Catholic education fosters a broad and deep intellectual life.
4. Faculty are key to Catholic identity. [But many good professors know nothing of the Catholic intellectual tradition]
5. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops formed a task force on higher education. [See my commentary here.]
Read Jason’s whole commentary here.
The King’s College conference, as well as a forthcoming series of symposia on the 25th anniversary of Ex Corde Ecclesiae hosted at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, show something of the ferment within Catholic higher education today.
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